msp3

If I'm just getting this card as a $200 bonus, no annual fee keeper to transfer my credit limit from all my other chase accounts when I eventually close them down is it a good idea? Or as so many have suggested look elsewhere?

Would also like to stay at Aulani more often.

benosufan

Did you have any success in redeeming Arrival + miles towards expenses inside Disney World? Or were those charges applied to your resort and you paid for everything at the resort/hotel (which might be redeemable)? My friend went to Disney world in March 2015 and the expenses inside the parks he charged to his Barclay Arrival + card were not redeemable. I'm going in July and would like to know if others had any luck. Thanks.

benosufan

I know there are others planning trips to Disney world so I thought I would throw this on the board. I missed the $200 sign up bonus in March 2015 for the Chase Disney Rewards card. But in April I got an offer in the mail for the better Disney rewards card offered by Chase with no annual fee...plus $200 Disney GC after spending only $500 on the card. I applied online for myself and used the same offer code to sign my wife up. We both got approved and should get $400 in Disney GC. Again no annual fee for the 2% rewards card. I also have another Chase card (Southwest)...which may have been why we got the Disney CC offer. Before getting this offer in the mail I was asking friends who had the Disney rewards CC to send me an link/offer through their acct. But they never followed through and I can't say what that offer would have been.

Also, if you have used your barclay Arrival + card at Disney parks and were able to redeem miles please let me know. I'm asking about inside the parks...not at the resort. This $400 in Disney GC will help with food expenses...but I sure wish I could redeem Arrival + miles towards expenses inside Disney parks.

Mary2e

In order for park expenses to be considered travel they have to be charged to the room.

benosufan

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately we are staying at the Swan which is not officially a Disney resort but we get some of the perks like extra magic hours, disney transportation around the parks, etc. But one perk we don't get is charging everything we buy inside the parks to our room. Also the magic bands do no open the door to our rooms.

Are there any other ideas how to use barclaycard miles towards expenses inside disney parks?

FWIW, I used the plan posted on the web stating how to travel to disney for free.....it isn't really "free"...here's how it shook out for us. My wife and I both obtained Amex SPG, Chase Southwest, and Barclaycard Arrival + cards. SPG gave us a free 7 night stay at the Swan (minus fees which we can redeem using barclaycard). Southwest card gave us 4 round trip tickets to Orlando (had to pay $99 fee for each card so it wasn't really "free"). Barclaycard miles used to pay for disney passes from undercovertourist.com. Also used barclaycard to redeem transportation to/from airport/hotel (got private sedan meet/greet at supershuttle.com...saved us $150). Overall we've spent less than $500 so far and that includes $200 we prepaid for our meal at Magic Kingdom/palace. Some of that cost was fees paid for VGC to meet minimum spend. Not bad for a 7 day vacation for family of 4. My goal is to spend less than $1000 total.

To keep it under $1000 out of pocket we will be forced to eat as many meals as possible at the Swan or Dolphin and charge the expenses to our room. Then pay it all with our barclaycard...unless I find a way to use the barclaycard miles inside disney parks without charging to a hotel room.

Mary2e

Stay at a Disney hotel then if it's important to be able to use the points.

As well, I can't offer any further advice, I don't play the blog/credit card scheme game. As you can clearly see, the information you got isn't that good or correct.

benosufan

I didn't get wrong info from anywhere. I've read conflicting reports of people being able to redeem barclay miles inside Disney parks. BTW, I'm merely earning points/miles on credit cards and using those to decrease costs on travel expenses. It is not a game or scheme. I look at it as business. If you are not taking advantage of the offers in front of you then you are losing out on quite a bit of free or discounted travel. FWIW, our Disney vacation would be much more expensive if we hadn't stayed at the Swan (essentially 7 nights free). Compare that to 7 nights at a Disney resort and you'll see that it will cost at minimum $2500 and probably well over $3000 for most resorts. That's a huge chunk of change we've saved. Like most FTers, I'm looking for the best bang for my miles. If there is a way to redeem miles, we'll figure it out. And that's not against the law or scheming at all IMO. The CC companies make billions....if anyone is scheming it's them. They offer rewards for a reason. They take the risk of someone paying off their balance each month. They are hoping you won't so they can charge interest and other fees. I doubt they consider this a game. It's business plain and simple. Good luck and thanks for responding.

Mary2e

I think you took my use of the word scheme not as intended. It's a game. I choose not to participate because I value my time more than running around redeeming debit cards or risk ruining credit to get a free vacation. And contrary to those people who found FT via blogs about getting free or near free vacations, FT is mostly about miles and points and how to earn and spend them via travel. There are far more forums on those topics than on how to MS, which is a fairly new concept.

Have I taken out cards when the points offer was good? Yes. Have I cancelled them when I no longer received a benefit? Yes. Have I run around manufacturing spend, absolutely not. Nor will I.

If you enjoy it, good for you. I just reread the hoops you will be jumping through to get that nearly free trip. That's not a vacation to me. If it is for you, great ^^

If your Barclay's card gives you more points or the ability to redeem for travel expenses, unless your in-park expenses are charged to your Disney room, then they are listed as amusements or entertainment - not travel. How do I know? Because I used my Sapphire preferred to buy annual passes and not charge it to my room thinking it would be travel - it was not. It came in as either entertainment or amusement parks. The merchant controls the code, not the credit card issuer. Now I charge everything to my room.

Also, keep in mind that because the Swan or Dolphin are not Disney hotels, you're not able to charge to your room. I would go back to those people who said they could and verify the hotel they were in.

benosufan

I spent very little time and money on VGC's and loading bluebird. Actually I only did that for about a month because of the lack of time to meet the minimum spend on all the cards and get my reservations scheduled.....which I started last September and finished all minimum spend by mid October. I'd guess I only MSd about 10k at the most. My strategy since then has been building miles/points. Signing up for only a couple other offers since then. BTW, my credit went up since starting all of this (it was over 800 prior to starting). So MS is not all bad IMO, just not worth my time running to walmart. However, my wife and I switched to softserve earlier this year and still earn $60 in barclaycard miles every month from the comfort of my own home

BTW, what hoops are you talking about? Signing up for 3 CCs for both me and my wife? It was actually very easy and I'd tell anyone else to do it just like I did except plan ahead....so they wouldn't have to MS to meet minimum spend. It can be done in a matter of 6 months for an average family of 4. My total minimum spend for all 6 cards was only 22k. Maybe you were referring to finding a way to use my barcalycard miles inside disney parks? I agree with you, the person that said they could redeem probably charged everything to their disney resort room. Oh well, I can swallow 1k expense on a whole week at disney including airfare....it's was well worth the effort even though I had to do a little MS. (just left early for work and hit Kate early in the morning...was the best idea ever).

I think you took me as a major MS fan...I'm not. I used the process to meet minimum spend and this was my first ever experience MS for miles/points. Like I said, it's not a bad thing IMO. I know there are people who take it to the extreme and I will never be that person. But signing up for CC for bonuses will become a routine for me. I'll be cycling them every 2 years to build miles/points for future trips. I'm glad I stumbled on FT....and yes for more than MS. I've enjoyed reading and learning.

travelpye

Benosufan, I have a question about this:

"SPG gave us a free 7 night stay at the Swan (minus fees which we can redeem using barclaycard)." Was this with only one SPG 30K point signup bonus? We have had 2 Disney trips in last two years and both times I was unable to find availability on free night stays at Swan or Dolphin, even several months in advance. When I checked points rates on other dates I found rooms were 10K a night. So, I am guessing you and your spouse both got SPG bonuses to cover the 7 nights. Is that correct?

Our trips were in mid May and late June. I am just curious when you are traveling and found availability. I would like to book us there on a subsequent trip some day. Thanks--and have fun on your trip!

eknock007

Over the years we have used our Capital One Venture credit cards to pay for everything Disney not hotel related (meals, annual/entrance passes, gift store purchases). We find the redemption process is a lot easier (charges can be used repetitively, even if charges have been canceled). We have been churning these cards since 2011 and have redeem nearly 600,000 points (miles). Have never had to call to get something redeemed. I know bloggers and people here on FT like to pimp the Arrival Card (we had this card last year and closed it because we couldn't redeem for annual passes) but we find that the Cap1 Venture card is a superior card in terms of redemption options and we've been offered to waive the AF a couple of times keep cards open.

btk2333

I'm guessing for 7 nights he's spending 60,000 points (5th night free, so paying six nights for 7 nights). He would have plenty of points with that with the 30,000 point offer x2 (would actually have 70,000 points due to the 5,000 minimum spend) or the 25,000 point offer x2 (60,000 points due to minimum spend)

I've had luck finding award availability in November of this year and January of 2016. We're using SPG points for 10 nights at the Swan in January 2016.

We're also DVC members so we're using those points to stay at the Beach Club in November otherwise we'd use SPG points for that trip as well.

benosufan

To get 7 nights free you need 2 people from the same household/same address to apply for the SPG Amex card. That gives you 60k points (50k total in bonus points and 10k more after spending 5k on each card). Like the other person said you get 5th night free and each night cost 10k in SPG points. It's important to note that the person has to have the same mailing address to be able to transfer the points (also a major plus is there are no fees for transferring between accounts). If you don't see the option to use points on SPG's website just call the 800 number. They should be able to help you with the reservation. I've read that on boards in the past where people have had success using their SPG points even if it didn't show as available online. FWIW I made our reservation for this July back in November using the SPG website.

benosufan

You are the only source I have read that states you can redeem venture miles for non travel purchases such as food inside disney parks. Are you redeeming an actual food or gift expense or are you using a real travel expense and redeeming it multiple times? Just want to confirm. The venture card has 40k sign up bonus right now. That would be $800 for us to redeem towards travel...same as the barclayard sign up bonus. I already knew I couldn't use the barclaycard to redeem towards tickets at the gate but was successful buying/redeeming through UT. I like the barclaycard bc you get 10% bonus miles back when redeeming travel. But I will close the card after our trip to avoid the AF....or call them as ask to waive it for another year.

eknock007

Actually do a search in the Capital One threads. It's been known for awhile. Unlike the Barclay's card were the redemption option goes away after you used it, on Capital One the redemption option stays active for 90 days and available for multiple redemption possibilities. So technically it can be used for subsequent charges that don't have to be related to that hotel/airfare/travel charge. Last year I booked a hotel in Orlando for the family via Expedia. I used the same redemption charge to not only redeem the cost of the hotel but also all of the incidentals (food, Walmart, gift shops). I simply tallied up all of the expenses and made a second redemption as close to the total as possible. I think I ended up paying something like $40 out of pocket on approximately $750 in incidentals (technically I could have redeem more than what I had spent). Others would simply make a dummy hotel booking, cancel the booking after the charge had posted, and use the resulting redemption charge for subsequent unrelated charges. Oh and the points can be combined from different card members unlike the Arrival card.