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I picked up the Barclaycard World Plus for the 40k mile bonus since I was planning an expensive ski trip. I just activated the bonus (plus earned miles) for $450 off my flight plus another 4500 miles for redeeming. Pretty nice. Also it seems that you can get a bunch of free miles just posting in their stupid travel forum (which seems to only exist to harvest travel data... no one is actually browsing it for travel ideas). 500 miles for signing up and 150 miles every time you post a trip (50 words and a picture) and 10 miles for every "like" you get. I'll probably downgrade it after my free year is up, but thanks for the $500+ barclaycard!
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Jan 6, 2015 21:23
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Bisty Q. posted:You will need to make a ~$500 travel purchase to get the value, but it's definitely worth doing. "Travel purchase" is a pretty wide category on that card, too. I bought a lift ticket to my local ski resort the other day and it shows up as a travel purchase for me. In other news, several years ago I got a Chase rewards card that had a $29 annual fee. I paid the fee for 2 years, and then I was going to cancel it but on the third year (when I had stopped using it) there was no fee. So I kept it open and set a notification if it ever had a balance or fee, but it never did. Last week I got a new credit card in the mail, apparently a replacement for my old card (same CC number), except now it's a Chase Freedom card with the 5% cashback and no fee. I checked my credit report just to see if there was anything going on, but it's clean. Elysium fucked around with this message at 16:00 on Feb 4, 2015 |
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Feb 4, 2015 15:55
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Coming up on my Barclaycard Arrival Plus annual fee date (was waived first year). I should probably just downgrade it to the no AF version right? And then just sign up for Chase Sapphire Preferred?
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Dec 3, 2015 21:41
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TheEye posted:Unfortunately I downgraded the day before the fee, so they ended up charging it anyway, and it's been a real pain to get it reversed. The customer service for the Arrival seems noticeably worse than the Arrival+. When I downgraded it was well before the fee and I still had a few leftover points (from pending transactions). The rep was like "well you can just wait until the end of the month and you can use your points and they will still waive the fee and I was like "naaaah just do it now." Got my Chase Sapphire bonus... have 63,000 points. Now what?
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Mar 3, 2016 21:46
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I'm possibly thinking about buying a house... not super soon but you never know when things might get rolling. So... should I NOT apply for a Sapphire Reserve? What kind of effect might that have on getting a mortgage approval? My credit score is currently 790, with no loans or debts of any kind.
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Sep 1, 2016 16:14
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I just signed up for the CSR. Can I buy something like a $300 Southwest Gift Card to make sure I get the travel credit for 2016?
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Nov 30, 2016 21:21
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So if you just transfer 110,000 points to Southwest you automatically get the companion pass? Old post, but this seems to say it only counts for Southwest Rewards CCs, not just any chase: http://thepointsguy.com/2014/11/southwest-companion-pass-16-things-every-flyer-should-know/ Elysium fucked around with this message at 19:44 on Dec 2, 2016 |
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Dec 2, 2016 19:36
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I got my Sapphire Reserve, bought a $300 airline gift card, and was already credited the $300 travel credit, dated 12/4. I guess I won't really know if I'll get another one after January, I'll just cross my fingers.
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Dec 7, 2016 16:35
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I have a question about UR points. If you book things through the chase portal (through your Reserve card), let's say, a rental car, do you still get any advantages as if you booked using your Reserve to pay (such as a free upgrade)? What if you book 99% on points but leave $1 and pay that $1 with your Reserve card? ps.s Just booked two round trip tickets from New York to Hawaii for 25k points each through Korean Air. I still have 66k points left. Thanks for all the free money Chase! Elysium fucked around with this message at 23:27 on Jan 17, 2017 |
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Jan 17, 2017 20:00
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You can do Korean Air skypass bookings online now. I just did it, 2 round trips to Hawaii from New York for 50k total points, booked easily online (although you have to do separate booking instances for companions unless you can prove they are family or married). They were around $800 in cash price at the time... so if you did that twice that's $3200 value. Just booking anything (without messing around with transferring points and award flight availability) through the Chase portal will be a minimum value of $1500 (100k points, 1.5c per point redemption). Just because you mentioned the Maui Hyatt, there is a Chase Hyatt card where the sign up is 2 free nights in ANY Hyatt with no restrictions, so that's a really good way to go if you're looking to book a few nights vacation somewhere amazing (any of the tier 7 Hyatts).
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Jan 30, 2017 20:17
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Are there any problems with this plan (assuming there is enough availability)?: 8 people get Chase Hyatt credit cards (signup bonus 2 free nights at any Hyatt). We each book a double queen bed room at one of the super high end Hyatts, for 2 nights over 2 sets of consecutive days. We all stay 4 nights for free, or more if we put more people per room. Elysium fucked around with this message at 18:22 on Mar 7, 2017 |
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Mar 7, 2017 18:19
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I assume availability might be a problem, but other than that, it should work in theory right? Even if they won't (or can't) book us into the exact same rooms for 4 straight nights, it wouldn't be that big of a deal to switch rooms after 2 days. You're right, I don't see availability at the Andaz Maui for some random dates I picked, but the same dates had availability at the Grand Hyatt in Kauai. quote:It would only be booking 2 rooms per night, he wants to sleep 4 people in each of the rooms. My man, why would you do that to yourself on a nice vacation? Do you not "kick it" with your s/o on vacation? The number of people in this example is made up, so I didn't try to work it out too hard to how many people per room and number of rooms, but anyway, the point is it would be part of a group trip, where there are a few couples, yes, but also several singles. Doing something like this would be as an alternative to renting an entire house (VRBO or Airbnb) which would obviously have it's own advantages (and disadvantages - I consider not having a lazy river and a saltwater lagoon to be a disadvantage). Typically we rent a house and it's not unusual for 2 single dudes or 2 ladies to share a bed in a room, or even for people to sleep on a couch or daybed. Elysium fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Mar 7, 2017 |
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Mar 7, 2017 18:53
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Insane Totoro posted:Girls love it Huge psychological advantage in Credit Card Roulette.
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Mar 27, 2017 22:14
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The Big Jesus posted:Unfortunately makes it the easiest one to pick from the pile if the rest are plastic if you're doing a blind pick out of a hat. That's a good thing if you're doing last one in like you should be. First one out is dumb and anti-climactic.
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Mar 28, 2017 13:57
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Nur_Neerg posted:Does anyone happen to know when the Chase Hyatt card's annual fee is charged? Debating whether to sign up for it today before the bonus changes. I just tried to sign up for this because I had been planning to eventually and I didn't know the 2 free nights were going away, and while the signup page advertises the 2 free nights, as soon as you get past the first page it offers you the 40k points instead.
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Jun 29, 2017 21:08
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Coming up on a year on my Reserve, I'll be keeping it for at least another year, does the Priority Pass membership renew?
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Nov 24, 2017 22:46
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Blinkman987 posted:I don't get the Priority Pass thing--- are their lounges noticeably higher quality than the other airline lounges? I guess domestic ones tend to be so lovely that it's not hard to beat. I haven't paid for an airline lounge for a long time, so is like $25 or w/e PP charges that much cheaper than an airline lounge? Not sure what you mean, you get a free priority pass with the credit card and the priority pass gets you in free to the lounge. The quality of the lounges vary wildly, from dentists waiting room with soda to high class free bar and good food, iPads and cookies. Most priority pass lounges aren't as good as the top airline loyalty ones but again, free. I hear the better lounges are in Europe.
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Nov 25, 2017 03:38
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So I kept my Reserve and my Girlfriend downgraded hers to a Freedom, and they refunded her a prorated portion of the annual fee, almost $150. Was not expecting that.
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Dec 12, 2017 17:44
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astral posted:If it's within 30 days of the AF posting, Chase will refund the whole fee rather than giving you a prorated refund. Right but that makes sense, when you have a new fee that you aren't actually paying because you are cancelling the card at the start of the new year. But if we knew they were going to prorate the fee on her card for the prior year, we could have cancelled it after the bonus posted and we transferred the points to my card. $450 fee, -$300 travel credit, -~$375 prorated refund...
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Dec 12, 2017 20:11
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Looking a bit more into it it seems they only prorate the refund (other than a new fee within 30 days) for a product change and not a cancel.
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Dec 12, 2017 21:42
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TraderStav posted:Refund talk. I cancelled my Amex SPG two weeks before I was going to have the next fee hit. I unexpectedly got the previous years fee refunded. Crazy stuff. I got a double refund on my Chase Preferred, but they eventually corrected it.
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Dec 14, 2017 17:45
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I kept my Southwest points alive by spending $.99 at Burger King
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Mar 3, 2018 21:59
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Going to spend a night in NYC on a road trip (and see a show/dinner while we're there), was thinking about booking something nice with Chase points but should I even bother? It looks like it's 25k points for a place like the Andaz 5th ave or the Hyatt Centric Times Square, but it's only about $250-300 a night cash, so not really that great points/$ value. On the other hand, I can book a $900 a night Park Hyatt room for 30k points, so great "value" there but do I really want to spend 30k points for a night in a hotel where I'm sleeping and not much else, or 25k for that matter? Are there any decent 15/20k point options near the theater district? Maybe just screw it and get a $100 room in Secaucus with free parking and uber/train into the city? Elysium fucked around with this message at 15:22 on May 24, 2018 |
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May 24, 2018 14:54
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Looks like I could get the Hyatt Centric Times Square for 19k points through the Chase Portal, but yes parking is an unavoidable issue as we will be driving on to Boston the next night. Would just be stashing the car in a garage for ~$50. Maybe I can get something across the river near the PATH subway.
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May 24, 2018 16:39
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Just cancel the Sapphire outright and then sign up for a preferred the next day.
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Aug 2, 2018 18:43
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It's "easy" to get value per point, but I wouldn't necessarily say "routinely" is the correct word. The easy way to get points value is just to save them for when they have value, and spend cash (which gets you points...) when they don't. I used 25k chase points to book $800 flights to Hawaii. When I got there I booked rental cars for cash. Why spend my points at $0.1 a point when I just got $0.32/p?
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Aug 14, 2018 20:48
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Initio posted:The hotels you can transfer your chase points to (Marriott, Ritz Carolton, IHG, and Hyatt) have a standard point value redemption that’s set for the property. That number won’t change even when the dollar price of the room does. Right now you can book the Hyatt Centric Times Square for 25k points, or $189 a night, pretty terrible value especially when you consider many Hyatts in that price range elsewhere will only be like 10-15k points. On the other hand, you can book the Park Hyatt for 30k points, currently running at $845 a night! But pure value isn't always the best way to look at it necessarily. Sure, the Park Hyatt is great value per point, but you could just book the Centric for cash, and then next week use 30k points to book 6 nights at a 5k Hyatt hotel somewhere else.
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Aug 14, 2018 21:18
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Oh wow I just got an email that Chase will no longer transfer points to Korean Air Skypass (aka a sick redemption for Hawaii and other tickets).
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Aug 15, 2018 15:05
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Elephanthead posted:drat it that was my plan to scam cheap Hawaii. Looks like you still have a week to transfer the points in advance (and let them sit in your KA account until you use them). This of course assumes that you will definitely book a KA flight in the future, and that they don't devalue the points in the meantime (unlikely, but a possibility).
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Aug 16, 2018 18:41
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Maybe this is obvious to everyone, but TIL that only the Chase Preferred and Reserve can transfer to travel partners. I just ran into a bit of a problem trying to book a hotel room on my GF's new Hyatt account. She just got the Chase Hyatt card and cancelled her Preferred, but her bonus hasn't cleared yet. So I figure, whatever, I'll just transfer her the points and then she can transfer them the Hyatt, but no, she can't actually use her Unlimited to transfer to Hyatt now. So, ok, I'll just add her Hyatt account to my Reserve and then transfer the points, but  they want $75 to add her as an authorized user. So I just ended up booking it on my Hyatt Account.But I did get to book this room for 30k points so I've got that going for me: 
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Aug 30, 2018 15:34
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Residency Evil posted:Looks like we can fly business to south africa for our honeymoon for about 700 per person including fees, by transferring 240k chase points to Korean Air. Worth it? Can't transfer chase to Korean anymore as of about a week ago.
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Sep 1, 2018 16:13
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Vox Nihili posted:Just got the Hawaiian Airlines card via mailer offer. $1000 spend in first 3 mos. for 50,000 miles bonus (roughly $500 value), 1-time half-off companion pass good for a round trip, and free checked bags on Hawaiian. Probably some other minor airline perks as well. $99 annual fee, issued by Barclays. Was interested in this until I saw they want 190k miles for a flight from JFK (retail $7-900). Also $1000 spend must be targeted because it's 3k otherwise.
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Sep 27, 2018 03:06
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Vox Nihili posted:That's strange. Looking at bookings from California, each mile almost always gets you more than a cent. You were right, I wasn't checking the return flight, which had a stop. I found some nonstop dates for 40k miles. It seems though that you can't use the 50% discount for a second ticket when booking the first ticket with miles though which is really unfortunate, and the discount expires after a year.
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Sep 27, 2018 15:00
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I just noticed Southwest is currently offering sign up bonuses with Companion pass issued upon completion of the spend. Previously you needed 110k Southwest points to get the pass (which was only feasible a lot of the time if you get 2 cards, which you can't even do anymore unless you get a business card). The catch is it's only a 1 year companion pass instead of 2. So you only have from bonus completion to the end of the year to use it. Elysium fucked around with this message at 17:49 on Jan 15, 2019 |
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Jan 15, 2019 17:38
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What do we think the chances are that buying lift tickets for a Ski Resort online counts as "online shopping" for BOA 3%?excluded categories posted:Insurance
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Mar 12, 2019 17:30
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astral posted:My guess: likely to code as one of the travel categories but travel does not appear to be excluded, so maybe? Well travel is its own category: "travel posted:Airlines, Air Carriers, Airports, Airport Terminals, Flying Fields | Amusement Parks, Carnivals, Circuses, Fortune Tellers | Aquariums, Dolphinariums, Zoos and Seaquariums | Art Dealers and Galleries | Boat Leases and Boat Rentals | Bus Lines | Campgrounds and Trailer Parks | Car Rental Agencies | Cruise Lines | Direct Marketing — Travel-Related Arrangements Services | Hotels, Motels, Resorts | Motor Home and Recreational Vehicle Rental | Package Tour Operators (for use in Germany only) | Parking Lots and Garages | Real Estate Agents and Managers (Rentals) | Recreation Services (not elsewhere classified) | Suburban and Local Commuter Passenger Travel, including Ferries | Taxicabs and Limousines | Timeshares | Truck and Trailer Utility Rentals | Passenger Railways | Toll and Bridge Fees | Tourist Attractions and Exhibits | Transportation Services (not elsewhere classified) | Travel Agencies and Tour Operators" Resorts or Recreational Services maybe? So maybe I should switch my 3% category to Travel? Or what are the chances this counts as travel for my Chase Reserve?
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Mar 12, 2019 17:58
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I don't think they'll let me buy 1/100th of a lift ticket. "I'm just totally gonna jump off before it gets too high, I swear."
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Mar 12, 2019 18:38
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astral posted:I looked into this a bit and it sounds like lift ticket coding varies depending on the resort. Popular codings seem to be hotel/travel or even 'entertainment'. If it were me I'd probably try something with a generous travel category, but it sounds like it's anything but certain. So I just decided to put it on my Reserve and hope it coded as Travel. It ended up coding as "Personal." That makes it the second "Personal" coding of any charge I've ever put on the card, the other one being my Vet's office.
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Mar 15, 2019 15:51
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Simpsons Reference posted:It just dawned on me today that I should have the Reserve, not the Preferred like I currently have. Apparently it's not just airfare that's included in the "travel reimbursement," but train passes and Uber too, but someone feel free to correct me. I spend $85 a month on subway passes as it is, so that's well over the $300. Plus it's 3 points for travel and dining instead of the CSP. And the 1.5% redemption on travel instead of 1.25% There are a ton of things that count as travel. I think even airbnbs and maybe even hotels count.
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May 24, 2019 20:37
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Something Offal posted:Man, I haven't traveled much on points yet but when I do I always look for almost bottom barrel hotels. Why spend $800 or whatever points a night when you could instead have 4+ more days on vacation at a less nice hotel, especially when you are paying the same for airfare no matter how many days you stay on vacation? Someday I'll splurge on a luxury hotel, but it is very hard for me to see the benefit right now. Well sometimes the valuations are like, stay at a normal nothing special hotel for 20k points or stay at a 5 star amazing hotel for 30k points. So sure you could stay 3 nights at the 20k for what it costs for 2 nights at the 5 star, but hey why not splurge? Of course when you just need a place to sleep for 5k points that can go a much farther way.
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May 25, 2019 21:43
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