Pre Trip Report or How I Embraced Credit Card Rewards and Learned to Love Them

Just trying to make sense of all of this to maximize my rewards. So is it best to redeem Barclay rewards in $100 increments? So I I book multiple SW flights, book them all as one way? And I assume these points do not expire since I saving up for a February 2020 trip.

Howdy!

I only used the $100 increments to use the last 10K points left over. In my 2nd post at top you can see that for my redemption, my tactic was to avoid leaving many (or any) points on the table.

My eligible charge and points I had meant if I just redeemed them for the maximum (56K points) I would have left 3,750 points on the table - and because of Barclay’s 10K minimum redemption I would have had to spend a bunch of money to use them (PLUS have another eligible travel charge to use them on. If it took me awhile to spend enough money to get back to 10K, I may not have had a charge I could use.)

So, I redeemed less points (50K) against my UT Tickets and thus had 8,500 points left. That meant I only needed to spend $750 to get back up to the 10K minimum - or use my trick of posting for points in their forums.

I used that last 10K points on a $100 hotel charge from our drive home.

Note, I jumped through all these hoops to maximize everything because my intention was to use these cards for the reward bonus and drop them. If I was keeping them and using long term and I had multiple trips, would have been less of an issue.

Hope that didn’t get too confusing. :thinking:

Regarding points expiration: It has been awhile now, but I believe as long as you use the card at least once every 6 months the points remain. However, I’d check that myself if I were you as my memory could be faulty.

Can anyone help me with a question on the rewards card for the Disney Chase? I have accumulated a good bit of rewards on the card. Will that redemption card work on parking fees and stroller rentals also?

The rewards card acts just like a Disney gift card - so you can use it any place that takes a GC.

That includes parking, and I’d have to assume stroller rentals directly from WDW, but maybe someone else with experience on that one?..

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Thanks! Between the $200 gift card after spending $500 in 3 months as well as my rewards over the last few years. I should have between $700 and $800 in rewards. So, that will come in handy with food in parks as well as parking and some souvenirs.

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That’s a pretty nice return!

Don’t forget you can earn that sign-on bonus every 24 months by cancelling your card and re-applying… Extra $ earned for using a spouse referral link.

Just don’t forget to extract those rewards first! :slight_smile:

i hadn’t thought about the referral to my husband. I am definitely considering that one. Just for the added bonus.

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Yep - My wife and I round-robin-refer each other - double the referral and bonus every 2 years really adds up!

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I’m not sure if this deal is necessarily the “best bang for your buck,” but it worked and I am happy with it. I got a Citi Premier ThankYou card which is currently offering 60,000 bonus points when you spend at least $4,000 in the first 90 days (it was 50,000 when I did it). This means you have a minimum of 64,000 points at this point. If you’ve purchased anything in the bonus categories (travel, restaurants, entertainment) you will have more points than that.

This card is the only one that I have been able to find that allows you to use points to buy Disney tickets. When using the points for travel they are worth 1.25 cents each. The most expensive ticket (adult 10 day hopper plus at Christmas) is currently $749.59. That means you would need 59,968 points to get one. My ticket was a little cheaper because of the time of year I’m going, so I only needed 51,972 points. Either way, it would be covered by meeting the minimum spend.

The process took some time, but was easy. I had to call in to redeem my ThankYou points. You have to choose “cruise reservations” though, not “activity reservations.” From there you just give them the details, they talk to Disney, then you get a confirmation number. I entered mine into MDE today and there were no issues.

Yes, it does mean you are “paying” full price for your ticket, and the card has an annual fee of $95, but I was ok with that. I used the card for things I was already planning to buy and paid it off. I will most likely cancel it before the year is up, so I won’t pay another annual fee. So to me, I got a 10 day hopper plus for $95. I think that’s a pretty decent deal. And I’m sure there are probably other perks of the card I can use to also offset that $95.

Oh yeah, you are able to transfer points to other people. So my mom and husband got cards too. Once my mom gets her ticket, we will transfer the excess points we each have to my husband’s card and that should cover his ticket and one of our kid’s tickets. Woohoo! 4 tickets for $285!

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Excellent info, thanks! :slight_smile:

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I just saw this good old thread bumped and it reminded me to dig out an interesting offer I just got! We have the Southwest Visa and took advantage of the 40,000 Rapid Rewards point offer at the beginning of the year combined with our insane childcare costs and just got our companion pass good until 12/31/20.

A few weeks ago I got an offer of “up to” 12,500 Rapid Rewards points to switch our electrical supplier! I only have to stay with the new company for 2 months to earn 10,000 and then I could earn up to 2,500 additional ones if I stay longer. The offer is good until 10/1 so I plan to switch mid-Sept when our electric bill is the lowest. (This way I don’t have to worry too much about the actual market cost of electricity.) Either way, 10k is pretty much a free one-way flight!

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Just be aware of the rates they charge for electric services. The rates attached to the rewatds programs are much higher. My billes with the rates wuth the SWR program we averaging 70-80 per month higher. When I did the math, 10,000 points is approx $158. You generally need about 63 points on average to get 1 dollar in a flight. It is a good deal, however, depending on how much extra you electric bill goes up it might not work in your favor. I have had much better luck with my southwest card just using it for everything including bills and then paying it off rught away. Also using southwest shopping (get thr button) when i shop online and then use my card as well…double rewards. With just that i saved enough points in one year for round trip to MCO for 5 people. Love my SWCard

For August it actually looks about a whole cent cheaper than what I’m currently paying!

Thats great! Didnt work out so well for me lol

Wanted to add a quick data point to the thread: Just did another round: cancelled my wife’s Disney Visa yesterday, today grabbed a referral link from my card and reapplied for a new one online. Approved in 10 seconds.
So, process still working the same as in the past.

Cha Ching, another $200 statement credit + $100 referral bonus.

Once we earn both we’ll do it again in reverse with my card.

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So you cancelled hers and immediately applied for the new one in her name? There’s no waiting period?

Thanks JJT! I have Disney’s Visa (and just recently got the $200 statement credit).
On the “$100 referrel bonus” you reference, is that a $100 statement credit too, or is it the “refer a friend” for 100 Disney Rewards Dollars that I saw?
Thanks for the info!

I’ve run out of cards to churn. I’ve been at it since 2005 and went gangbusters the last two years.

Yes, this time we waited until the next day (I also had to temporarily unfreeze her credit reports before applying.)
In the past, I once called to cancel my card, hung up the phone, opened a new browser tab and applied for a new card with her referral.

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Unless they’ve changed it recently (I don’t think they have) the $100 referral comes on a rewards card.
I liked the old days when the sign on bonus came via rewards too, instead of the current statement credit. But, we just use Disney math and mentally apply that credit to a trip later. :wink: