I love credit cards so much! v3.0 (see first page for add'l details)

[LynnTH]

I got a preapproved offer from amex to upgrade my dl biz for 40k miles and 3k in spend. But with the af at $250 I don't think it's worth it but if I'm still in pop up jail on the 27th when I can try again I may just take it to see if it helps. It pushes things back but I also worry I'd get the popup for whatever high mr sign up bonus I could do too. And I really don't want to have to go the marriott route, especially with all the stories that keep coming out.

I just got this offer too. Will have to research what else you get with the $250 fee in anything.

 

[striker1064]

I have not either (or Amex or Chase, must have stayed under the limits this year).
Where do you put the income on your returns without a 1099?

Same as if you had one, it's entered as a 1099-INT or 1099-MISC.

 

[wendow]

I’ve been sitting at my gym for over an hour because I’ve almost passed out 3 times. I think it’s getting to that point when I need to slow done a lot. They’ve been great with having me lay down, taking my pulse, bought me snacks for sugar, etc. It was probably a mixture of lack of sleep, being too hot, pushing myself too hard, and my anemia.

You definitely need to slow it down. Way down. PLEASE!

As far as pregnancy dreams, well, they can be pretty cray-cray! Those were absolutely the weirdest ones I ever had in my life. I never looked up the meaning but I did have a lot about being attacked and in later pregnancies, I would dream about losing my other child(ren) like at the mall and such.

I don't have many nightmares but last night I had one where someone was trying to drown me. I didn't wake up for quite awhile and it completely freaked me out

 

[Haley R]

You definitely need to slow it down. Way down. PLEASE!

As far as pregnancy dreams, well, they can be pretty cray-cray! Those were absolutely the weirdest ones I ever had in my life. I never looked up the meaning but I did have a lot about being attacked and in later pregnancies, I would dream about losing my other child(ren) like at the mall and such.

I don't have many nightmares but last night I had one where someone was trying to drown me. I didn't wake up for quite awhile and it completely freaked me out

I’m at home now laying on the couch. I had to wait until I was okay enough to drive home. I think it was the specific class I took. I felt fine during, but afterwards was when I got light headed. My doctor knows because she goes to the same gym and the instructor messaged her. She told me to go to the ER if it gets worse.

I’ve never had a dream about drowning. That sounds horrible. It’s one of those things where there isn’t anything you can do about it.

 

[StephPlum]

I received the bonus from PNC this year and still no 1099. Has anyone else received theirs?
I closed my acct so I can’t log on to email them or see it online.
I’m going to try calling later but what do I do if they say I don’t have anything?

As someone else said, I did report as interest income even though I did not get a 1099. Both DH and I got bonuses from PNC this year, so a total of 800. Seems like a small price to pay (taxes) vs the chance of an audit and the IRS finding something missing.

 

[afan]

As someone else said, I did report as interest income even though I did not get a 1099. Both DH and I got bonuses from PNC this year, so a total of 800. Seems like a small price to pay (taxes) vs the chance of an audit and the IRS finding something missing.

Doesn pnc put them online? My credit union always does 1099 even if it's only a few bucks but I have to print iy. Their site says they only mail mortgage statements everything else is online.

Pnc does send the mortgage one because I get it every year.

 

[miztressuz]

This thread has been very helpful and I’m still in awe of what so many of you have managed to do with your points. I have plans kind of in the works now for our upcoming trips to wdw and cruises. But we’re starting to plan a trip to Europe for 2021 or 2022. We’ve never been before so I’m looking for advice on what points/cards will benefit us the most. Our plans are to fly in to London, with stops afterward in Paris and ending in Rome for a few days with hopefully a day trip/train ride to Venice. It’s the very early stages of planning and I’ve got lots of research to do, but this is where I’ll start. Afterall, for years all of my best research for our wdw trips has been done here on the DIS in the other trip planning forums!
So my biggest questions for now are-
1. Is London the best city for us to start in? I thought I read several pages back that London was tough to fly out of so that’s why I thought we’d start there instead. Also, flying out of Pittsburgh- any recommendations on a particular airline?
2. Is there a hotel brand we should focus on building a stash of points for? Not looking for anything super high end but definitely places with a good reputation (clean and safe).
3. Once in London, what is the best way to get to Paris and then on to Rome?
We hope to take this trip in June of 2022 right after DS graduates from college. Would love to go in May but DD will be playing college softball and we won’t know when her season will end. Second option would be August 2021 before he starts his last year but I heard lots of places close in august in Europe. Is that true and how would it affect our trip? Fyi our travel party will be me, DH, DS22, DD20. Thanks in advance! Europe is a whole new animal for us as we have stuck mostly to the US, Mexico, and the Caribbean.

I'm not much help since I'm just starting to plan a trip to the UK myself, but after a quick bit of research for you I think the only airline that does non-stop from PIT to London is BA for now. So you'd want to look at BA and Oneworld alliance partners if non stop is appealing and would prefer to not position to another airport like PHL/JFK/EWR. For giggles I briefly looked at CLE but looks like the same connections as PIT so unless it was a wild savings probably not worth the extra travel.

I have been referring to this blog post to keep track of what fees get charged on award flights for the different options
https://upgradedpoints.com/best-ways-to-fly-to-london-with-points/
I think most of the higher fees are on flights originating from London so if you're making it a one way to London that probably won't be as much of a consideration. We're looking to do a cruise and I'm not sure yet if we'll return from London or add some time at the end to return from another city so I'm keeping it in mind. But, the article runs down some of the majors for awards flights to get you started looking.

I'd also stalk the flights that you can book now to get a rough idea on pricing so you can compare using a flexible currency to using airline points, and the "costs" to acquire.
As a completely made up example, say a round trip flight PIT-LON costs $700 including all fees and is bookable through the Chase UR portal. If you have the CSR that would be 46,666 UR points. That's at least 1 50k sign up bonus per ticket that requires 3-4k of spend to earn (plus AF(s)).
Say this flight is bookable through AA as an award ticket. In a flexible fare bucket (not a web special or something) it'd be 60,000 AA points + $200 in taxes/fees. That's a 60k/65k sign up bonus per ticket that could require up to 4k in spend plus an AF.
Or if the flight you want on AA is a partner flight with surcharges (like BA) then it'd be 60,000 AA + ~$500 in taxes/fees.
Looking at BA flights on BA it'd be 40,000 Avios + ~$650 in taxes/fees. (It'd be more if choosing flights with connections but the fees would be roughly the same) So again, looking at the 50k sign up bonus for 3k in spend plus an AF.

Now you'll have to look at the opportunity for earning those points. Chase has 5 cards with at least 50k UR bonuses, if you're willing to open business cards. There is also opportunities for cross support if you can play in 2 player mode amongst most of those cards. Chase UR can also be transferred to BA if you hold a premium travel card (CSP/CSR/CIP) at 1:1.

AA has two credit card partners, Citi and Barclays. They each have at least one personal AA card and a biz card. You can get cards from both banks, one does not affect the eligibility of the other. So that's 4 worthwhile cards, again, if open to business cards. (To note, AA has been going on a tear shutting down AA rewards accounts for people who took advantage of Citi's incompetence over the last couple years. That's giving it some bad vibes and cautions around these parts. I personally feel that it's not a program to shy away from if you're just starting out and haven't engaged them before, BUT absolutely keep your earnings above board. Now that AA has started this path, I think they'll be more vigilant going forward. So far getting cards from both partner banks is still above board.) Each bank has their pros and cons but if you need a large amount of points you'll probably need both. Citi offers their cards with the first year AF waived but has higher minimum spends to meet the bonus, generally around 4k. Barclays usually offers the bonus on the condition of paying the AF plus a smaller spend requirement, like a single purchase (not sure if that's still available) or $1000.

BA offers a credit card from Chase and typically has a 50k bonus. It also has tiered offers, like right now you can get 100k total if you spend 20k in the first year. As a single card it's not usually very appealing if you need many points but Chase also offers Aer Lingus and Iberia cards which also earn Avios and have the same bonus offers. AFAIK these are all still considered separate cards so you can earn the bonus on each and transfer the Avios to the other programs. Having the BA card allows you to use Avios to pay the taxes/fees on BA award flights, which could be appealing in the right circumstances.

In this completely made up case I might just go with using Chase UR on the portal for minimal OOP cash costs if I'm buying more than 1 ticket. The CSR would be an effective $250 AF but the rest of tickets are covered by points. I might also consider the BA card if I were booking a BA flight since I could use Avios to cover the taxes and again just be out the AF cost if $95 each card. If doing a single ticket I might consider going through AA since the AF is waived on a Citi card and I'd only have about $200 in taxes which is less than the CSR AF. But that wouldn't be on the BA non-stop and it's gets more expensive with multiple tickets so for this scenario I'd put that at the bottom of the pile.

This is not an exhaustive analysis (in fact I'm not totally sure it IS an analysis rather than ramblings ), it gets more complicated when comparing one way flights and even the different CC perks, but this is the kind of path to consider when making plans. I only started down on BA non stop flights for London, if you're comfortable with other options then there's many more paths to consider (like if you prefer Delta you'd be looking at AmEx options instead of Chase) You'll want to compare the options to come up with a primary plan and then pick the next best as a backup and work out the path for both. When you plan far out things can change but if you only plan short term you may not be able to optimize your points use.

If I have the time, I like to work backwards from my preferred activities and and then build a plan to accomplish that. If that plan becomes unfeasible, then I'll rework the trip. You have a start there with your start and end cities so I'd look at one way tickets versus open jaw (multi city) tickets and see which comes out more economical. One way cash tickets are usually prohibitive so an open jaw would make that more comparable to doing one way award tickets - since award tickets are priced out as one ways anyways - for comparisons of the different earning options. Google flights is good to get an idea of who is flying the cities you are traveling so you can drill down into their rewards programs. I hope any of that makes sense!

 

[elgerber]

Doesn pnc put them online? My credit union always does 1099 even if it's only a few bucks but I have to print iy. Their site says they only mail mortgage statements everything else is online.

Pnc does send the mortgage one because I get it every year.

Probably, but those of us asking, have closed our accounts, so we don't have online access anymore.

 

[amcc]

Does anyone have a wide discrepancy on their credit score between two of the credit agencies? On credit karma, my equifax score is 70 points lower than Transunion I see nothing strange reporting. We have a still small home equity for our home remodel but haven’t drawn much from it. No late payments on anything.

 

[Chrizwald]

Hi, I'm new here! I'm thinking about getting a card just for miles/points. This is something i have never done before, so i only know a little bit from reading here and a couple places online.

I'm looking at the Southwest Rapid rewards, and Chase Sapphire Preferred Card (which my Chase app tells me i'm "already approved" for) But honestly, maybe there's something out there that's better that i just haven't seen yet.

I've filled out the info from the stickies to the best of my ability, see below. Any advice would be so helpful. I don't want to make a FATAL ERROR!

Past 24 months:
12/19 – CITI My Best Buy
04/19 - CHASE Freedom

• What amount of spend would you put on a card monthly (i.e. groceries, gas, insurance, cable, cell phone, other expenses)?

2,000 at least

• Do you currently payoff your CCs in full every month or do you carry any balances/pay any interest?

Carry some balance now, will be paying off if I get the new one

• What airport(s) do you typically fly out of?

BNA - Nashville

• Do you have a preference of Frequent Flyer program?

No

• Does SOUTHWEST Airline service your airport?

Yes

• Do you have a Hotel Rewards program preference?

No

• Do you currently have travel points or miles in any program? (if so, which programs and how much)

No, first time

• What at your specific goals for churning credit cards? (i.e. Disney World Trip, Cruise, European Trip, Cash Back to pay-off a mortgage or student loans, etc. - you can have multiple goals too!)

Short term: Disney World Trip. Long term: flight and hotel for other continental Destinations.

• When do you plan to take these trips? (Keep in mind that it can be difficult to earn points/miles to cover imminent travel...it's best to plan far in advance, especially with regards to international travel)

Next Disney trip isn’t until October…

• Who does your travel party consist of? (Spouse, Kids (& ages), other relatives/friends)

Only 2: Me and Spouse

 

[afan]

Probably, but those of us asking, have closed our accounts, so we don't have online access anymore.

I thought that might be the case but wasn't sure.if it was for everyone.

 

[afan]

I just got this offer too. Will have to research what else you get with the $250 fee in anything.

I looked and unless you can use.the companion cert you won't get til your anniversary I don't think it's worth it. Plus the sign up bonus is better than the upgrade. It's not worth it to me knowing both of those even if it got me out of popup for the hilton. I'd rather try for an mr card than derail my plan to upgrade in hopes of it helping.

 

[becauseimnew]

Hi, I'm new here! I'm thinking about getting a card just for miles/points. This is something i have never done before, so i only know a little bit from reading here and a couple places online.

I'm looking at the Southwest Rapid rewards, and Chase Sapphire Preferred Card (which my Chase app tells me i'm "already approved" for) But honestly, maybe there's something out there that's better that i just haven't seen yet.

I've filled out the info from the stickies to the best of my ability, see below. Any advice would be so helpful. I don't want to make a FATAL ERROR!

Past 24 months:
12/19 – CITI My Best Buy
04/19 - CHASE Freedom

• What amount of spend would you put on a card monthly (i.e. groceries, gas, insurance, cable, cell phone, other expenses)?

2,000 at least

• Do you currently payoff your CCs in full every month or do you carry any balances/pay any interest?

Carry some balance now, will be paying off if I get the new one

• What airport(s) do you typically fly out of?

BNA - Nashville

• Do you have a preference of Frequent Flyer program?

No

• Does SOUTHWEST Airline service your airport?

Yes

• Do you have a Hotel Rewards program preference?

No

• Do you currently have travel points or miles in any program? (if so, which programs and how much)

No, first time

• What at your specific goals for churning credit cards? (i.e. Disney World Trip, Cruise, European Trip, Cash Back to pay-off a mortgage or student loans, etc. - you can have multiple goals too!)

Short term: Disney World Trip. Long term: flight and hotel for other continental Destinations.

• When do you plan to take these trips? (Keep in mind that it can be difficult to earn points/miles to cover imminent travel...it's best to plan far in advance, especially with regards to international travel)

Next Disney trip isn’t until October…

• Who does your travel party consist of? (Spouse, Kids (& ages), other relatives/friends)

Only 2: Me and Spouse

Hi and Welcome!

You've come to the right place at the right time, specifically if you are interested in Southwest points.
They have a great offer that expires 2/18 via support links. You can earn 75,000 SW points by spending $5,000 in 6 months.
Earn 40,000 points after you spend $1,000 on purchases in the first 3 months of account opening.
Plus, earn 35,000 after you spend $5,000 on purchases within your first 6 months of account opening.

You will be more than halfway to earning the companion pass. If you have any side gigs you could apply for a Southwest business card to earn the other 45,000 you need to earn the Companion pass. OR you can apply for 2 personal cards, but you would have to do what's knows a Modified Double Dip, if you are interested in earning your CP that way, there are detailed instructions on the Redding/DISChurners group.

The other card we recommend to everyone is the Chase Business Ink Preferred (CIP), that you earn you 80,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards (URs) for spending $5,000 in 3 months. That's my favorite card. Once you have the card, you can refer your spouse to get their our CIP earning you 20K URs and they'll get 80K URs for completing the spend. You can combine all of your URs in one account, and Chase makes it super easy to combine the points.

 

[magickingdomprincess]

In regards to the 24 month rule for churning a SW card, if a statement closed on 2/9, and the bonus was received in your RR account on 2/11, when would it be safe to apply again 24 months later? Would it be 2/10 (day after stmt closed), or 2/12 (day after rec’d in account)? Thanks!

 

[LilSweetPeaPhoto]

Does anyone have a wide discrepancy on their credit score between two of the credit agencies? On credit karma, my equifax score is 70 points lower than Transunion I see nothing strange reporting. We have a still small home equity for our home remodel but haven’t drawn much from it. No late payments on anything.

I am like 813 on one and 760 on another. I'm like really? I figure either way I'm good, but that's a pretty big difference.

 

[becauseimnew]

FYI:
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/psa-check-your-southwest-companion-pass-expiration-dates/

 

[Minnie368]

I'm not much help since I'm just starting to plan a trip to the UK myself, but after a quick bit of research for you I think the only airline that does non-stop from PIT to London is BA for now. So you'd want to look at BA and Oneworld alliance partners if non stop is appealing and would prefer to not position to another airport like PHL/JFK/EWR. For giggles I briefly looked at CLE but looks like the same connections as PIT so unless it was a wild savings probably not worth the extra travel.

I have been referring to this blog post to keep track of what fees get charged on award flights for the different options
https://upgradedpoints.com/best-ways-to-fly-to-london-with-points/
I think most of the higher fees are on flights originating from London so if you're making it a one way to London that probably won't be as much of a consideration. We're looking to do a cruise and I'm not sure yet if we'll return from London or add some time at the end to return from another city so I'm keeping it in mind. But, the article runs down some of the majors for awards flights to get you started looking.

I'd also stalk the flights that you can book now to get a rough idea on pricing so you can compare using a flexible currency to using airline points, and the "costs" to acquire.
As a completely made up example, say a round trip flight PIT-LON costs $700 including all fees and is bookable through the Chase UR portal. If you have the CSR that would be 46,666 UR points. That's at least 1 50k sign up bonus per ticket that requires 3-4k of spend to earn (plus AF(s)).
Say this flight is bookable through AA as an award ticket. In a flexible fare bucket (not a web special or something) it'd be 60,000 AA points + $200 in taxes/fees. That's a 60k/65k sign up bonus per ticket that could require up to 4k in spend plus an AF.
Or if the flight you want on AA is a partner flight with surcharges (like BA) then it'd be 60,000 AA + ~$500 in taxes/fees.
Looking at BA flights on BA it'd be 40,000 Avios + ~$650 in taxes/fees. (It'd be more if choosing flights with connections but the fees would be roughly the same) So again, looking at the 50k sign up bonus for 3k in spend plus an AF.

Now you'll have to look at the opportunity for earning those points. Chase has 5 cards with at least 50k UR bonuses, if you're willing to open business cards. There is also opportunities for cross support if you can play in 2 player mode amongst most of those cards. Chase UR can also be transferred to BA if you hold a premium travel card (CSP/CSR/CIP) at 1:1.

AA has two credit card partners, Citi and Barclays. They each have at least one personal AA card and a biz card. You can get cards from both banks, one does not affect the eligibility of the other. So that's 4 worthwhile cards, again, if open to business cards. (To note, AA has been going on a tear shutting down AA rewards accounts for people who took advantage of Citi's incompetence over the last couple years. That's giving it some bad vibes and cautions around these parts. I personally feel that it's not a program to shy away from if you're just starting out and haven't engaged them before, BUT absolutely keep your earnings above board. Now that AA has started this path, I think they'll be more vigilant going forward. So far getting cards from both partner banks is still above board.) Each bank has their pros and cons but if you need a large amount of points you'll probably need both. Citi offers their cards with the first year AF waived but has higher minimum spends to meet the bonus, generally around 4k. Barclays usually offers the bonus on the condition of paying the AF plus a smaller spend requirement, like a single purchase (not sure if that's still available) or $1000.

BA offers a credit card from Chase and typically has a 50k bonus. It also has tiered offers, like right now you can get 100k total if you spend 20k in the first year. As a single card it's not usually very appealing if you need many points but Chase also offers Aer Lingus and Iberia cards which also earn Avios and have the same bonus offers. AFAIK these are all still considered separate cards so you can earn the bonus on each and transfer the Avios to the other programs. Having the BA card allows you to use Avios to pay the taxes/fees on BA award flights, which could be appealing in the right circumstances.

In this completely made up case I might just go with using Chase UR on the portal for minimal OOP cash costs if I'm buying more than 1 ticket. The CSR would be an effective $250 AF but the rest of tickets are covered by points. I might also consider the BA card if I were booking a BA flight since I could use Avios to cover the taxes and again just be out the AF cost if $95 each card. If doing a single ticket I might consider going through AA since the AF is waived on a Citi card and I'd only have about $200 in taxes which is less than the CSR AF. But that wouldn't be on the BA non-stop and it's gets more expensive with multiple tickets so for this scenario I'd put that at the bottom of the pile.

This is not an exhaustive analysis (in fact I'm not totally sure it IS an analysis rather than ramblings ), it gets more complicated when comparing one way flights and even the different CC perks, but this is the kind of path to consider when making plans. I only started down on BA non stop flights for London, if you're comfortable with other options then there's many more paths to consider (like if you prefer Delta you'd be looking at AmEx options instead of Chase) You'll want to compare the options to come up with a primary plan and then pick the next best as a backup and work out the path for both. When you plan far out things can change but if you only plan short term you may not be able to optimize your points use.

If I have the time, I like to work backwards from my preferred activities and and then build a plan to accomplish that. If that plan becomes unfeasible, then I'll rework the trip. You have a start there with your start and end cities so I'd look at one way tickets versus open jaw (multi city) tickets and see which comes out more economical. One way cash tickets are usually prohibitive so an open jaw would make that more comparable to doing one way award tickets - since award tickets are priced out as one ways anyways - for comparisons of the different earning options. Google flights is good to get an idea of who is flying the cities you are traveling so you can drill down into their rewards programs. I hope any of that makes sense!

Wow that is a lot of information! Thank you for all of that! It's a great starting point. My mind is spinning. We have mostly flown Southwest for everything- except for flights booked for us by DH employer- so it's a little overwhelming trying to learn whose points transfer to who and what they're worth, etc. I did try looking at what was available for dates in the future to get an idea but didn't get very far yet. I didn't realize there were any non stop flights from Pittsburgh at all so that's interesting. I definitely have some work to do. I feel like the flights are the hard part. I also did some checking at hotels and was surprised at how difficult it was to find a room for more than just two people. More often than not, they couldn't accommodate 4 in one room, even when looking pretty far out. I'm hoping when I spend a little more time I find better availability or DS and DD will be getting their own room separate from mom and dad- at their age they'd probably like that, but I'm so used to us being together. I was looking at the AA cards from citi and barclays but was concerned because of everything going on now. I would definitely tread lightly for now. I need to figure out the AA, BA, one world alliance thing and get a better understanding of how those alliances work.

 

[miztressuz]

It's the term being used for AmEx. It's a step in the AmEx approval process when the person applying for an AmEx card receives language that tells them they are ineligible for the card. It seems to have a lot of randomness as to how gets hit with it. Some people only have 1 or 2 cards with AmEx and others have many. Some put no or limited spend on their cards and never see the popup and others put lots of spend on only certain cards and still get the popup. Sometimes putting send on the cards you have makes the popup go away, sometimes it doesn't. If you receive the dreaded popup, sometimes you can get immediately approved for a different card. So let's you were applying for a Hilton Aspire and you get the popup (Hilton seems to be very prone to popups for some reason), you could apply for the BBP and maybe get approved. There really is no rhyme or reason. The general advice is put consistent spend on all of your AmEx cards.

Great explanation, I'm just going to be nit picky on one thing - @njcarita , the pop up doesn't make you ineligible for the card itself, but it's warning you that you are ineligible for the sign up bonus. For us as churners and points chasers that's essentially the same thing, but it's still a distinction I think should be pointed out since if you continue with the application AmEx could approve you for the card (and if you're breathing, they probably will!) and once you have the card you're no longer eligible for future sign up bonuses on that card (unless a special offer comes around without the lifetime language). This is unlike Chase where they do have language for some cards that makes you ineligible for the card itself, even if you want it without the bonus (Chase will flat out deny your application if you don't meet the stated criteria).

The AmEx pop up gives you a chance to cancel the application before you submit it if you still want to be considered for the bonus. Which is better than what AmEx would do before where they would approve you for the card and if they didn't like you just not post the bonus Then you'd have a card you aren't eligible to receive the bonus on again AND just wasted spend that could have gone to another card.

I like the jail or purgatory analogy because now AmEx gives you a chance to see the error of your ways, repent, and potentially return to their good graces.

 

[mgarbowski]

Probably, but those of us asking, have closed our accounts, so we don't have online access anymore.

Have you checked? In my experience many financial companies keep online accounts active long after the person closes all product accounts. I believe this is partly to facilitate access to things like tax documents and partly in hope you still come back.
I recently had occasion to sign into my online account for a retail brokerage company. My accounts have been closed for 8-10 years but I could sign in.

 

[wendow]

Has anyone seen any Amex (or any other offer) for Ticketmaster?