I love credit cards so much!

[Albort]

For coffee,
Blue Bottle Coffee (they have a location in the Ferry Building)
Philz Coffee (several locations downtown)
Sightglass Coffee

as someone who has tried a ton of coffee, i walked from fishermen's wharf to this place(about a 1.2 mile) in 20 mins just to get this coffee. Its super delicious. #coffeeaddict #ihaveaproblem
i ditched a SF harbor tour for it... lol

 

[amalone1013]

Took DH to Safeway today for the $10 off MCGC coupon.. yes, I like to live dangerously and wait until the last day... I also had a coupon for a free yogurt smoothie. So we get that, the $500 gift card, and dH grabs a coke. Comes to $497.98. As we walk away, I asked him "How does it feel to have paid less than face value for that?" He goes, I still dont understand how that happened...

 

[miztressuz]

Took DH to Safeway today for the $10 off MCGC coupon.. yes, I like to live dangerously and wait until the last day... I also had a coupon for a free yogurt smoothie. So we get that, the $500 gift card, and dH grabs a coke. Comes to $497.98. As we walk away, I asked him "How does it feel to have paid less than face value for that?" He goes, I still dont understand how that happened...

And got a free coke to boot!

 

[Lain]

When I bought 2x $100 VGCs from Safeway yesterday, the cashier shook her head disapprovingly and said, "So you saved what $3, $4? Was that worth it when you're going to be paying all those fees?" I had no idea what she was talking about. I said, "I bought $200 for $196.90, so yeah I'm pretty happy." I didn't even mention that I was getting 5% cash back in UR, worth 50% more towards travel when I move them to my CSR. And what fees? We pay off our credit bill every month and never leave money on GCs for very long.

 

[StephPlum]

I'm working on the MSR on my CIP. I know everyone says that they don't check to make sure you put business expenses on it, but I still get nervous! Is it okay to put my room deposit for our May 2019 WDW trip on it to go towards the MSR?

To make my MSR, I put my final deposit on my VRBO rental on the CIP. No questions asked and got the bonus. After MSR, I also put all my hotels from my last trip to UT to get 3x UR on travel. Again, no issues.

 

[Jax1023]

Super excited. Just used 27,000 ur points to book a superior Fallsview room on a high floor with breakfast included at Niagara Falls. Cash cost of breakfast package per marriotts website- 642cad/ 496usd. Somehow that’s better than 1.5cpp but I’m not complaining.

Otherwise would have been 45,000 Marriott points + 90cad.

My kids go to bed really early, I’m excited to watch the falls illuminations and fireworks from my hotel room.

I’ve dropped a lot of ur points in the past month- 8 day disney tickets, this hotel, another 8000ur for a night near buffalo after the falls via hyatt. And yet I still have 260,000 of them with plans for some new sapphire cards come fall!

 

[Jax1023]

To make my MSR, I put my final deposit on my VRBO rental on the CIP. No questions asked and got the bonus. After MSR, I also put all my hotels from my last trip to UT to get 3x UR on travel. Again, no issues.

I met the minimum spend for my cip in one purchase paying for replacement central ac for my house, that was nearly a year ago. No problems.

 

[Jax1023]

as someone who has tried a ton of coffee, i walked from fishermen's wharf to this place(about a 1.2 mile) in 20 mins just to get this coffee. Its super delicious. #coffeeaddict #ihaveaproblem
i ditched a SF harbor tour for it... lol

The waffles at blue bottle coffee too. Mmm, so good.

Also slanted door at the ferry building for dinner.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

Ugh, last year I ended up putting $3500 on a new Marriott personal between my deductible and the check my insurance company sent me for their estimate (good joke guys, it ended up at almost $10k). This time we have two vehicles...

*starts looking at Hilton biz again*

do it, do it, do it....

Personally, if I knew there was another card coming out next month with word of a big bonus, but there's a one card per family restriction, I'd wait and see. July gives you one, maybe two statement cycles to meet MSR (I'm going to guess $3k) in time for the bonus to credit to your account before October? I can't speak for timing or how easily it would be to apply a CP to your already booked flights, as we don't usually fly SW or have CP. Maybe others can chime in?

If you have points laying around, you can go ahead and book the ticket and when you get the CP, just call and switch it over. However, as long as there are seats, at any price, you can add your CP...no time limit.

I know you need to call the Chase travel line if you want to book a Disney package, but I used to be able to at least see Disney hotel prices on UR redemption site, and I can't pull up any Disneyland or Disney World hotel and I've tried a bunch of different dates. Have they taken these off of the standard hotel search with UR, or is it just me having issues?

Seems like the Chase UR portal may be having issues with Disney hotels. @disneymagicgirl and @speedyfishy weren't able to pull up any rooms in the last few days either.

Same issues still happening. Haven't been able to coordinate with DH to call...it is his CSR I need to use.

Hi! Long time lurker, very infrequent poster. I have read quite of few pages of this long thread and have learned quite a bit of information, but have a question. A bit of backround. To this point I have done the Southwest 50k bonus for myself and my husband, canceled the card after a year and then did it again after the 24 months was up. My husband just got his bonus in April. He could refer me for the 40k and get 10 or I was thinking of getting the CSP( I think that is the right abbreviation.. so much to learn!), the one with the AF waived the first year. He does have a Freedom, that we could then convert the points through the CSR. So my question concerns the double dip. I see that it means applying for two cards on one day. I get why you would do it for the Southwest card to get the companion pass, but am wondering what the advantage is for the Saphire. So I am 0/24 with Chase and he is 1/24
We have a family of five so we usually just fly every other year and drive when we don’t have points. We also don’t stay in hotels very often, as we prefer the space that a rented time share or condo gives us. So I guess our first want would be flights and then hotels. I was thinking of possibly taking a trip to Europe in the future and thought I could start now.

As I do not have a legit business, at this point I am not interested in a business card. But I think they way some of you do this you could call your credit card churning a “business”!

Thank you for all the good information, any advice or suggestions appreciated!

The point of DD the sapphires (CSP/CSR) is to get both bonuses. Otherwise, you are locked out of whichever card you don't get for a full 24 months from receiving the one bonus. If you just want one...I look at it as a $95 fee on the CSP and a $150 on the CSR, because you get the $300 travel credit on the CSR, thus brining down the annual fee. You will rack up URs quicker with the CSR and you will get a better redemption rate with them. However, if you are uncomfortable with the higher AF, then the CSP is a great card too!

As far as SW card or Sapphire...well...the more the merrier! You can double dip (or just do 1) sapphire first, since those transfer to SW anyways. Then when you finish the MSR on that, maybe the new SW card will be out with the bigger bonus and you can get that one!

 

[amalone1013]

When I bought 2x $100 VGCs from Safeway yesterday, the cashier shook her head disapprovingly and said, "So you saved what $3, $4? Was that worth it when you're going to be paying all those fees?" I had no idea what she was talking about. I said, "I bought $200 for $196.90, so yeah I'm pretty happy." I didn't even mention that I was getting 5% cash back in UR, worth 50% more towards travel when I move them to my CSR. And what fees? We pay off our credit bill every month and never leave money on GCs for very long.

I've had a few cashiers be confused and think something was wrong, and a few say oh that's a good idea... if were making small talk about the gift cards and I mention I just use them myself when they see they're a couple bucks off. But that is a really strange reaction!

 

[GZanta77]

I'm working on the MSR on my CIP. I know everyone says that they don't check to make sure you put business expenses on it, but I still get nervous! Is it okay to put my room deposit for our May 2019 WDW trip on it to go towards the MSR? Any benefit to putting that deposit on my CSP instead?

I put our deposit for our AKL stay on the CIP when I was working towards MSR. No problem.

 

[hsmamato2]

That reads under 1x (1 times) our household income. Not a percentage.

Aha, I saw a datapoint for this on r/churning: https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/comments/8rycl2/daily_discussion_thread_june_18_2018/e0w7ktw/

Short story is looks like buying from the Hilton gift card site will code as a Hilton purchase for the bonus category. Good news

wow that's awesome....

 

[amalone1013]

The good news: the skirt I was looking at this weekend went on sale online. I wasnt sure I wanted to spend tha much, but its half price now! And they take Paypal! And I expect I'll end up with a few extra points because I got two different sizes since I wasn't sure, and will return the one that doesn't fit in store.

The bad news: its hailing again...

 

[Lain]

Aha, I saw a datapoint for this on r/churning: https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/comments/8rycl2/daily_discussion_thread_june_18_2018/e0w7ktw/

Short story is looks like buying from the Hilton gift card site will code as a Hilton purchase for the bonus category. Good news

Annnnd... confirmed receipt of my new Hilton Biz, set up a new account, and ironically no Amex Offer for the Hilton gift cards.

 

[MrPTato]

For a companion as well? Did you call or were you able to do it online?
I ended up calling and they modified everything for me in a couple minutes.

I think I called when I had the companion pass. I know I have done it online too. I'm old and the memory is not what it used to be.

 

[Lain]

I’ve had my Hilton Biz in hand for about 15 minutes and already managed to make a $1,500+ dent in the $5,000 MSR. @Judique said it best: money disappears.

 

[DisneyMandC]

I’ve had my Hilton Biz in hand for about 15 minutes and already managed to make a $1,500+ dent in the $5,000 MSR. @Judique said it best: money disappears.

You're doing better than me and I've had mine for 3 weeks I'm leaving for PA at 5 AM tomorrow though so I'll be putting a dent in at this weekend at my horse show.

Just catching up here after a busy day. No more Target-Disney!? Bummer. I've done really well with this deal over the last three years. I'd definitely slowed down a lot since getting into churning, but it was still nice to walk out with at least a $25 GC every month from Swagbucks.

 

[Lvsdisney]

With the Hilton Amex offer out right now for the no AF card, the bonus is 75K HH points for a $1k spend. Does that give me automatic Gold Status?

 

[Lain]

You're doing better than me and I've had mine for 3 weeks I'm leaving for PA at 5 AM tomorrow though so I'll be putting a dent in at this weekend at my horse show.

Luckily, the Hilton Biz arrived just in time to pay next month’s bills.

You mean you’re actually using the Hilton Biz for your actual biz?! Lol!

 

[Lain]

With the Hilton Amex offer out right now for the no AF card, the bonus is 75K HH points for a $1k spend. Does that give me automatic Gold Status?

No. Only silver status.

All Four American Express Hilton Cards Compared