Tag Archives: Southwest Airlines

App-O-Rama Update: 4 Approvals, 2 Recon Calls, 1 Pending Application, and a Barclays Denial

Which Credit Card

App-O-Rama Update: 4 Approvals, 2 Recon Calls, 1 Pending Application, and a Barclays Denial

Advice: you do not need to apply for 6 credit cards at one time.  You should only attempt this if your credit score is high and you have the ability to Manufacture Spend $5,000-$10,000 per month.  Please proceed at your own risk/skill level.

In a nutshell, this is what happened yesterday morning when I applied for 6 cards.

  1. Barclays Arrival Plus Credit Card – automatically denied :(
  2. Citi American Airlines Executive World MasterCard – recon call approved, $5,000 credit line + $4,500 moved from Citi Dividend Credit Card.
  3. AMEX Premier Rewards Gold Charge Card – automatically approved (charge card, no preset credit limit).
  4. Chase Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Plus Credit Card – recon call approved, $2,000 credit line.
  5. US Bank Club Carlson Business Credit Card – pending, must wait 24-48 hours for results.
  6. Bank of America Alaska Airlines Visa Signature Credit Card – automatically approved, but for a Platinum Plus credit card with a $2,000 credit line.

Here are more details about each application and approval/denial process…  Continue reading →

What’s on My Mind: US Bank FlexPerks FlexPoints, Experian Credit Score, Using Square for Restaurant Bills, Screening Exchange, and my Upcoming App-O-Rama

What's On My Mind

What’s on My Mind: US Bank FlexPerks FlexPoints, Experian Credit Score, Using Square for Restaurant Bills, Screening Exchange, and my Upcoming App-O-Rama

I know, I know, we are all devastated by the United Airlines revenue-based frequent flyer mile announcement, but hopefully some of these random credit card and news stories will take your mind off of that for a few minutes…

I did a little experiment last month with my US Bank FlexPerks Credit Card and Target (link).  Since my credit card is a Visa and since my local Target is classified as a grocery store by Visa, I wanted to see if I could load $1,000 onto my Target AMEX with my US Bank FlexPerks Credit Card and see if it counted as a “grocery store” purchase, therefore earning 2x FlexPerks.  You can use the Visa Merchant tool by reading this post.

Target AMEX viw US Bank FlexPoints CC

After a “few” grocery store purchases, that sounds like I bought grocery stores.  Let me rephrase that.  After a “few” purchases at grocery stores, I racked up $5,000+ in charges.  I have mostly Ralphs and Pavillions grocery store purchases and 1 large purchase from Target (in the middle).   Continue reading →

Ask an Expert Interview Series: Casey from Points Away

Points Away Logo

Ask an Expert Interview Series: Casey from Points Away

I know there are already a million interview series on miles and points bloggers, but my goal is to interview a handful of some of the smaller bloggers you may not be familiar with. My second interviewee is Casey who writes at www.pointsaway.com and has written a cool travel eBook titled The PointsAway – The Deluxe Edition (read review here).  Without further ado, here are Casey’s answers:

1) How did you first begin to discover the power of miles and points programs?

Luck, as much as anything. I was planning about a year in advance for a conference in Portland last Summer and was unhappy with how expensive airfare was for the dates I was looking to travel. Around the same time, I received an offer for a Gold Delta SkyMiles card by American Express with a hefty mileage sign-up bonus. I applied and was quickly approved and earned my sign-up bonus in the first month. Shortly thereafter, my first award trip was booked. Though it was scheduled for many months in advance, I didn’t need to set foot on a plane to be convinced; the itinerary confirmation in my hand reading $10 instead of the $460 or so the cash ticket would’ve cost was all I needed to see!

Casey Points Away Bio Pic

Casey @ the Beach

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What’s Up with Grant? CA Fires, CVS-AMEX, Citi Photo Cards, Update on Checkout51, and Hamburg/Copenhagen Planning

What's On My Mind

What’s Up with Grant? CA Fires, CVS-AMEX, Citi Photo Cards, Update on Checkout51, and Hamburg/Copenhagen Planning

Good morning everyone!  California has a had a rough couple of days deals with several forest fires.  I hope my friends/family/readers in San Diego County are all doing ok.  Thank you for all the hard work from the fire fighters and other respondents.  I am going down to San Diego on Saturday June 7 (3 weeks from today) to meet a friend of mine.  She is a big miles/points aficionado like myself, so I wanted to know if anyone would like to join us, a very casual miles/points meetup.  The time and place has yet to be decided, but it will probably be in the afternoon on Saturday.

Also, I have been a *really bad* blogger this week.  I haven’t posted anything in the last 3-4 days so I apologize for not keeping you up to date on the latest miles/points news:

  • Southwest Airlines credit card now 50,000 mile sign up bonus
  • Barclays Arrival Plus credit card now with chip and pin and the same sign up bonus
  • Chase Ink Bold/Plus credit card now with 60,000 Chase UR Points
  • American Express Daily Deals, maybe I should say “deals”, not too impressive this year
  • Evolve Pay now you can pay with some credit cards (mostly MasterCard)
  • Charlotte Mile Madness reviews
  • Whatever else I missed

Just because I haven’t been writing the last few days doesn’t mean I haven’t been experimenting with different topics/ideas.  I have some pretty good posts in the pipeline.  One post that’s been 1+ month in the making is my headache of a problem dealing with CVS and my American Express Target card.  Have you ever had a situation where neither company could help, but then you decided to do a 3 way conference call and have them speak directly to each other and solve the problem?  Ya, that’s what happened here.  I’m glad to finally have my $503.95 back.  More info to come shortly (P.S. crazy story).

Chargeback

Umm, what the heck is a reversal of chargeback and why do you do this to me AMEX??

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Sunday Funday: Targeted 1,000 Southwest Airlines RR Points, New Sign Up Link Page, and my Strategy for the US Bank FlexPoints Credit Card

Sunday Funday

Sunday Funday: Targeted 1,000 Southwest Airlines RR Points, New Sign Up Link Page, and my Strategy for the US Bank FlexPoints Credit Card

Before I go any further, I wanted to say Happy Mother’s Day to my mom and all the other mothers out there.  Thank you for everything you do!  With that said, I had a few minutes of arts and crafts time today and made a sign with old Vanilla Reload Cards (yes I horde them).  My mom > 1,000,000+ miles or points!

HMD

Now back to travel news.  My mom and I both received targeted offers from Southwest Airlines for 1,000 bonus Southwest Airlines Rapid Reward Points by enrolling in Southwest Airlines email updates (I think I was already enrolled in their email updates).  Both of us have a Southwest Airlines personal credit card.  My dad has a Southwest Airlines personal credit card, but he did not receive an offer (yet?).

SWA Flyer

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