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

[punkin]

What do you guys do with all the visa gift cards? I just bought $1k at staples and am kind of clueless where to use them when I have credit cards giving back points.

 

[disfanforlife]

That is unfortunate. Who did you call? Apple or CIP? Did they decline covering the issue because of the age of the phones (iphone 8?). We recently purchased an iphone 11 directly from Apple using Chase UR, if you have them.

I called CIP. They declined saying it wasn’t covered because it was normal wear and that is not covered under the protection. Not sure what is covered . If I dropped it and broke it but not when it just randomly stopped working I guess. It’s weird I thought it would have been covered. I could try submitting a claim online and see what happens. I do have Chase URs. I saw there was a special but that ended last month.

 

[disfanforlife]

What do you guys do with all the visa gift cards? I just bought $1k at staples and am kind of clueless where to use them when I have credit cards giving back points.

I use mine at Sam’s club and I also used some to pay for new glasses at the eye doctors.

 

[havaneselover]

What do you guys do with all the visa gift cards? I just bought $1k at staples and am kind of clueless where to use them when I have credit cards giving back points.

I buy money orders and pay my mortgage or deposit them at my bank (not my primary bank).

 

[afan]

I use mine at Sam’s club and I also used some to pay for new glasses at the eye doctors.

I generally only do them at Safeway when I'm working on an msr on an amex, but no crazy amounts. I use them at costco or my chiropractor because he doesn't take amex. Plus amex doesn't code fred meyer (my reg grocery store) as grocery so buying them at safeway gets me extra points on my hilton and gold.

 

[DisneyMandC]

The cross country course is an exciting day. Those horses and riders are nuts!!! The first 2 days of Dressage are interesting. I was amazed at how many horses were able to do higher level moves but gave the rider the middle finger at the stop and back. Each maneuver worth 10 points. Then the jumping on the final day... the horses that allowed the riders to drive did well. Those that took over made mistakes.
They had many farm tours during that time.

Good to know on farm tours! I'm definitely going to look into those. I enjoy dressage, but it's not something I'd want to sit and watch a ton of. I'd really love to see the stadium jumping, but not sure if it will work into our schedule. If they have some guidelines up for how it's going to be set up for seating as far as covid, I may try to work it in.

And agree that the cross country riders are nuts! That's the one thing you couldn't ever convince me to do with a horse... no give to those jumps when you hit them!

I went to school in Lexington and lived there for seven years. We usually go back at least once a year. Are you planning visiting a specific area or time of year? The KY Horse Park is great, if your going in April or October they will be racing at Keeneland (well at least during normal years) and most of the big horse farms have tours. We visited Three Chimneys once and they let you watch the breeding session - wasn’t expecting that close up and personal of a tour! If the timing is right some of the farms give nursery tours of all the babies! DM me with any questions you have.

We are planning on going in April! I figure that will be a good time as far as seeing the weanlings too. We've seen enough breedings that it wouldn't be exciting to us anymore But I am definitely going to take you up on your offer of DMing you once I get things nailed down a little bit more!! Thank you!

 

[Judique]

What do you guys do with all the visa gift cards? I just bought $1k at staples and am kind of clueless where to use them when I have credit cards giving back points.

I just turned a CIU into a CIC to use at Staples to buy the fee free Visa cards and get 5 UR's per $. Then I will use them at Costco for my regular shopping to increase my payout on my Costco groceries. I usually spend a minimum of $500 a month at Costco and usually much more. Also get 2% with the Executive membership.

This quarter I'll max out the Freedom first, and then finish up with the gift cards.

Not the same magnitude as some, but I pick up whatever UR's I can.

 

[StephPlum]

A story of caution for anyone with travel credits through Chase UR. We had credits from a cancelled flight on United. I found the replacement flight I wanted on the Chase portal and called in to customer service as directed on the email to book. The customer service rep couldn’t find the exact flight I had chosen, so she found similar times. When we got to the end, the flights she had found were 2X the cost of the one I had found. I gave her the flight numbers for the ones I had found, and she let me know that United wasn’t releasing all available flights to book with travel credits, so even flights that are available for new bookings in the portal don’t show up as available with the credits. I was able to contact United directly to use my credits on the cheaper flight, so it worked out in the end.

I'd like to do this as well and was originally thinking I'd pay all cash. However, I have points available that I could use. I've never transferred (or used for that matter) my UR. Do I just move them from one card over to my Hyatt card and then book the room through Hyatt? Or do I have to use the portal and book through the portal? Sorry if this seems like a basic question- still trying to learn it all

This is how I would approach it-

1) sign up for the Hyatt promotion that returns points on point stays (if you haven't already)

https://world.hyatt.com/content/gp/...-Amsterdam-P014-Canal-View-Bike-Flowers_nov20
2) make sure your Hyatt number is linked to your UR account

3) transfer UR->Hyatt

4) book via your Hyatt membership

HTH!

@tink1970 gave great directions. You need a UR card you can transfer from - CIP, CSR, or CSP.
There are two Hyatt promos and they stack. The one that returns points on points stays linked above. And the one that gives double nights. https://world.hyatt.com/content/gp/en/offers/bonus-journeys-triple-points.html. You have to register by 1/15.

 

[punkin]

I use mine at Sam’s club and I also used some to pay for new glasses at the eye doctors.

Oh...glasses...good idea.

 

[punkin]

I just turned a CIU into a CIC to use at Staples to buy the fee free Visa cards and get 5 UR's per $. Then I will use them at Costco for my regular shopping to increase my payout on my Costco groceries. I usually spend a minimum of $500 a month at Costco and usually much more. Also get 2% with the Executive membership.

This quarter I'll max out the Freedom first, and then finish up with the gift cards.

Not the same magnitude as some, but I pick up whatever UR's I can.

Dh had the Freedom. How much is the max out?

 

[punkin]

I buy money orders and pay my mortgage or deposit them at my bank (not my primary bank).

You can buy money orders with gift cards?

 

[havaneselover]

You can buy money orders with gift cards?

Food Lion in VA allows it. As long as it's pin-based debit.

 

[disneybirds]

What do you guys do with all the visa gift cards? I just bought $1k at staples and am kind of clueless where to use them when I have credit cards giving back points.

I pay the water bill online, taxes, doctor bills, etc. I primarily use the $200 gift cards for normal everyday spend where I only get 1.5x points.

 

[punkin]

Food Lion in VA allows it. As long as it's pin-based debit.

Are the staples via cards pin based? This is the first time I did this. May have to take a little trip to VA. Lol.

 

[Alexle2007]

What do you guys do with all the visa gift cards? I just bought $1k at staples and am kind of clueless where to use them when I have credit cards giving back points.

I pay DS’s tuition. I end up with .01 left on them since they charge a fee but I come out ahead with 5x.

 

[Alexle2007]

Are the staples via cards pin based? This is the first time I did this. May have to take a little trip to VA. Lol.

Yes, they are regular VGCs. My Staples actually allows me to do $2k at a time.

 

[punkin]

Yes, they are regular VGCs. My Staples actually allows me to do $2k at a time.

There were only 5 in the store. Apparently someone came in earlier today and cleaned bought 20 of them. The cashier told me.

 

[softballpooh]

@tink1970 gave great directions. You need a UR card you can transfer from - CIP, CSR, or CSP.
There are two Hyatt promos and they stack. The one that returns points on points stays linked above. And the one that gives double nights. https://world.hyatt.com/content/gp/en/offers/bonus-journeys-triple-points.html. You have to register by 1/15.

Thank you! Got it! I registered my number with the promos and took a look around the UR portal. I have both the CSP and CSR so it was easy enough to see how to select the cards and transfer them. Now to find some dates to run!

 

[alryan]

Any experience having to return a portion of your saks order for the amex credit? This is driving me crazy, but I'm going to have to return / reorder the item I ordered with DH's amex. They don't have in our local store to exchange. If I reorder today (so it will be on card by the end of the year), but have to return the item that created the credit I received, will I still be ok?

Timeline:
$147.26 order placed on 12/14
$50 credit received on 12/17

I need to return this, so can I reorder today so it will post to credit card by 12/31 and then return original order and still keep $50 credit?

I"m going to have to do it regardless, so I guess I'll find out, but I hope I didn't mess up this year's credit in the process

And we both were so happy with what we got with the Sak's credit. Glad to hear you are close enough to a store and can just go the gift card route. That was the one thing that I was hoping I didn't have to return, but I messed up and ordered the wrong size Dr. Martens. And of course the correct size isn't available. I set up an alert so hopefully it comes in to use with the next credit. I really don't want to have to buy them somewhere else and spend $150. So I just ordered a $50 water bottle. I can't believe how hard it was to find something for $50 that I could actually use or want. I got an email that the item shipped 45 minutes after ordering, should be here on Wednesday. I thought about just letting the credit go.

I forget, who are our XBox experts here? @Killer Fish? My boys told me that their Xbox Live membership expired, no wonder they haven't been playing it! So I thought perfect, I'll just use some of my $460 of Xbox gift cards. But looks like the 12 month membership is no longer available, at least when trying to buy it from the Xbox. I was okay spending $60 for a year, but the $25 for 3 months seems like more than they would really make use out of it. I do see you can still buy the year Xbox Live at other places and I'm wondering if I should just buy that. But then that seems kind of silly with all the gift cards I already have.

 

[havaneselover]

Are the staples via cards pin based? This is the first time I did this. May have to take a little trip to VA. Lol.

Yep—I only mentioned pin-based debit because food lion’s registers allow credit cards but in my area they confirm on the receipt that you used debit. But any visa gift card should work.