Success Story

April 10, 2011 - Rick

Ubud, Bali, Indonesia © Andrew Ingersoll

Five Nights In Hawaii, by Daniel

My wife and I and our two kids are going to Hawaii and staying five nights at the Sheraton Maui Resort in Maui for a whopping total of $275 (my youngest son is under two). We did the Delta Suntrust deal for 125k ($275), and redeemed it for three 40k Delta non-stops to Maui.

My wife doesn’t have the best credit yet (never had a credit card before our marriage; were working on that), so I had to do both Starwood Preferred Guest credit cards myself, business and personal. Six months later, we had 80k Starwood points to spend. So we used 48k of those to book our room in Hawaii (fifth night free).

Five nights in Hawaii for a family of four for only $275? I would call that a success story by any measure!

How much the trip would have cost us otherwise:

Tickets: $680 x 3 = $2040

Hotel After Taxes: $300/night x 5 = $1500

For a Total of: $3,540 (or, in our case, $275!)

And from Elena:

I just wanted to share my free trip that I am taking this weekend.

My sister lives in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. I decided to visit her and take my boyfriend. I paid for both plane tickets by signing up for the Southwest credit card and getting the free flight with first purchase and the $500 for a minimum spend. For the hotel, we are staying at the Sheraton for three nights by using 21,000 Starwood Preferred Guest points. Usually this hotel runs about $200 per night this time of year. Luckily, my sister is a scuba instructor and works on a snorkel boat so she is going to give us free lessons and free boat tour. Of course I will be treating her for dinner afterward. I will be able to visit my sister and have lots of fun on the beach!

Sunday Funnies Coming to an End

We are revamping the Sunday blog post to include your Success Stories by removing the Funnies. If you have a successful frugal trip story you’d like to share, send it to me at .

Lucky Hits the New York Times

Ben’s One Mile at a Time blog is featured in today’s New York Times Travel Section. He is discussing his methods of success with Bumping and does a terrific job of laying out his strategy. With all the readers of the Times, you can expect a little more competition for those vouchers now.

Congratulations Ben on hitting the Big Time

Ryan

Good advice on the multiple cards & ability to lower an existing Chase CL. I'm maxed out on total Chase credit card limits, but simply move some around when getting a new one. In fact, with the recent Continental card & last year's BA card, Chase initiated the call to me, to make those arrangements and then approve on the spot.
Anonymous

Rick:

Did most people get instant approval for the BA card? I got a web screen that popped up after I applied saying that I would be notified in 10 days about my application.

Thanks,
Jason
Anonymous

The 6-month rule is urban legend that came out of the question on all Chase applications about whether you have been declined for a Chase credit card within the past 6 months.

The csr's have told me several times they prefer you not apply for more than 2 cards every 60 days.
cmstar

Rick,

The BA 100k offer looks amazing and I would like to use it to finally make my first flight to Europe.

I click the link from your page (and from others) and it takes me to the overview page. When I click apply now it never loads and gives an error. I'm in IT. I've tried this on two different computers in two different locations on Mac and Windows in multiple browsers.

Are any of your other readers experiencing trouble signing up for this deal?
FrugalTravelGuy

cmstar: Clear your cookies and try another browser
ArizonaGuy

@cmstar: App page may have been down when you tried.

When I hit the apply button from the overview link it took about 90 seconds to load the page but it's definitely running.

If it still doesn't work for you, you can skip Ingy's referral link and go straight to British Airways website. Go Executive Club->Collecting BA Miles->Credit Cards and you'll see a similar overview of the 100K offer with another apply button. I didn't compare the URL's but that apply link is working faster for me.

Pity I've had a BA card since 2003 and I already got my wife and mother 100k each in 2008. I need more family!
Brian Gray

Is there any way for a Canadian national to apply for this card?
thanks
Brian G.
Anonymous

The link doesn't work – even directly from the BA Executive Club website – I've been trying for several hours using different browsers, computers and mobile devices – and have cleared cache, cookies and my patience several times. I hope they didn't end the promotion.
FrugalTravelGuy

Anon: The links are working on the two blog ads. I tried them 10 minutes ago.

Bryan: You'll need a social security number as part of your application
Nick

$10 amazon credit from amex is "sold out", may want to update the main page.
Anonymous

What browser are you using? I'm having no luck reaching the application itself. I can get to the site from your blog ads but when I click on "Apply Now" I get an error message the says the link requires too many redirects. I'm really puzzled. I'll try it on my office computer and see if Explorer 6 does the trick.
cmstar

It appears that the site hosting the application is only compatible with Internet Explorer. I was using Firefox and Safari on Mac and Windows and it was failing. Tried in IE 7 on Windows 7 and was able to sign up and get approved!
Anonymous

Update on not being able to link through to the application: Success! I used my office computer which has Office Explorer 6(!) and the link worked just fine. Now I'm going to apply for my husband as well. 10th Anniversay trip to Venice here we come! (Love this blog by the way).
Jimbo

I need some help deciding between the BA 100K and CO 50K promotions. Both of these promos expire in May.

I feel like the CO offer might never come back because of the UA merger. I do plan to take advantage of the next UA 50K offer when it comes around.

It looks like the BA 100K offer only comes around every couple of years.

I'd like to earn RDM in both *A and OW to keep my award travel options open. I'd likely not use the BA miles to fly on BA, opting for an Asia trip instead, so the high fees wouldn't really factor into the decision.

Or should I try for both?
Anonymous

you should try for both. Not much to loose, but plenty to loose if the Co card never comes back again. I have had good success getting 2+ chase cards within 30days..so do one today and one right before it expires..call the 800 # and move credit around if you have to.

Success Story

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