I love credit cards so much! v5.0 - 2022 (see first page for add'l details)

[calypso726]

What are we thinking "Select Live Entertainment" will be? Specific ticketing sites, like Ticketmaster?

Wondering the same thing. I hope so. I’m just itching for an excuse to book another weekend in New York and catch a Broadway show.

these suck no offense any tips for anyone maxing these out?

I use the gas one for gas but then before the quarter is over will max both Freedom cards with Disney gift cards bought at the gas station.

 

[amcc]

We were in Zion, Bryce and Yellowstone mid July last year. it was HOT. like 97 on July 4 at Zion. We made National Park reservations a year out, but local campgrounds more like 4 - 6 months. its seems you are not camping though. Hiking in the mornings and evenings was fine, not difficult to get on Zion Shuttle before 9 am. Took local advice and didn't try Bryce in the early AM because of traffic, and had no issues with driving all the way through, various lookouts and short hikes, and then the Queens/Navajo loop before sunset. There is no grocery store anywhere near Bryce Canyon. and not very good restaurant options. Springdale UT has everything you would need.

Highly recommend Zion Adventure Company! We hired a guide for the Narrows hike, comes with water boots and a hiking stick, and then added e-bikes because of changing Covid rules about shuttles. The wonderful Miles met us in town, got us outfitted, we rode through the park instead of waiting and cramming on the shuttle, and hiked the Narrows. definitely a bucket list experience, made so easy by the Zion Adventure Co.

Consider checking out Dark Ranger Telescope Tours in Bryce. small groups stargazing with great "guides" - in one of the last light pollution free areas of the US.

I'm so excited for you! Our Zion guide took pictures and videos for us all day:

View attachment 676343View attachment 676344

and here we are heading down into the Hoodoos at Bryce:
View attachment 676342

maybe try Salt Lake City? Its a couple hours further to drive.

Thank you so much for the recommendations and the pictures. I love to see the results of all the trips that are discussed here. We have a late July trip to the Big 5 in Utah this summer and I wanted to book the big boys something more adventurous than what I or my 10 year old will do. The canyoneering day from Zion Adventure sounds perfect and seeing the Milky Way is a huge must do for me!

 

[havaneselover]

Third trip to staples this week was successful. Needed to fill the older dog’s second blood pressure prescription so it wasn’t out of the way.

Tomorrow is q2,tax day so my new ciu will get activated and I’ll meet the Msr.

 

[FreeDiningFanatic]

In CC news, I finally hit the spend on the IHG Biz (thank you staples). Now I think I'm going to add my DS as an AU on my Surpass (I got an offer for that) and think about my next card. I'm back under 5/24. So I either need to grab a biz card, or I need to think seriously about the MDD. I'm thinking if we start DS's braces then I should try for a MDD. I can charge the full amount upfront and that would easily take care of one of the spends! And I have taxes in Sept for the rest. I also need to look at booking our Ireland tickets. I think I've figured out what dates we are going finally.

The CSR has a 60k point offer now (I think it was previously 40k), so maybe that tips the scales for the MDD?

ETA: Per DOC, there's a 70k CSR offer out there available by link.

 

[2TxAgs]

Thank you so much for the recommendations and the pictures. I love to see the results of all the trips that are discussed here. We have a late July trip to the Big 5 in Utah this summer and I wanted to book the big boys something more adventurous than what I or my 10 year old will do. The canyoneering day from Zion Adventure sounds perfect and seeing the Milky Way is a huge must do for me!

Capitol Reef is probably Utah's least known NP, but we had a great hiking day there, and we hung out til 9-10pm and saw the Milky Way. ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS! Some folks were setting up cameras and we got to talking - they were taking Milky Way pics. I assumed it was a middle of the night event, but it became very visible not too long after dark. Enjoy your trip!

 

[havaneselover]

I finally got an Amex pay over time offer on my Vanilla Platinum!

 

[havaneselover]

This still hasn't credited I'm wondering if it won't. Shoud have screenshot the offer.

 

[KPK02090]

Is there a way to tell if you are enrolled in the Amex gold dining credits? I keep hitting Enroll Now, but I don’t think it’s going through.

 

[KPK02090]

Is it ok to product change a CSR to a Freedom while sill waiting on a refund? Will it just come through on the new card?

 

[reliev]

Wondering the same thing. I hope so. I’m just itching for an excuse to book another weekend in New York and catch a Broadway show.




I use the gas one for gas but then before the quarter is over will max both Freedom cards with Disney gift cards bought at the gas station.

what gas stations are these? asking for a friend

 

[spacerangerqueen]

Is it ok to product change a CSR to a Freedom while sill waiting on a refund? Will it just come through on the new card?

Yes, your account number stays the same so you should be fine. (unless you are PCing to the Flex, which does change the account as it switches to a Mastercard.)

 

[justreading]

Trying to modify a Hilton res that went down in points and it will only let me do it as points and cash because I don't have enough points. So it must actually book and then cancel it. I may try calling later. I know I could cancel and rebook it's just the waiting for the points to redeposit that makes me anxious but it's 12k total points.

I just did this yesterday (canceled and rebooked) and it took seconds for the points to show up in my account.

 

[afan]

I just did this yesterday (canceled and rebooked) and it took seconds for the points to show up in my account.

I know, I've done it before but it's easier not to. And it keeps swapping between 34k and 35k nights. I have it at 37k. My worry is always that I'll lose what I've got and have to pay more when my remaining points are already earmarked for the fall.

 

[Duckbug.Ducktales]

Those of you who have the $1500 in your bank account from the Wells Fargo Biz checking sub: what do you plan to do with your account now?

 

[calypso726]

what gas stations are these? asking for a friend

The ones near the parks at WDW never bat an eye when I've walked in to purchase $1500 in Disney GCs.

 

[calypso726]

PSA for those who collect Radisson Rewards and have the credit card. You may recall the program split between Radisson Rewards Americas for those who live in the USA, Canada, Latin America and Caribbean and Radisson Rewards which is basically everyone else. Then we got word that the Radisson Rewards credit card is going away to be replaced with a no fee card. If you have the card, you have gold status with Radisson until your annual fee would have become due.

I received an email and have seen some blog posts that the Radisson Rewards Americas has been bought out by Choice. I don't know what that means for my points, but I gather that Radisson Rewards global is not part of that buy out. I don't use Radisson points domestically. I value them for stays in Europe. I also have no interest in Choice hotels. I decided to stop procrastinating and created a new Radisson Rewards account with the same email and password as my existing Radisson Rewards Americas account. Then, I transferred my points from Radisson Rewards Americas to Radisson Rewards. Once that was done, I sent a pdf pf my card which you can do from the "print your card" section of the website to statusmatch@radissonhotels.com and asked them to match my Radisson Rewards Americas gold status to the Radisson Rewards account and included both of the account numbers. It was all done in a just a few minutes.

 

[IFlossU]

Is there a way to tell if you are enrolled in the Amex gold dining credits? I keep hitting Enroll Now, but I don’t think it’s going through.

If you go to the card benefits area it should say enrolled under the Gold dining credit.

Is it ok to product change a CSR to a Freedom while sill waiting on a refund? Will it just come through on the new card?

Yes, I was waiting for a $300 refund when I changed my CSR to a CFF. It worked perfectly. All the transactions just moved to my new card.

 

[iujen94]

Had to share . . . just paid the last of DS's tuition for next school year. His school charges 2.85% for using credit cards. I paid using a combination of discounted virtual Visa GCs from giftcards.com (discounted, plus 1x back at Rakuten, plus 1.5x on my CFU) and Staples fee-free Visa GCs (5x with my CIC, plus both of my CICs offered a bonus 1x for every $5k in spend in May, June and July). For my calculations, I valued URs at 1.5 cents each.

Total tuition paid: $27,676.34
Total amount saved (net of fees): $1,482.36
Percent saved: 5.35%

THANK YOU to this board for introducing me to the wonderful world of credit cards and for always giving me new ideas on how to capitalize on using them!

 

[Crazed4DisneyinSC]

Several weeks back, there was some talk about renting cars from Turo. At the time, it wouldn't work for our one-way YNP to GTNP trip. Now that we're revamping and probably not doing Yellowstone, we need a round trip rental in Vegas. Turo has a truck with off road tires, etc. that would be GREAT for our trip to Zion, Bryce, and some of the harder to get to canyons. It's about half the cost from the cheapest rental car company, PLUS the $30 back offer on Amex, and the fact that it sounds like we could take it off road (whereas rental companies usually have a clause for this), so it makes it quite enticing. The question is, for those that have rented from Turo, what do you normally do for insurance? Do you purchase one of their plans, or just decline and use your own insurance? I know AMEX or Chase won't cover P2P rentals.

 

[reliev]

Several weeks back, there was some talk about renting cars from Turo. At the time, it wouldn't work for our one-way YNP to GTNP trip. Now that we're revamping and probably not doing Yellowstone, we need a round trip rental in Vegas. Turo has a truck with off road tires, etc. that would be GREAT for our trip to Zion, Bryce, and some of the harder to get to canyons. It's about half the cost from the cheapest rental car company, PLUS the $30 back offer on Amex, and the fact that it sounds like we could take it off road (whereas rental companies usually have a clause for this), so it makes it quite enticing. The question is, for those that have rented from Turo, what do you normally do for insurance? Do you purchase one of their plans, or just decline and use your own insurance? I know AMEX or Chase won't cover P2P rentals.

I called my insurance company they said they cover it up to my vehicle property damage. (i have full coverage). so I have declined turos insurance, they also told me it only applies in the US. (which makes sense). I would call yours and see if you have full coverage id imagine it's covered. I'm not an attorney/insurance agent etc just using logic