40,000 Sapphire app
50,000 ink Bold Charge card App ( same day)
50,000 other Ink Credit card ( 90 days later)

Have spouse do the same.
Add in minimum spend = 300,000 plus Ultimate Reward points.

Take the thank you points already in hand, maybe add a few to sweeten the pot , and trade someone for 100,000 UR points.

Now meeting the minimum spend for all these cards is another challenge, but that is a topic for another thread.

All in one shot, or over a (long) period of time?

Depends on how much of a hurry you are in.
I would not apply for 3 Chasr cards on the same day. One personal and one business , from chase would be my limit. Then back to chase in 90 days.

With enough time , and good credit, all things are possible in this hobby.

Back when I went on a cruise (a year ago), I did not find any options where you could directly use your miles/points to redeem for a cruise. I meant directly; there is always the cash equivalent option with cash back rewards cards. So:

1) Use miles to fly to the cruise port
2) Use cash back points (i.e. Ultimate rewards, capital one points) to pay for the cruise itself, and supplement the difference
3) Use more points if you want to arrive one day earlier to the port destination for the cruise.

You can earn miles when booking a cruise through portal sites...in fact, I think United sent out a promotion recently about earning x amount of miles per dollar spent on cruises.

Chase ultimate rewards program will book the cruise for you, and allow 1.25 cents per point.

400,000 ultimate reward points = $5,000 cruise.

If you are short on points, you Can pay the balance with your card.

However, I do not know if on board expenses , shore excursions or tips can be covered with points.

400,000 UR pts mean 400K UA miles.

A friend just emailed me he booked the following award with 120K UA miles

PDX-SEA-NRT-SIN open jaw
BKK-FRA destination
FRA-JFK stopover
JFK-PDX home

Except PDX-SEA (in ERJ) All other segments in business, with BKK-FRA TG A380, FRA-JFK LH A380. That ticket if purchased, could easily cost $6000 or more. And it is only 120K UR pts equivalent + $126 taxes.

Give it to me I would pay the cruise out of pocket and save the miles for much more enjoyable flying for another vacation at a fraction of the cost on UR pts.

Dont know they would match. Have you done that?

On top of that would you get a "dedicated" agent to take care of your little requests here and there?

I priced our upcoming cruises using the UA promo and found out the UA prices are a few hundreds higher, and the cruise earning is only 2 miles per $ spent - essentially it would equal to buying a few thousand UA miles for a few hundred cash - quite expensive miles to me.

However, someone mentioned about calling the airline cruises booking dept to ask for price match - dont know if the poster has actually done that or not, if it works then that would be a good way to book.

This is not close to true. I have a cruise booked for 7/13. I just compared the prices through priceline and through my online cruise booking agent of choice, costco travel. Priceline quotes the same full fare that I can get from the cruiseline directly, with a measly $300 OBC. Costco travel is a full $1099.22 lower, even taking into account the OBC. I'm booked through a travel agent that I found using cruisecompete, and my fare is $771 less than priceline's fare, with an additional $725 in OBC, for a total savings of more than $1400. Unless I'm missing something, this is bad advice.

Good stuff, Happy. I think for a frequent cruiser like you who is high revenue for your TA, you'll get great service and the TA will bend over backwards for you to put you in their block bookings or otherwise get you discounts. For the rest of us -- the one-offs or the every other year or even every year cruisers -- it's hard to find a TA that will do that for you. I've had a few people who are heavy cruisers refer me to their full service TAs, and while they will help me out to keep my friends happy or if they view me as a potential future relationship, it's not the same.

For the family trying their first cruise, or the infrequent cruiser, I actually think it's hard to beat costco. Their discounts are really good, and they actually work pretty hard to help you out. I think they have good enough contacts with the lines that getting you out of a deposit after final payment and other stuff is sometimes possible depending on the situation. And they have folks there who concentrate on cruises, so they can give you a little bit of TA style service, though not nearly what a knowledgeable TA can give you.

I used Costco once a few cruises ago and I won't ever again. We booked about two months out from sailing & shame on me for not being more diligent. Costco cruise has nothing to do with actual Costco itself. It's an independent TA. Their customer service isn't on par whatsoever.

BJ's actually had a better price ultimately. Costco wouldn't match. I was supposed to have a "free upgrade". Costco said that none of those cabins were available to them. My price went down on the line's site directly. Costco wouldn't lower AND unlike being able to upgrade for free (as opposed to a price adj.) as when booking directly through the line, Costco wouldn't upgrade either. Of course I was stuck in dealing with Costco & the line wouldn't talk to me since I had a TA. I learned the hard way and will think twice before going through them again. I ended up cancelling my membership after dealing with them on this fiasco.

Thanks you Ikar for taking the time to compare your actual booking with the Priceline prices. Makes me wonder if some people just simply throw something out here without personal experiences. That is indeed bad advice based on your own actual experience. I took a casual look of Priceline's and saw it was at least 25% HIGHER than what I paid. It was even higher than what UA cruise would charge!

Not true. While we sail often, we book cheapo cabins. On rare occasions we would book a balcony when the price differential was very low - but we, especially my husband, do not even enjoy balcony. On a 10 days Caribbean cruise, he went out the balcony in a total of less than 1 hour during the whole cruise. I think last time on a 14 days TATL, he went out about the same. He did not like the sticky surface of the outdoor furniture and it is inevitable because of sea breeze. So why waste $$$ on something we dont even use? Most of our cabins are inside / obstructed view - they do not carry high $ so my agent does not really get much of the $ revenue. She and I get along well though largely I am not a high maintenance client - I know what I want and 90% of the time I booked what I asked her to quote. So she can count me among the most reliable client but definitely not high revenue client.

No longer true!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...ul-2012-a.html

Booked with United, got them to match the lowest from carnival promo on United. So same price as else where plus 24.99 booking fee and 100 cancellation fee. I didn't know about the cancellation fee or else I will just give my business to a TA from years ago with 100 obc.

All in all, it's 20k miles vs 100 obc + 50 booking fees for two cabins. 8x miles if you book a balcony and have their credit card, 4x if only credit card.