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saintonan posted:The newbie thread is probably more appropriate - this thread is mainly for credit card rewards, not personal finance in general. There are lots of tips and links in that thread, but the universal truth is that the first step to getting out of a hole is to stop digging. Make a budget and, just as importantly, stick to it. I sincerely wish you the best of luck. Yeah that thread has helped a lot of people. You can post how deep you're in debt and what you make per month along with your expenses and we'll give you some hard truth expectations. You can make a separate thread log for more in depth help. The biggest mistake people make (and I did it too) is getting a consolidation loan to pay off credit cards and then saying "Look at all this credit I have!" and racking the balance right back up.
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Apr 8, 2022 12:24
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Chaotic Flame posted:I think I remember someone in this thread sharing a site or system for figuring how best to use your different reward points for specific travel. Am I making that up or does anyone else remember / know what I'm talking about? For example, if you had points in Chase's ecosystem and Citi, you could put your destination and you could see which airlines you could transfer to / hotel partners / etc. I want to say it was awardmapper and/or awardhacker.
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Apr 8, 2022 18:49
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astral posted:I want to say it was awardmapper and/or awardhacker. AwardHacker shows the best possible redemption point price which is helpful but isn't even close to the hard part. Finding availability is the hard part and there are no good search tools or deal alerts for flights. The best free option is to use the best search from each alliance and understand how they work. points.me is an ok paid option that aggregates searches across multiple airlines, but you still need to enter a departure and arrival airport along with specific dates and you need to understand the underlying search. Hotels award searches have much of the same issues and iirc AwardMapper is the same thing as AwardHacker for hotels. If you have set dates and a location it narrows down the options and I think they're a couple tools that will reasonably aggregate or you can just search the couple of chains that you have or can transfer points to reasonably.
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Apr 8, 2022 23:36
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Michael Corleone posted:Def ask in the newbie thread like stated. Maybe try to get everything transferred to a new card with 0 percent balance transfers for 12-15 months to stop the bleeding? Thanks for pointing me in the right direction I will give that a shot.
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Apr 8, 2022 23:45
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Just went into branch and got the checking account to get the 225 bonus then got a chase sapphire proffered with 80k points for 4K spend and waived first year fee
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Apr 9, 2022 04:19
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Michael Corleone posted:I got this new CITI card and it gives you 5% back on the category you spend most on each month automatically, we'll see how that works, usually it is gas stations for me because I drink a lot. I cancelled my Amex Blue Cash Preferred when Citi came out with that card and I use it for groceries. It's functionally the same ($500/month vs $6,000/year) and has no fee so comes out well ahead of paying the fee for the Preferred. If I really wanted to maximize things I'd put my first $500 of groceries a month on that and get a Blue Cash Everyday for anything over that but I'm not that hardcore.
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Apr 9, 2022 20:29
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Thoguh posted:If I really wanted to maximize things I'd put my first $500 of groceries a month on that and get a Blue Cash Everyday for anything over that but I'm not that hardcore. Don't forget the power of grocery store gift card kiosks for months you don't reach $500.
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Apr 9, 2022 22:45
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CheshireCat posted:Is there any actual benefit to an American Express Platinum card if you don't travel a lot? Amex keeps sending offers my way but I'm not seeing a lot of positives from "upgrading" from my Blue Cash Preferred card. Free Hulu ESPN plus Disney plus is all I can think of
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Apr 9, 2022 22:46
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Elephanthead posted:Free Hulu ESPN plus Disney plus is all I can think of The $15/mo Uber credit can be used for Uber eats as well.
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Apr 10, 2022 00:12
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Free Walmart+ too now Edit: Also want to point out, you can pay for somebody else's TSAPre/Global Entry. Small White Dragon fucked around with this message at 00:29 on Apr 10, 2022 |
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Apr 10, 2022 00:25
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i've posted this before, but its worth mentioning again: amex return protection is very very good and easily nets me $200 - $300/yr
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Apr 10, 2022 04:18
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Got a retention offer when I went to close out my Amex for 550 cash for 4k in spend. I think I'm going to do it, but I'm still on the fence on if it makes sense to keep spending on this Plat or just shut it down, get a no-fee Amex CC for the points, and move my spend to a normal 2+% cash back card. If I assume I cut back spending on the card to ~12k/yr then it works out to about 3.5% return on spend with the Uber, NYT/D+, and other benefits. And if I zero the other items out then I get to about 2.7% so its a wash with other cards. Upgrade posted:i've posted this before, but its worth mentioning again: amex return protection is very very good and easily nets me $200 - $300/yr How do you get this kind of benefit out of it?
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Apr 12, 2022 19:00
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FunOne posted:Got a retention offer when I went to close out my Amex for 550 cash for 4k in spend. I think I'm going to do it, but I'm still on the fence on if it makes sense to keep spending on this Plat or just shut it down, get a no-fee Amex CC for the points, and move my spend to a normal 2+% cash back card. I buy a lot of clothing that’s final sale and it lets me not worry about it
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Apr 12, 2022 19:13
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Keep seeing Plat sign-up bonuses with no lifetime language, which a few years back was said to never going to happen again . They must be hurting from cancellations or downgrades, etc.
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Apr 12, 2022 19:36
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I’m absolutely cancelling if they go through with this “1 person per card in the centurion lounge” nonsense
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Apr 12, 2022 22:57
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More space for me! Every time I went to the centurion lounge pre-pandemic it was absolutely bursting at the seams with people Centurion lounges need to be 3x as large 
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Apr 13, 2022 00:38
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Got my Avocado Toast gift card for signing up for an Alliant CU checking account so I can get their 2.5% cashback visa, very happy with it.
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Apr 13, 2022 02:40
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Hadlock posted:More space for me! Every time I went to the centurion lounge pre-pandemic it was absolutely bursting at the seams with people The one in Denver is pretty big I'd say, the one I visited in Seattle was a closet.
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Apr 13, 2022 03:49
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I've been to the ones in DFW and SFO, I think they're building a new (larger) one at one of those two airports. Both looked like they had about ~4000 sq foot of seating area, spread across ~3 sub lounges + bar + salad bar. I'm sure there's another 3000 sq ft of service area hiding behind the kitchen and whatnot. Every seat was typically packed, service was amazing, of course, but we would get in, sort of wander around looking for seats, finally one person would go do drink orders and the other would hover around until seats opened up Haven't been to the denver one yet, don't fly that route very often My wife has a, uh, satellite amex plat so she can take her mom and sister into the lounge, if/when travel/pandemic gets back to normal. Set that up before 2020
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Apr 13, 2022 04:02
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Hadlock posted:Every seat was typically packed, service was amazing, of course, but we would get in, sort of wander around looking for seats, finally one person would go do drink orders and the other would hover around until seats opened up This has usually been my experience in CLT, DFW and MIA and I usually fly on off hours. I’ve seen the massive lines to get in and been waitlisted before and it sucks. Building additional lounges/expanding existing ones would be the best idea, but $. The only current options I see are increasing the annual fee to a price that gatekeeps it for the truly wealthy, making active duty military pay the fee at least for the platinum or reducing the amount of free guests you can bring in. The latter would at least bring them in line with the other airline lounges.
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Apr 13, 2022 11:47
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OldSenileGuy posted:I’m absolutely cancelling if they go through with this “1 person per card in the centurion lounge” nonsense I mean it's only going to be $50 to take a guest in. Idk about your situation, but it's going to cost me more than $50 to take my girlfriend to the loving Chili's or whatever lovely restaurant is in the terminal. If you've got a family of 5 it might be prohibitively expensive, but tbh I think that's what they're going for.
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Apr 13, 2022 12:46
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My wife has had an Amex plat as her primary card for a few years. We actually have two now since I signed up for a 150k bonus offer. We live in locations with lounges but try not to spend too much time waiting there. The denver lounge is probably the best/largest one I’ve been to. The one at SFO is pretty cramped. I probably won’t pay to renew my card if my wife is already paying for it each year. Getting $700 worth of lounges each year is probably not worth it.
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Apr 13, 2022 15:14
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Shroomie posted:I mean it's only going to be $50 to take a guest in. Idk about your situation, but it's going to cost me more than $50 to take my girlfriend to the loving Chili's or whatever lovely restaurant is in the terminal. It definitely changes my behavior a bit though. By myself I stopped in for about fifteen minutes for a bite of food and a drink. I would have gone hungry and maybe bought a coffee if I had a guest who would have needed to be paid for. My wife and I definitely got the money's worth last time though, lunch at Denver and a dinner in Philly. Plus a couple cocktails each, and a beer for me. Wait two beers. And some shuffleboard.
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Apr 13, 2022 16:17
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are there that many airports with centurion lounges but no other priority pass lounges?
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Apr 14, 2022 01:20
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I think it's the other way around I've never been in a priority pass lounge as I pretty much exclusively fly through DFW and SFO and LGA, and ugh, CLT now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4-ChcL6Pzo
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Apr 14, 2022 02:03
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Upgrade posted:are there that many airports with centurion lounges but no other priority pass lounges? I have yet to use a priority pass lounge successfully in the US.
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Apr 14, 2022 02:11
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Residency Evil posted:I have yet to use a priority pass lounge successfully in the US. The club at CHS is awesome and a Priority Pass lounge. Well, awesome for Charleston.
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Apr 14, 2022 02:28
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DEN doesn't unless you count the PP restaurant. At SFO the lounge is in a different terminal that isn't connected inside security, I think there are restaurant options too. LAX, PHX and likely more don't have PP lounges. In general, PP is garbage in the US unless it's Alaska or AF/KLM. The former might be gone from PP or is that SEA only. asur fucked around with this message at 02:55 on Apr 14, 2022 |
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Apr 14, 2022 02:32
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Yeah I have a PP card somewhere, but pretty much immediately after summer if 2019, PP lounge options for Amex plat holders tanked so hard it's not even worth evaluating anymore. I think they dropped food and alcohol perks so what's even the point unless you have a 4+ hour layover
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Apr 14, 2022 02:40
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Alaska has completely cut the cord with Priority Pass as of a few months ago. SeaTac's Centurion is about the size of a 2 bedroom apartment and is ridiculously crowded at all hours. They have two PP lounges that are not great but better than the terminal at large. The one in North satellite terminal is normally deserted.
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Apr 14, 2022 04:32
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asur posted:DEN doesn't unless you count the PP restaurant. At SFO the lounge is in a different terminal that isn't connected inside security, I think there are restaurant options too. LAX, PHX and likely more don't have PP lounges. LOL at Denver not having one but apparently there's one in Colorado Springs. I had a great experience with the PP lounges in Athens Greece though, so I agree with the second part.
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Apr 14, 2022 04:36
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I can't believe LAX still has no pp lounge but I'm sure it would be flooded 100% of the time given the traffic and demographics.
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Apr 14, 2022 06:11
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Residency Evil posted:I have yet to use a priority pass lounge successfully in the US. The one in Sacramento was pretty good!
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Apr 14, 2022 11:30
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Virtue posted:I can't believe LAX still has no pp lounge but I'm sure it would be flooded 100% of the time given the traffic and demographics. I thought there used to be one, but of course, at LAX getting between terminals is annoying.
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Apr 15, 2022 03:47
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Small White Dragon posted:I thought there used to be one, but of course, at LAX getting between terminals is annoying. It had the AS lounge at one point.
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Apr 15, 2022 03:50
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asur posted:It had the AS lounge at one point. I'm pretty sure Air Canada or somebody like that was in there for a while.
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Apr 15, 2022 03:56
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LAX has a celebrity/VIP lounge/terminal but it's about $3500 to use it for four people but it does include an uber ride in a 7 series which is probably going to run you $150 or more anyways, and if you're already paying $8500 for business class to eastern europe the extra $875/person isn't completely insane if you're at the SVP or C level for a midsize company https://thepointsguy.com/reviews/ps-private-suite-lax/
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Apr 15, 2022 06:33
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sparkmaster posted:Alaska has completely cut the cord with Priority Pass as of a few months ago. The SeaTac Sky Club is great, though. We spent 3 or 4 hours in there on the way to Vegas a couple months ago. They were doing like a local restaurant spotlight and a guy started carving up a porchetta right as we were getting food.
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Apr 15, 2022 06:44
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So my wife and I aren’t looking to churn cards but we would like some travel rewards or better cash back. We’ve been just using my card from 15yrs ago with a low APR and using debit for daily stuff but we want to travel a bit more with the kiddo getting older. I saw that AMEX cars with high grocery/gas cash back that is pretty tempting, but we need to decide if we are more into cash back or travel rewards. Seems chase sapphire or freedom have good reviews on nerdwallet—does that hold true from OP? Any anecdotal experience y’all can give me? We both have >800 credit scores, low overall debt to income ratios. I just don’t want to get hung up in a complicated scenario for redemption and usage since we don’t travel a ton but would like some perks when we do and some points to defray flight/hotel costs.
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Apr 15, 2022 17:16
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LeeMajors posted:but we need to decide if we are more into cash back or travel rewards. This is the most important question, and informs all the other decisions that flow from that. If the answer is cash back, then you'll want one of the general 2% cards (Citi Double Cash, Fidelity Visa, several credit union cards), plus cards like the Amex Blue Cash Preferred that you mentioned before. If travel rewards, then things get more complicated very quickly. Churning credit cards works because the signup bonuses that credit card companies give out are worth far more than the rewards given from the spending itself. This is magnified when you start talking about travel rewards. If you want to get seriously into it, you'll quickly want to get into the Chase ecosystem, because they have anti-churning restrictions that you'll want to pay attention to. For just a glimpse, this is a flowchart designed to answer what travel rewards card(s) an efficient person should get, and in what order. That rabbit hole goes very deep.
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Apr 15, 2022 17:38
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