How Many Credit Cards Do You Have?

[Rams]

Inspired by SteveDave and RickDaris, I've decided to jump into this crazy game. I've even committed myself to reading every page of this thread ( ), and am up to page 40 or so...

whoa whoa whoa...let me stop you right there.  please, for the love of god, don't waste your time reading every page of this thread.  sounds like you've got the gist of it. now just go here: www.millionmilesecrets.com and you can pretty much figure out everything else you need to know.  daraius pretty much gets all the pertinent info from flyertalk and everywhere else and summarizes into his blog.  start with the tabs up top for the "hot deals" and "new to miles and points" if you need to and then subscribe to his blog to get the daily email updates.  a lot of it is worthless interviews and blogs from his trips, but he does update it with all the important stuff too.  come back here to ask any questions you can't get answered on there.

I don't read daraius anymore. it's pretty much rehashing week old news and interviewing dorks.

the interviews are stupid, but the news is usually only a couple of days old which is fine 99% of the time. it's easier and less time consuming than spending all day on flyertalk and/or reading 6 different blogs.  unless you have a better/quicker option that summarizes all the relevant news in one place...

[steve dave]

BITB for this stuff is Lucky at:

http://boardingarea.com/blogs/onemileatatime/

Next would probably be rick daris' best bud:

http://thepointsguy.com/

Hell, even mommypoints is better than daraius. I love daraius, he's a super nice guy and whatnot. But his posts are not relevant to me. If you just go to the boardingarea page every day you will get all the big stuff:

http://boardingarea.com

[WonderMeal]

Thanks for the help, guys. (Even Rams, the worst poster on this board by far, has been pretty helpful.)

A few more questions for my new real life friends SD, ChiCat, RaquetCat, and Rams:

How many kids?  If you and your wife both companion passed a kid on Southwest, they could basically fly for free. 

Companion pass is very intriguing. Very. Can I apply for the personal and business (to get 100k RR points) and then have my wife apply for both (to get another 100k), too? And if I can somehow get four SW cards (and thus two companion passes), does her application need to be done on the same day?

Finally, my understanding is that once you earn 110k RR points, you get the companion pass...but that the companion pass doesn't actually cost any of those points. So with the 110k RR points, about how many flights could I get with that? I've never redeemed any bonuses from SW.

I would get the US Air, Gold Amex, AA, and a couple SW cards now if I were you.

When you say Gold Amex, do you mean the AmEx Premier Rewards Gold card (50k membership rewards points w/ $1k spend), or the AmEx Delta Gold card (45k miles after $5k spend in 6 months)? 

When you say AA card, do you mean sign up for both the 50k Visa and 50K Amex? Or if only one, does it matter which one I sign up for?

The only US Air link I found on the "Hot Deals" section listed by Rams is 30K miles for an $89 annual fee (not waived). Is that worth it? Is there something better?

If any of you get bonuses for referring me to these cards, I'm happy to go that route to help out some fellow EMAWs.

wondermeal, did you happen to play tennis at mhs?

[steve dave]

Companion pass is very intriguing. Very. Can I apply for the personal and business (to get 100k RR points) and then have my wife apply for both (to get another 100k), too? And if I can somehow get four SW cards (and thus two companion passes), does her application need to be done on the same day?

You both can get the companion pass. You don't have to sign up for them on the same day but you might as well.

Finally, my understanding is that once you earn 110k RR points, you get the companion pass...but that the companion pass doesn't actually cost any of those points. So with the 110k RR points, about how many flights could I get with that? I've never redeemed any bonuses from SW.

Correct. You can then book an award with your points and your companion flys with you free. 1 SW point is worth 1.67 cents in wanna get away fares. 1 cent in anytime fares. .83 cents in anytime fares. Double that with the companion. So, it depends on how expensive your ticket is. 110k is worth $1,837 in wanna get away fares (double with the companion).

I would get the US Air, Gold Amex, AA, and a couple SW cards now if I were you.

When you say Gold Amex, do you mean the AmEx Premier Rewards Gold card (50k membership rewards points w/ $1k spend), or the AmEx Delta Gold card (45k miles after $5k spend in 6 months)? 

I mean this one (under neath the "Personal") :  http://thepointsguy.com/2013/03/travel-tuesday-top-10-reasons-why-i-like-amex-membership-rewards-cards/

When you say AA card, do you mean sign up for both the 50k Visa and 50K Amex? Or if only one, does it matter which one I sign up for?

Doesn't matter which one. You can try both at once using the two browser trick but it has been buggy lately. You can sign up for either one and 4 months later sign up for the AA biz if you want.

The only US Air link I found on the "Hot Deals" section listed by Rams is 30K miles for an $89 annual fee (not waived). Is that worth it? Is there something better?

35k fee waived link: https://www.barclaycardus.com/apply/Landing.action?campaignId=1695&cellNumber=19

blog post about it: http://boardingarea.com/blogs/viewfromthewing/2013/02/15/theres-a-35000-mile-signup-bonus-for-the-us-airways-mastercard-that-some-will-consider-better-than-the-standard-40000-mile-offer/

If any of you get bonuses for referring me to these cards, I'm happy to go that route to help out some fellow EMAWs.

I may be able to refer you for the gold Amex but I don't know if it will give you the 50k offer. When you get the SPG amex (not until the bring back the 30k point offer) I can refer you for that. PM me your email and I'll see what offer they let me refer you for.

[steve dave]

list of priority club codes...is there one somewhere?

http://loyaltylobby.com/hotel-promotions/priority-club/

http://www.priorityclubinsider.com/

[Rams]

BITB for this stuff is Lucky at:

http://boardingarea.com/blogs/onemileatatime/

Next would probably be rick daris' best bud:

http://thepointsguy.com/

Hell, even mommypoints is better than daraius. I love daraius, he's a super nice guy and whatnot. But his posts are not relevant to me. If you just go to the boardingarea page every day you will get all the big stuff:

http://boardingarea.com

I already follow lucky on twitter, so I'm basically covered there.  I guess I should probably just subscribe to boardingarea and quite daraius.  lucky's blog entries are obviously better anyway.  I kind of got my start through daraius though so I feel like I'm abandoning him.  and he's so nice. 

[steve dave]

oh yeah, he's a great guy. pretty much the opposite of most of these douche bags. Also he lives in KC!

[steve dave]

New Amex 75k bonus biz card with $10k in spend in 4 months if you can spend that

http://thepointsguy.com/2013/03/amazing-deal-alert-limited-time-75000-points-for-amex-business-gold-rewards-card/

[Dr Rick Daris]

both of you guys are correct. darius is a great place to start but you'll outgrow it if you stick with it. also sd is bitb. i knew if i just dangled the priority question out there he'd find what i needed. thanks irl friend. 

[steve dave]

both of you guys are correct. darius is a great place to start but you'll outgrow it if you stick with it. also sd is bitb. i knew if i just dangled the priority question out there he'd find what i needed. thanks irl friend. 

 

[Boom Roasted]

I was basically Wondermeal 4 months ago and now this 

Got the companion pass qualified for today and already added her to a flight I booked a month ago.  Such a sweet deal considering I only paid the $5 tax on a flight that would now cost me about $300. 

[yoga-like_abana]

yeah sd has yet to fail anyone in this thread. Allah speed, friend

[steve dave]

Another possible use of those 50k Membership Rewards is to transfer to US Air via Aeroplan/points.com. This is an option if you are trying to load up on US Air. The 50k MR (after spend) would get you 42,005 US Air miles.

http://thepointsguy.com/2012/08/how-to-convert-amex-membership-rewards-to-us-airways-miles-at-a-decent-ratio/

[Mikeyis4dcats]

I need to figure out which SW cards I had before and get the other 2.   I wonder how to figure that out.

[steve dave]

I need to figure out which SW cards I had before and get the other 2.   I wonder how to figure that out.

when you login to chase do they still show up?

[Mikeyis4dcats]

I need to figure out which SW cards I had before and get the other 2.   I wonder how to figure that out.

when you login to chase do they still show up?

no, not even amongst the hidden cards.

[yoga-like_abana]

Guys I convinced old man y-l_a to get into the cc game.. He is quite skeptical but I told him how much he is missing out especially with all of the travelling he does with work.
What would be one of the best cards for him, he tends to travel a lot in the U.S. (drives though) and will spend a long time in certain areas but he also travels over seas periodically.
I thought about the two Southwest cards and trying to get his companion just so he could get his feet wet and all excited about it? 

[steve dave]

Sapphire Preferred. Double points in all travel so no matter what hotel he stays at he gets 2 per dollar spent. It also transfers to the best programs. If he generally stays at one hotel brand that hotel's card may be better though. make sure he's signing up for all his loyalty points.

[steve dave]

so AA threatened to sue Awardwallet sideways unless they removed all reference to their program. Delta and SW won't let AW track their programs but will still let you store your login information and account number there. You can go in and mannually enter your point balances and expiration dates so you are always aware of them and AW will email you if you have an expiration date coming up. I added AA in there the same way by making a manual entry and labeling it Mystery Airline and putting my account number, point total and expiration date in there. They won't even let you do a manual entry as AA or American but that's a work around if you want to have your balances and expirations on all one page.

[Mikeyis4dcats]

so AA threatened to sue Awardwallet sideways unless they removed all reference to their program. Delta and SW won't let AW track their programs but will still let you store your login information and account number there. You can go in and mannually enter your point balances and expiration dates so you are always aware of them and AW will email you if you have an expiration date coming up. I added AA in there the same way by making a manual entry and labeling it Mystery Airline and putting my account number, point total and expiration date in there. They won't even let you do a manual entry as AA or American but that's a work around if you want to have your balances and expirations on all one page.

what a bunch of cocksuckers!

[Dr Rick Daris]

rick daris fav brian from tpg does feature on willamette valley and specifically mentions goEMAW.com favorite elite oregon winery sokol blosser. shout out to sokolblossercat...





Nearby, Sokol Blosser serves some of the Valley’s best in one of the area’s most beautiful tasting rooms, set up on a hill amongst leafy old trees.

Read more: http://thepointsguy.com/2013/03/wine-wednesday-oregons-willamette-valley/#ixzz2MtvBg9Lo

[steve dave]

Read that and pointed it out to mrs. dave. Maybe you and Brian are now buds again RD?

[Dr Rick Daris]

Read that and pointed it out to mrs. dave. Maybe you and Brian are now buds again RD?

to be fair, i bet eric wrote that entire piece and brian had nothing to do with it and wouldn't even know mcminneville if mcminneville jumped up and bit him in his overly full of himself face.

[steve dave]

 

[Rams]

http://milesabound.com/virgin-atlantic-50-65k-offer-is-back/