re: Credit Card Rewards and Points Discussion

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There is also a westin excelsior in Florence right along the river with a great roof top bar. I am not sure of anything that transfers to westin, but Florence is an easy stopping point between Venice and Rome if traveling by train. I am somewhat partial to Florence though.
If you are going to be in Tuscany with a car, I can't reccomend a meal at Dario Cechinis restaurant "solociccia" enough. It is in panzano, Chianti

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I think you meant to respond to me and thank you. We are renting a card for Florence - Chianti and Chianti - Rome.

We are staying at Borgo Argenina in Chianti. Haven't figured out Venice, Florence and Rome accommodations yet.

Looks good buckeye.

Which cards you end up going with?

Anybody have experience with Alaska miles? They look to have some really good redemption values on their partner airlines.

Think I'm going to start churning this one under my wife's SSN.

Might be a question for r/churning, but I'm considering booking a trip for 2 to Toronto around the middle of 2015, and I'd like to cover most of it with CC rewards if it's feasible.

There are some handicaps, though; I already blew my CSP load last year (50k/3k spend) and depleted my points with some travel and ill-advised statement credits. I'm pretty much at a blank slate right now on my rewards balances between a few cards. No legitimate business purpose so I'd be disinclined to sign up for any InkPlus-type cards, and manufacturing 3k/90 day spend would be pushing it since rent is paid manually now.

Any thoughts?

Edit: Also looks like I'm DQ'd for most of AmEx's offers due to already being a cardholder. Bleh.

MSY. Thanks, I'll look into the BA card.

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I thought it was just for the card you have, i.e. I have the Delta Amex but I am still eligible for any bonus from any other Amex card.

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That was my assumption as well, and it still might be true, but when I browse through credit cards on my normal IP address, it shows which card I have and few of the typical sign up bonuses are offered. I haven't tried a direct offer link. There is some text in a bonus offer disclosure about Amex withdrawing the bonus offer if you're determined to be an existing cardholder.

Individuals are eligible for EACH distinct card's bonus once per life time as of this year.

As far as booking flights to Vancouver, that's a tough call. You can always get the SW 50k($2k min spend) point offer ending today which is a great value for domestic travel and that will get you to a bunch of cities within 500 miles and a separate Chase UR card/AMEX MR or the Chase Avios card could get you there for 4,500 miles.

Or you could look in to the Barclays Arrival card that will give you $440 in travel $ when you hit $2k min spend and just book your flights out right.

Domestic flights outside of Avios/SW generally isn't a good use of the major points programs like Chase UR/Amex MR, but if it fills a need, go for it.

Nice. Singapore first class will be awesome.

My recent success story was finding a Kate that actually worked for feeding my Serve account. Was the 5th Walmart with a Kate but this one worked.

I'm currently working through the annoying American/US Airways idiosyncrasies on an award ticket to Machu Picchu. US airways rules don't allow their off peak rate on partners but American does, so I'm getting an American 50k card and hopefully the flights are still there in a month. My 50k US Airways need to find another use, not that I got them for this trip anyways.

In any event, if anyone is interested with what I'm doing.

Use British Airways site to find award availability on LAN airlines.

Call American to book segments from MSY to LIM round trip on both American and LAN economy off peak/saver is 65,000 miles total for 2 people. Will transfer SPG points to get to it.

Use British Avios to book LIM to CUZ round trip on LAN (4500 each way X 4=18,000)

Use Starwood for Urubamba, Cuzco and Miraflores, Lima. Force fiancée at gunpoint to get SPG card to replenish our household account points.

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Looks like a great strategy. I've decided to use Marriott points for my three nights in Rome. 120k points for 3 nights right in the center of everything.

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That should be pretty great. My points strategy hadn't gotten to hotels until now, mainly because I wasn't building points for any thing but my honeymoon. However, I've gotten good enough at accumulating airline points we've taken a bunch of trips with the "honeymoon" points and just replenished those while paying for cheap hotel/using Barclay Arrival. I'm excited to actually have a full fledged points trip covering hotels too.

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hah. I gave up in BR after visiting 3 or 4, but I haven't checked in over a year.

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Ya, I drove home to MS and there's didn't work either (9 digit PIN problem) so on Sunday the last day of the month, I was sitting on the couch not caring about NFL games and decided I'd get out of the house and drive around. Hopefully this wasn't a one time deal or I might lose it. It was very exhilarating but I did start getting clammy thinking I was doing something wrong while I loaded $1,400

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Damn shame the SPG doesn't ever get better than a 30k point signup.

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Sure is a major bummer and no multiplier. Though, it does seem like $500 GCs could work for a little boost in a pinch.

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Looks good and like you've been doing some homework. Piecing these things together isn't for the faint of heart. Definitely takes some patience and some homework for some of these trips.

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My fiancee doesn't have flexible vacation like I do. I can't tell you how many itineraries were off by 8 hours or flights/rooms not being offered that particular day until I found an itinerary that worked. But I find it to be a fun challenge to test my mental abilities so its always worth it to me.

I think some options would be Southwest (50k offers only) and Barclay's Arrival Plus ($400 in travel credit you can use on airlines, get two and its $800)

Those off the top of my head.

If American flies a direct route from wherever you are, then try British Airways CC. But I assume you are in LA.