Hotels - One possibility is the Holiday Inn near Downtown Disney. You can walk to Downtown Disney(<10 minute walk) and it shares its own free bus system with about 5 other hotels nearby(Hilton, Wyndham, Best Western and Double Tree). I dont know the point cost with the new point structure. It used to be 25000 points which wasnt a great deal considering a room is usually $100-120 night. You can get a Chase PC card giving 80K points and it gives you instant Platinum status(admittedly not worth a lot).
There is a hilton right across street from downtown disney and it gives you access to extra magic hours but IMO its a bad value in terms of points.
I have walked by the Carlson(its a Radisson) nearest Disney. Its nothing special from outside but it does get good reviews.
Wyndham also across from Downtown disney but I do not know much about them or their rewards program. I know they did a big devaluation recently.
Another possibility is to get the AMEX Starwood card and stay at the Dolphin/Swan. It only gives 25K signup and you need to spend 5K. If you and wife both got one and got the bonus with spend you would have 60K points. Its 10K per night and you get 5 nights for the point cost of 4. The Swan/Dolphin are within walking distance of Epcot and use the Disney bus system. but you dont get to use the magical express(disney bus to/from airport). With 6 people though not sure how far that would go.
For airlines, it really depends on where you are flying from. You mentioned Southwest. Anyone else fly nonstop to Orlando?
How many nights do you plan on staying? Do you plan on renting a car?
Originally Posted by
security6
I'm looking to take my family of 6 to Disney World late this year or early next year. Southwest has a direct flight to Orlando, and I understand Carlson hotels has some good deals on hotels in the Orlando area. I have a (fake) credit score of 760 and low utilization. Currently have a handful of credit cards, 3 chase cards, 1 amex, and a handful of other cards (most with a 1% cast back reward, some with 2% of 3% for special categories). Most rarely get used, and I pay off the other's each month.
Looking to apply for the following cards:
1) Chase Southwest personal card -50k points, $2k spend in 3 months
2) Chase Southwest business card - 50k points, $2k spend in 3 months
3) US Bank Club Carlson card - 85k points, $2.5k spend in 3 months
Any thoughts on this? We typically spend $1500 to $2k per month on cards, so reaching spend shouldn't be an issue.
I'm also considering applying on the same day for some of the Citi Hilton cards because we stay at Hilton sometimes and I don't currently have any Citi cards. Thoughts?
Finally, we are likely moving summer of 2014 (job transfer) and thus will need to take out a new mortgage at that time. That gives me well over 1 year, so I think we should be ok on the new mortgage. Does this make anyone nervous for me?
Thanks for helping a newb!