Please report back! I’d love to hear how it goes. We are very familiar with the drury hotels around our area and we have never had a bad experience so I’m sure this will be no different, but for sure I wonder how the Disney drury experience will be.
I recently renewed my passport, and the status page never worked for me. I only knew it was processed because they cashed my check. Passport took just a little over a month to receive. I get the impression their status page isn’t working.My parents applied for their first passports last month. My mom got hers back last week. Then both their birth certificates came back, but my dad has not received his passport yet. We checked his application status and it says “not available”. Any ideas what that might mean or is this common? I just found it odd that he got his birth certificate back already, but no sign of his passport even being sent to him yet.
They are planning on taking their first ever trip to Italy, where my brother has been stationed for 5 years. They are so excited to see him and his kids after such a long time. I told them from all I have learned on this thread, they are probably late in starting to plan an early fall trip.
I am not a fan of the new site layout. I check on 5 flights every day right now and this has been inconvenient for me. Before I just kept all the tabs opened on my phone and refreshed the screen each morning.Southwest changed their site today... Now when you search RT you have to select the first flight and proceed to a second step before you can see the return options. I know, its just one extra step to check flight point costs but its change!!
I don’t like the change, was much easier to see in one step if any flights went down in price the old waySouthwest changed their site today... Now when you search RT you have to select the first flight and proceed to a second step before you can see the return options. I know, its just one extra step to check flight point costs but its change!!
No, that wasn't me but I think someone mentioned something similar here recently.
Congrats on cashing in your pts for an amazing trip! Several of us from this board are planning Japan trips right now, so we started a thread over on the Tokyo Disney Board here. There is also some good info over there from older threads if you haven't checked it out yet.I am taking the plunge and finally using up a bunch of points on a dream Japan trip in May/June. Used a chunk of Delta points for the flight (but still watching in case ANA / Virgin availability pops up), and am burning lots of Hyatt points as well. Snagged one stray night at the Park Hyatt Kyoto to possibly give it a try, need to decide if switching hotels is worth it since it looks like you do generally need a taxi to get there, I'd just send bags off to the next destination given just one night. Planning to spend the rest of the Tokyo days at the Grand Hyatt 25k/night most likely, sounds like the Hyatt Regency is due for lots of refurbs beginning in May/June and I don't want to deal with that. I would LOVE to grab the new Hyatt House Shibuya for 15k/night but points nights are sold out. Not sure how good of a chance I have of it reopening for my exact dates, as they have a washer/dryer in room, who would let that reservation go?(Of course Tokyo Disney is in the plans too, but sadly I don't do Hilton points, so I have Toy Story hotel booked on cash for now)
I have a lot of Capital One points I haven't had a good use for that I can transfer to Virgin if needed. I know ANA awards are really hard to get that way, but once I'm a couple weeks out I'll start watching closely. Virgin does have good availability for direct flights to HND from my airport in the upcoming month or two, nothing for my trip dates but I imagine it might just be too far out. If they do become available, it'll be less Virgin points to fly direct from MSP than I am currently paying for Delta from LAX. Crossing all my fingers and toes. I'd have to pay for the 2nd bag, but I think I could handle that for a nonstop flight instead of having to do two RT flights!
Feels like I have just been hoarding points for so many years, and not using them, so it's good to finally have some plans forming. Once all this is done I'll have to start thinking about the next cc as I think I am down to 3 in 24 months now...
Congrats on booking an amazing trip!! There are some good alert services out there. Openhotelalert, Staywithpoints, Maxmypoint. I would LOVE to grab the new Hyatt House Shibuya for 15k/night but points nights are sold out. Not sure how good of a chance I have of it reopening for my exact dates, as they have a washer/dryer in room, who would let that reservation go?
I have had good wait times with Virgin Atlantic Loyalty Club wait times, just be sure you select loyalty club or the similar prompt to get to the right place. 1-800-365-9500
If I had to guess, I think the key words here were "DH called... and the Hilton guy." Male privilege
I think we've commonly received our documents back first, which is our indication that passport should be coming within a week.My parents applied for their first passports last month. My mom got hers back last week. Then both their birth certificates came back, but my dad has not received his passport yet. We checked his application status and it says “not available”. Any ideas what that might mean or is this common? I just found it odd that he got his birth certificate back already, but no sign of his passport even being sent to him yet.
They are planning on taking their first ever trip to Italy, where my brother has been stationed for 5 years. They are so excited to see him and his kids after such a long time. I told them from all I have learned on this thread, they are probably late in starting to plan an early fall trip.
Also tagging @mmmears and @emilymad -
My advice is to make a dummy booking for the expiring FNC as far out as they'll allow. Ahead of the call, I would pick a booking two weeks out (which has a high likelihood of being approved) as the backup booking, and one farther out (one month? two months?) to see if they're willing to extend it that far. Ask to extend the FNC to the one furthest out, and if they can't, then request the other one. Once the FNC has been extended that's a one-and-done, no backsies. But once they extend it, it takes on the new expiration date and you can cancel it and it goes back into your account.
As an example, I extended an expiring FNC by two days expecting I would use it that weekend. Turns out the family weekend ended up scheduled the next weekend, and I couldn't use the FNC because I had already extended it once. So I ended up losing that FNC.
If you're Diamond, in the same area that your FNC resides there's a blue button "Request a Call" to be called by Hilton and I've found the reps much more helpful than the usual.
I haven’t, despite checking every Amex account multiple times a day hoping!
Same! I'm checking DH's and my mom's as well. DH does have an offer for 150K, he's had that for weeks, but 200K would really move the needle for us.
p2 had the Connect, super easy. Made the spend, cashed out the points into our checking. Seemed like a great deal to me.Trying to decide on either my next or DH's next card and have a few questions. I have to wait a bit for Chase due to timing so I'm looking at other issuer's personal or biz cards. Nothing for Amex is jumping out at me, so far I haven't gotten into MR's because I don't think they fit our travel needs. I'd like either cash back or points for travel expenses that can be erased. Our air and hotel is covered for our summer trips, but I would still like to cover the cost for Universal tickets, cost of car rental (but want to put on CSR for car rental protection) and food. So, here are my questions
US Bank Altitude Connect (personal) - this offer is for 50k points (worth $500), plus TSA precheck, $0 AF first year, 4 Priority pass visits, and $30 streaming credit. Only $2k MSR/120 days. This seems like a really good offer to me, but I don't see it on DOC's list of best cc offers. Am I missing something? Does anyone have any experience with this card that could weigh in with their experience? I've had previous US Bank biz cards, but never any personal cards.
Capital One Venture - can miles be redeemed for UCT ticket purchases? I found an article that said they could, but it was about a year old so wanted to check if that was still correct.
If there are any other cards I should consider please let me know that too. Thank you!
Thanks so much for the head's up. I wish I'd seen this before I had DH book something! We decided to do a day trip from London to Brighton and use it there. I hope this never happens again, but if it does, I will definitely give it a shot. We usually use them to visit out DD in Pheonix to play golf at the Biltmore or Boulders. I was trying to find Amsterdam availably but no luck. Ah well, now I have the dates on my calendar so hopefully this won't happen again. Thanks again.
