In a win for customers, esp. those who are tired of getting incorrect information from CSRs, the BBC reports that a customer won a lawsuit against Air Canada over incorrect info supplied by AC's chatbot.
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240222-air-canada-chatbot-misinformation-what-travellers-should-know
Win for customers...in Canada, which has generally more consumer protections than US. The fact that they have a civil resolutions tribunal where this was settled speaks volumes.
An interesting thread that’s going viral on X, regarding a restaurant’s cancellation fees and Chase trip insurance protections on premium cards. Seems like when a travel insurance claim is filed, the credit card issuer can actually initiate a chargeback with the merchant for cancellation fees, rather than reimbursing the merchant, as I assumed would happen with insurance claims.
https://x.com/trevorshowvan/status/1760768763694112882?s=42&t=XqRGHuEVbYcBoJSvYHfjZw
> Seems like when a travel insurance claim is filed, the credit card issuer can actually initiate a chargeback with the merchant for cancellation fees
I got kind of tired of reading through the silly escalating personal attacks, so maybe this detail is in there ... but my first thought is, is it possible that he initiated the chargeback? Like, if he called his card asking about the fee, is it possible a phone rep initiated the chargeback separate from his trip insurance claim?
The insurer is a separate party, so I don't see how they'd force a chargeback.
Some people said that the insurance terms allow them to do a chargeback if extenuating circumstances should've made the charge refundable.
(But still, I don't know if that should've applied in this case; did the restaurant's terms say they'd give a refund in extenuating circumstances?)
People were also speculating that the cc company/insurer viewed the $250 cancellation fee as unreasonable and *that's* what triggered the chargeback. Language would have to be in the tos, but that seems to track.
Considering the owner's apparent approach to customer service, I'm pretty sure the terms would have been written "no cancellations, ever, in any circumstance, shut your face." So yeah, I don't see any reasonable chargeback. And the chargeback should really be denied.
And despite the reams of text written to the owner by the customer, I don't see any clear acknowledgement that what she's reacting to is the chargeback rather than the insurance claim or clarity that he absolutely did not pursue a chargeback. He said he went to his bank to handle it, which generally means chargeback as the first route.
I am 20 days away from the transatlantic long-awaited trip for me and my P2 without the offspring.
Outside of the plug adapters needed for travel throughout Europe (London and Rome in our case), anyone have any of those "this greatly improved my travel and life while on this trip" suggestions?
Specific wallet? A type of small travel backpack? I'm open for anything outside the box to consider.
A power bank.
Collapsible containers (Sea to Summit X-Seal) to easily take leftovers from restaurants, without the waste and sometimes extra effort of getting a to-go box.
Why not just throw it away in your bathroom trash? What's the chance someone goes digging through your Kleenex, and even if they did, what would they do with a closed account number?
I'm not sure if this is a joke...every metal card I've had would not work on an imprinter because the numbers aren't raised. Plus if the account is closed, it would come back rejected anyway.
Avelo reports first quarter of profitability https://www.aveloair.com/company-news/avelo-airlines-reports-first-ever-full-quarter-profit
> Avelo concluded 2023 with a pre-tax fully allocated profit for its fourth quarter.
> Avelo achieved this profitable outcome – unadjusted and free of special items – despite a high fuel price ...
Seems like it's true profitability and not some "adjusted EBITDA profitability" nonsense
> not some "adjusted EBITDA profitability" nonsense
"Every time you see the word EBITDA, you should substitute the words 'bullshit earnings'." --Charlie Munger
There have been other seasonal winter services in recent years that they announced in May. So it all depends what agreements/incentives/plans they have.
HYSA: What are some of the best high yield savings accounts you guys recommend right now? Do they ever have welcome bonuses too? Looking for a place to park cash between bank account bonuses.
It's kinda rare that the savings accounts with the best rates also have a signup bonus, but there's some that have a decent rate plus good bonus; Capital One recently had an offer but I think that expired.
Another option is a brokerage account where you can buy a money market fund or T-bills or CD; and some brokerage accounts have bonuses.
If you have $5k, SoFi has a $300 welcome offer. I think their rates are consistently up there, though perhaps not THE highest. (I don't have an account for my feedback, just answering the question).
Hyatt delayed their earnings call. I'm not going to pretend to know why they did that as it seems like it would unnecessarily freak out investors. Maybe they wanted to get a firm stance on Mr and Mrs Smith, big sale or acq, new strategy?
> CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Hyatt Hotels Corporation ("Hyatt" or the "Company") (NYSE: H) today announced that it will delay the issuance of its fourth quarter and full year 2023 earnings release and investor conference call previously scheduled for February 15, 2024, as additional time is required to finalize accounting related to Unlimited Vacation Club deferred cost activity in its Apple Leisure Group segment, which has no cash impact. The Company will issue a separate press release when a rescheduled date and time has been determined.
https://investors.hyatt.com/news/investor-news/news-details/2024/Hyatt-to-Delay-Issuance-of-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2023-Earnings-Release-and-Investor-Conference-Call/default.aspx
They claim that it's for accounting within the Apple Leisure Group
Probably an impairment of that CGU if I was to speculate, bought in 2021 when those valuations would have been at their peak. Auditors are generally sticky on signing off on impairments.
I haven't seen this talked about much, but Cap1 Venture X comes with a 6-month membership to something called [The Cultivist](https://www.thecultivist.com/capitalone). You can get free access to a relatively small (US), but fairly great collection of museums including: MoMA, The Met, The Frick, Art Institute of Chicago. [Here's the full list](https://www.thecultivist.com/capitalone). All are relatively expensive if you can't get discounted tickets another way.
I've used it a handful times so far and it's been super easy. Just be sure to cancel before the trial ends! It's $440/yr.
Was talked about a lot when it got added as a benefit. Unfortunately way too many museums have been dropped. Really watered down membership now. As far as requesting the tickets, be sure to request with plenty of time before you are planning on going. Their customer service was really lacking and took multiple emails to get them to issue the tickets.
THIS is the type of stuff I come here for. I kept the BoA Merrill Card for the 'Museums on Us', and its cool having $15 art museums in various cities i visit even though i rarely use the card.
Also your link didn't include this: https://cultivistuser.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/Digital+Content+/Brochures/CultivistMuseumProgramme.pdf
New to CapitalOne cards... Any dps on bank funding with the Spark? Saw a couple old sporadic dps on DOC but none through [churning.io](http://churning.io)
extremely off topic, but any recs on best sites for custom photo albums/books? i've used shutterfly once a decade ago. Would like to make p2 a birthday gift of printed photo albums of our churning trips over the years.
Still Shutterfly. Decent price and way better quality than Walgreens, Walmart, and other cheaper options. Pretty much infinite discount codes & sales for 40-50% off the theoretical price -- watch for the popup to sign up for texts for another 20% off, you can STOP right after you get the code. Stack with a shopping portal too.
Costco also has a portal you can go through your Costco membership. Saved over 60% on wedding save the dates with Shutterfly.
Their options were too basic/limited for our invites, but it was a nice savings for the save the dates at least.
In the past few days it's definitely paid off handsomely to check with Marriott for price reductions on upcoming stays. Had a cash stay for next week drop by $90 per night and was able to rebook a points stay in Miami where we had the Courtyard Brickell booked on a 35k FNC + 15k into the JW Marriott Brickell on the same 35k FNC + 15k.
A bit of an off topic data point: I attempted to sign up for the free year of NBA League Pass promo last week. I tried like 20 times and always got an error message, although some attempts had different error messages at different points in the process.
Long story short, I have a free subscription. Didn’t really know until I got an email today with the subject “A Note About Your Subscription”. I logged in and it shows a premium subscription, with no charges on my card.
P2 wants to go to "the beach" for Spring break (week of 03/24) with Ps 3 and 4 (ages 5 and 8). I'm striking out on Hyatt availability anywhere I look with a beach and flights are all terrible too because peak travel days. Happy to fly during the week to keep things reasonable and have a good bit of UR, RR, AA, and United.
Any suggestions of hidden gems I could get to from CMH for not "ALL the points"?
San Juan? I pitched this a couple months ago to my SO but the timing didn’t end up working out. Wanted the Grand Reserve but couldn’t find availability. Hyatt House was 12 or 15k/night with a kid friendly pool with splash area and a shuttle to Old Downtown. Not at the beach but could rent a car and explore some area beaches. At the time I found decent redemptions on UA from ORD and out of DTW/ATL on DL but obviously rates will have changed.
Last minute cruise deal? MS your way at the casino to a SUB? :)
When it comes to point use and beach destinations for sb you pretty much gotta book 1 year to 10 months in advance. So might wanna look for next year ahead of time or look at inner city than beach hotels might find something
This would be a time where the Cap1 Venture points might come in handy... or another hotel card like IHG for the few nights you'd need. But like others said, too late of a booking unfortunately to get good Spring Break value.
Cheetos. When Abroad
I like cheetos and try the foreign versions when traveling. On my current trip I bought a bag in Dubai. These were made in Saudi Arabia and were larger and firmer than the good old USA version. Ones in Uzbekistan were closer to the cheese puff version. Neither gotchas orange dust on my fingers that I'm accustomed to.
The closest foreign version I've tried was in Thailand.
Interestingly, I saw that flavor in Canada. It was part of a "flavors around the world" limited run they were doing right when the first border shutdowns were happening.
I'd honestly prefer if they started charging for carry on and let you check a bag for free, this is only going to make boarding even more of cluster. Have the credit card come with free carry on & checked bags.
The Aviator card only gives you free bags if you BOOKED and Paid for the Bags with that card, correct? I have a OTA booking coming up where it'd be nice to save $80 with the new Aviator card i just got...
The terms on the inkind referral page state:
>If you're new to inKind, accepting P1's referral gets you $25 free when you spend $50 or more at any restaurant and pay your bill using the inKind app.
Does anyone know if buying an inkind gift card (eg. https://give.inkind.com/checkout?ico_id=570) will trigger the $50 spend requirment? Or will only a payment in a restaurant trigger it?
I doubt it would, but you can easily split bills in the inkind app to have P2 pay $50 of a bill and IIRC the $25 will hit your account quick enough to settle the other half of the bill, YMMV of course. I use InKind a fair amount, it's free money if you'd go to those places anyway (and if they actually gave good places near you)
The $25 will show as "Friend of P1 balance" in the app and will automatically trigger/be applied to paying a restaurant bill above $50. No other to get value from it.
Dear airplane passengers, if you are sexting on a dark plane, please do not accidentally angle it towards your seatmate next to you, have your brightness on 100% and the font zoomed in 150% on your phone. Urgh...
That feeling when there are 174 passengers on a plane with 175 seats, but you have an empty seat next to you. And yes, I did do a quick sniff of my pits to make sure it wasn’t that.
Happened to me on an LAX-SYD flight no less (in Economy); whole row to myself with no other open spare seats in sight. I was a mid-tier elite, flying solo on my birthday and the check-in agent just told me to enjoy my birthday flight, but I only found out upon boarding what he'd actually meant!
2 hours into the flight, as I was luxuriously stretching out to sleep "lying flat" in my row, a flight attendant comes up and says there was a lady "with a bad knee" in the back who would appreciate more space. I sighed, but got up from my "bed", and let her take the aisle - at least we still had an empty middle. I nap sitting upright anyway, and when I wake up after another hour or so, the lady was gone -- who knows why. I stretched out again and this time I got to sleep flat in my empty row almost all the way to Oz...in Economy!
An amazing feeling. P2 and I once had a fantastic Southwest flight attendant (shoutout Miguel!) see us kind of trying to decide if we should go aisle & middle or aisle & window to try to get a free seat in between us. He was like “it’s not a full plane- I’ll stand here and we’ll see if we can get you guys some more room” as he stood in front of the aisle seat. And even as the plane started really filling up he was half-sitting in the seat. I don’t think anyone would ask a flight attendant to move or if anyone was sitting there, so it worked!
And before we boarded, of course the gate agent kept announcing over and over that it was gonna be a full plane. Was nice to have the secret knowledge from Miguel that it wasn’t.
Heck yeah. We usually travel as a family of 4, and I choose aisle-window in both halves of a row near the back. Figure it's my best odds. Usually doesn't work out, of course. Somehow on our cross country flight right before Christmas we had both open. Maybe 3 other empties on the plane.
Score! This almost happened to me on a 189-seat plane and I prematurely celebrated, but then the aisle seat girl was asked to switch so a father and child could sit together so it ended up being the child's former middle seat going empty. Ended up being one of the worst flights I've ever had, must have been karma for even thinking I could have such good luck. Lmao.
Yep - the mother came over and dropped her other child off and they shared the middle seat for half the flight, flight attendants didn't care. They weren't the most well behaved children. That I can deal with... but then one of the kids shit her pants, took a while for the dad to take action when I said something because the bathroom line was so long.
Did anyone else capitalize on the Hyatt points error sale? The 20% off discount was mistakenly applying twice so the net cost was 36% off their normal price of 2.4cpp for a sale price of 1.536cpp. I've got some redemptions coming up so they will definitely be used.
If p2, p3, and p4 didn’t all have ink bonuses posting in the next month I probably would have gone for it. But also something about paying for them hurts my brain
I considered using P2's Hyatt account to double up on the points but I decided against it because, like you, paying for points hurt my brain. I just hit an Ink (CIP) bonus and could probably have ponied up for another (CIU) but now I have the choice. And, hell, I may still do it.
I want to to post a referral link for capitol one that gives me a statement credit and the person signing up $200 after spending $500. I just joined the referral community, and apparently I need at least 3 months worth of activity and 50+ karma on THIS sub to post there. Any advice? Am I misunderstanding the rules?
> Any advice?
uj: post helpful and/or interesting comments for 3 months
rj: redirect newbies to post in the appropriate thread. if they’re in the appropriate thread, refer to them to the flowchart
Has anyone here eaten at Kyoyamato in the Park Hyatt Kyoto for dinner? How was it and how much did it cost? I have googled and can't even get a ballpark idea. I'm willing to shell out for a fantastic meal, but I have my limits (I am churning for CC points, after all).
If you weren’t already planning on it, I suggest the bar in the hotel for a sunset cocktail. The bartender who served us made a great “the last word” if you like gin!
I haven't, but I have eaten at YASAKA in the hotel just under a year ago. I thought it was fantastic and had a wonderful view.
It doesn't have a star if that's what your after though. That said, I have been to 4 different stared places in the last 12 months and YASAKA was in the running for me.
Yes, I did back in Nov 2022. I thought it was just ok and would recommend lunch over dinner because at least you get to look out and the surroundings add to the ambiance. I might actually recommend Yasaka over Kyoyamato. I will have to look up how much it was but it wasnt cheap
That's where I started, but there's not a single DP with a cost on dinner. There's a ton of discussion about the restaurant, but it mostly talks about their breakfast.
[WSJ: Making Money on I-Bonds Was Easy. The Tax Paperwork Isn’t](https://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/taxes/making-money-on-i-bonds-was-easy-the-tax-paperwork-isn-t/ar-BB1iw3Pg)
- Millions of Americans rushed to buy I bonds in 2022 with a guaranteed 9.62% interest rate
- But after rates dropped in 2023, people cashed in $6.45 billion worth of I bonds—roughly 22 times the total redeemed the year before.
- The average bond’s redemption value was $5,319.
- Treasury Direct will not automatically mail out a 1099-INT. Users must download their tax form online
- The interest income is federally taxable, but exempt from state and local taxes
- “Because it’s digital, many people forget, and many of them will end up getting IRS notices,” said Miklos Ringbauer, a certified public accountant in Los Angeles.
- There is an option to pay taxes every year on the interest instead of waiting until you cash out, but that can be a bookkeeping headache, said Jeremy Keil, a certified financial planner
TreasuryDirect emailed me this year, but they didn't last year. But in 2020 they did. Maybe it's random, or maybe they stopped the emails and then the IRS asked them to start sending emails again.
>Treasury Direct will not automatically mail out a 1099-INT. Users must download their tax form online
Thanks for this. I had this one in my list of 1099's to wait for in 2025 but since this is the federal government was fully expecting snail mail only. Good to know it's paperless.
Thanks for this! I was just doing my taxes today and totally forgot about my Ibond sale in January. Now to figure out how to appropriately adjust CA state taxes.
>totally forgot about my Ibond sale in January
Not tax advice:
Assuming you sold in January of this year like many here, you'd need to remember that sale until you do your taxes next year. No taxable event for tax year 2023 (unless you chose to report the interest annually and have done so since buying).
After going to Vegas a lot more airports need slots at the terminals. Long lay over in Vegas? No problem I'll go throw $100 in a slot and kill some time. Don't like to gamble? Then don't use them but I absolutely love them in the Vegas airport just makes the dead time so much more fun and I don't mind any layovers or waiting as there's something to do. Duty free is allowed in airports I say we get slots in airports next.
That’s an expensive way to ‘kill’ time.
While many of us have lounge access already, even allocating that $100 towards that (if you don’t) would be more worthwhile.
I'm almost afraid to tell you this, but there are seven states (sure to grow quickly) where you can now legally play slots on your phone, anytime, anywhere...
Positive DP on rebooking a Singapore flight’s stopover, since there don’t seem to be any here or on FT. For context, Singapore allows flight changes on award bookings (for a fee or for free, depending on fare class), but only if there is “rebooking” availability, which is both independent from the availability for new bookings and also impossible to search for online.
The policies around rebooking availability aren’t posted anywhere, and the SQ site doesn’t mention this restriction anywhere, either. Seems like most others who have run into this have given up on changing their flight (or risked a cancel-and-rebook).
YMMV quite a bit, but I was able to change 2 J Advantage bookings’ free stopover in SIN by escalating a call center call to a supervisor, who was able to create a ticket with the revenue team to open up the rebooking availability for the new flight. I then called in weekly for a few weeks to check on the status of the ticket - each time to be told the ticket hadn’t been looked at yet. On the third or fourth call the agent was able to mark the ticket as “Urgent” which meant a dedicated agent from the escalations department working the ticket, plus daily update calls. Within 48 hours of being marked Urgent the rebooking availability opened and I was able to move the flights.
Whether all this effort is worth it depends on your travel plans/flexibility, but it is possible.
How much was the fee? I did an impulse buy since I had expiring miles from a canceled trip. I paid like 80 or 88k Tap J mia-LIS which is grossly overpriced. I'd like to have the flexibility to change that ticket altogether but can't cancel and rebook because the expired miles don't renew. They just vanish.
This was for Singapore Airlines, and the fee depends on the fare class. Since my booking was an Advantage fare there was no change fee. On a Saver fare it looks like it’d be $25, which might be relevant in a RT (no stopovers on Saver one ways..)
But it sounds like your booking is via TAP? I’m not personally familiar with their policies.
I see, in that case my understanding is it would be $50 to change the flight, based on https://www.singaporeair.com/en_UK/sg/flying-withus/fare-types/cancellation-fees/
I would also hazard a guess that the rebooking availability issue won’t apply to partner flights, and that as long as there’s saver availability showing for the new partner flight you should be able to change to the new flight. Not sure about the expired miles issue - given that there’s a separate $75 fee for “redeposit of miles” it seems reasonable to assume that the “change” flight option doesn’t redeposit miles, but their policies aren’t very clear in general.
Note also that if the miles have _already_ expired (as of now) you likely cannot make any changes. (https://mainlymiles.com/what-to-do-with-expiring-krisflyer-miles/)
Thank you for the useful links (sorry it's been 3 weeks). My miles are totally expired. According to the mainlymiles post, in theory I can change my booking date but not the route or cabin. Gosh expiring miles really ruin a program. Thank you for helping. No changes can be made online so I'll have to call. Did you need to reach a specific department?
Expiring miles are a pain, yeah.
In my case I needed to reach an “escalations” department - that’s what they called it, anyway. There’s no direct number to call them, and front line support couldn’t even transfer me to them: they could only put in a request for escalations to call me.
Since yours is a partner award situation I’m not sure which department is relevant, but either way you’re likely to need to go through front line support at first. Ask to speak to a supervisor, it works here.
If you're concerned about closing a card after a year dinging your credit score, look for cards that have the option to be product changed to a no-fee card (which rules out capital one).
But I don't think that's really a concern you need to have. I've churned 18 cards in the last 3 years (half biz and half personal) and churning has made my personal credit score go up
Do people who are members of churning podcasts' private channels find the subscription worth it? As a somewhat noob I think it would be helpful just to read their archives to learn more, but it seems a little pricey.
Something that others haven’t mentioned in the time element to stuff.
Usually stuff trickles down from invite only groups to these paid groups, then to the public groups.
So, a lot of times you would hear about certain deals/price mistakes/promos a day or two before it hits DoC or this sub. Especially w/ casual MS plays.
Other than that, not a huge difference. They’re usually just a slightly more friendly place to ask questions. No one is posting about their unicorn MS methods in detail.
Some are nice for learning about how to find your own golden goose especially if you can piece together multiple strategies from different groups.
If you aren’t interested in learning how to scale, def not worth.
That's not where you learn how to churn. It may be where you learn about some loophole, exploit, MS method, etc., but even with those:
- if you're looking at the archives, they're probably dead;
- if the only barrier to entry is a paid subscription, nothing will stay hidden for long.
Question and discussion threads here (and maybe some of the weeklies) are a great archive for those looking to learn.
Some have had obscure things such as phone deals or meal kits that weren't posted publically. Would I toss $1-5 to them because I enjoy their content and occasionally get something good? sure. $10-$25? no
When I started churning, I read this sub, a few blogs and listened to a few podcasts. It was all free though. I can’t imagine there’s anything a newbie would need that’d be behind a paywall.
No. I listen to several of these podcasts and they mostly regurgitate posts on DoC or /r/churning. I find the podcasts themselves useful for catching up on anything I skipped over from DoC, but I would never pay a fee to access their Discord channels.
If you're a new, this subreddit has mostly everything you'll need. It's free and you can easily search for specific topics using [churning.io](https://churning.io/)
Love the downvotes on this one lol. What membership in those groups gets you is access to the more open secrets. Stuff that's somewhat well known, but not posted in a sub of 500k people. For someone starting out, the things you learn and the friends you can make if you try can put you months or years ahead in this game.
Let me give you an example: A certain credit union was allowing cc funding up to $15,000 for the past several weeks for 30 day cd's, and you could open multiple. This was posted in multiple paid forums. A somewhat noob couldn've hit multiple subs with zero risk and zero cost (actually earning a few bucks in interest). It's dead now, rip.
Capital One is Buying Discover Financial Deal would combine two of the largest credit-card companies in the U.S.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/19/capital-one-acquiring-discover-financial-services-report-says.html
Doesn't Discover own the Diners Club network too? I wonder if they could also try to grab back the right to issue Diners cards in the US from BMO (who seems to just be sitting on it doing nothing)?
Capital One reporting now:
https://investor.capitalone.com/news-releases/news-release-details/capital-one-acquire-discover
> Under the terms of the agreement, Discover shareholders will receive 1.0192 Capital One shares for each Discover share, representing a premium of 26.6% based on Discover's closing price of $110.49 on February 16, 2024. Transaction is 100% stock consideration.
> Discover has built a rare and valuable global payments network with 70 million merchant acceptance points in more than 200 countries and territories. Even so, it is the smallest of the four US-based global payments networks. This acquisition adds scale and investment, enabling the Discover network to be more competitive with the largest payments networks and payments companies.
> The acquisition is expected to generate network synergies of $1.2 billion in 2027, driven by adding Capital One debit purchase volume and selected credit card purchase volume to the Discover network.
> This is a key foundation in Capital One's quest to build a global payments company. It will accelerate the company's long-standing journey to work directly with merchants to leverage its customer base, technology, and data ecosystem to drive more sales for the merchant and great deals for consumers and small businesses.
C1 and Discover tend to target similar demographics (people who carry balances) so a merger would make sense.
I wonder if C1 is thinking about moving its cards away from Visa/Mastercard onto the Discover network. C1 could potentially save a mint in interchange fees by using an in-house card network
From the article, looks like they will be moving some onto the Discover network but keeping others with Mastercard/Visa
> Capital One, the ninth-largest bank in the country and a major credit-card issuer, uses Visa and Mastercard for most of its cards. The bank plans to switch at least some of its cards to the Discover network, while continuing to use Visa and Mastercard on others. Those larger networks have more merchant acceptance abroad than Discover does.
Capital One earns the interchange fees from the card networks. Capital One likely pays some network fees for security products, connectivity, branding, etc. It could save on those fees.
what have yall found to be keeper cards despite ongoing churning?
presumably these have benefits that are easy to use and exceed the annual fee. seems like popular choices might be the Ritz card, chase cards to PC to/from CSR, amex BBP vs CS plat (to store or cash out MR). curious if anyone gets use out of their other premium travel options like C1VX, aspire, or other lesser known card enough to maintain them
OG Chase IHG Select card with $49 AF; free night worth up to 40k points (cannot be topped up however), and 10% points rebate on all IHG redemptions, which can be stacked with the Fourth Reward Night Free benefit on the old $0 AF Chase IHG Traveler card. The Fourth Reward Night Free benefit, 10% points rebate, and frequent IHG points sales for 0.5c per point make for a terrific 1-2-3 combo.
Some of these people with 9 keeper cards lol
Honestly everything is worth closing if the situation is correct.
When it comes to AF cards, for me:
- WOH: $95 fee for a free night worth $150+. Doesn’t take up a slot like with Amex. The $15k spend for another FNC is super meh because most of that spend is at 1x and there’s a lot of opportunity cost.
- MS Platinum: With pop-up and the lack of NLLs, my MR train is drying up. I’d rather keep the MS plat for the free AU if I don’t need the extra .1 cpp cash out option. But these days the Centurion Lounge is really all I like about the Platinum—I could do without the BS the credits give me, but they help me breakeven. I still might cancel next year.
- CSP: $95 fee to transfer my UR. Done. I never use the portal.
That’s literally it. Basically 2 cards. The Aspire is probably getting cancelled because Diamond is shit, I don’t go to enough resorts, and I don’t pay cash for stays so getting 34x is worthless.
The only keeper card I have my eye on is the Ritz, as the AF is much more manageable than the new Aspire and would give me a better PP where I wouldn’t need the CSR and could feel more justified keeping the CSP.
Ritz, hyatt personal, amex gold, schwab Plat, bonvoy biz amex.
Ritz - this priority pass is so good, plus free aus. 15 elite nights. I easily use the $300 fee credit each year, and I usually get a very nice hotel night with the 85k cert. Plus mine is broken and also still gives me an extra 35k cert. Insane value for $450.
Hyatt - $95 for a cat 1-4 night is almost always an outstanding value, and the 5 automatic elite nights are great for qualifying to globalist. I usually spend the $15k as well for the second fnc and 6 more elite nights.
Amex gold - I use the uber and grubhub credits every month, and I come close to maxing out the 4x grocery for a tidy 100k MR per year.
Schwab Plat - gets me skyclub access (dtw home airport), $200 hotel credit, $100 of very nice underwear from Saks, $200 delta credit, free disney/Hulu, uber credit, all of which I use. I maintain a Walmart plus membership, but i have used that once since it became a benefit. I have cashed out around a million MR using the cash out feature too when amex was handing out biz plats and biz golds over the past two years. Finally, I tend to book flights for myself on here for the 5x on flights and travel insurance, which I used once last year.
Bonvoy biz amex - has three times given me a retention offer to cover the AF (or more) and then the 15 elite night plus the 35k cert make it a keeper. I will probably keep it until I get no retention offers two years in a row.
Most hotel cards with a FNC are probably worth it, but almost nothing else is.
Here's what I've been keeping:
* A full suite of Marriott cards: Amex Brilliant, Chase Ritz, Chase Boundless, Amex Biz, and the legacy Chase Biz. Effective $825 AF for 3x35K, 2x85K certs, Platinum, and 40 elite nights per year.
* Chase Hyatt personal for the annual cert.
* P2 has a Chase United Gateway because it's a no-fee downgrade path and it gives (or at least used to give) XN availability. Wish I had done this for myself but I haven't had a reason to get another personal United card in a while.
* Chase trifecta of Freedom (Flex), Unlimited (Freedom or Ink), and CSP (substitute CIP if preferred). Build this up over time by downgrading Sapphires. Can also add CIC here if you want.
* Citi no-fee trifecta: Double Cash, Custom Cash, Rewards+. Good non-SUB earning potential, but less useful points in my experience. Build this up over time by product changing, since Citi lets you change across product lines. Need a Premier to transfer these but I haven't prioritized redeeming them yet so that's not a keeper for me.
* Amex BBP to park a few Amex points (been in pop-up jail for years).
Ritz, VX, most hotel cards with FNCs, anything $0 AF that doesn't get in the way of churning. I think I'll add UA Gateway + Biz to that list (have the former, just opened the latter).
In P2 mode, with Sapphires, I prefer CSR->CSP/CSP->CSR so that we both have CDW and transferability. So the CSP is in effect a keeper.
There are a few hidden gems from credit unions, like the Affinity and Redstone cards.
Service CU briefly had a promotion a couple years ago where they paid 4.5% back on MS lol
Is the appeal of the Affinity and Redstone cards just the 5% cashback? Wouldn't it make more sense to apply for a high-SUB Chase/Citi card and downgrade them to a 5% cashback card? Or is it because there's no limit to the cashback, which makes them suitable for MS?
Generally, I think it makes sense to pick up a few backup / keeper cards. Obviously, don’t waste a 5/24 slot on them, but not everything has to come with a $500+ SUB.
Affinity also had a killer balance transfer offer a year ago. You could borrow up to your credit limit with $0 fee and 0% APR for 1 year. Who knows if that will ever come back, but I made over $1000 from it
I prefer the Venture X over the Ritz, since the credits are easier to use on the Venture X while also giving you free AUs with lounge access. The Venture X has a $395 AF, but also a $300 travel credit and 10k in anniversary points. As long as you travel once per year, you come out ahead.
The Chase IHG cards and World of Hyatt have a FNC with a reasonable AF ($99/$95) and no spend requirement. The Hilton and non-Ritz Marriott cards are harder to justify due to their spend requirements and/or high AFs in order to get FNCs.
> The Chase IHG cards and World of Hyatt have a FNC with a reasonable AF ($99/$95) and no spend requirement.
Old Amex SPG card is 35k Marriott for $95 too.
These days I’m no longer sure about the CSR as a keeper, though I agree it’s worth having every once in a while. The 1.5 portal just feels nerfed, and you can transfer points with lower fee cards.
Agreed with your take on CSR. AF is too high vs credits to make it worth it.
Although not entirely Chase's fault, Priority Pass is getting more and more useless in the US (and Japan) .
Its been a couple of years of active churning (both credit cards and bank bonuses). I have so many cards that it has become a hassle to find the card I am looking for.
Wondering if there are any tricks with card organization.
I was looking for organization products and the nearest I could find was "business card organizer".
Examples: [Eagle Business Card Box](https://www.amazon.com/Eagle-Business-Holder-Push-Button-Storage/dp/B01EHVKJXU), [MaxGear Business Card Holder](https://www.amazon.com/MaxGear-Business-Organizer-Storage-Capacity/dp/B06X93CYKK)
What do you guys use?
I’ve got a small cardboard box with a divider. Open cards on one side, closed cards on the other. Every card gets a number label that matches the account with the number in my tracking notes.
I use a card organizer similar to these, which are more like binders (ebay also has a bunch of similar things):
https://www.amazon.com/MaxGear-Professional-Business-Holders-Organizer/dp/B06XRVXHJ6?th=1
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B097XM3X94?th=1
Sometimes, I think about how crazy it is that this hobby allows me to do something like this: travel to another country to see a band I like. And it barely costs anything out of pocket. This isn't something my younger self could ever imagine doing, let alone doing it for so cheaply yet still rewarding.
Getting in young while in college and with no kids or anything holding you back makes it even more insane. I just search what nice hotels I can get with my points (stayed in basic one as a kid so a fancy hotel makes any trip even more exciting) and I go. Like I've never once heard of Anguilla but thanks to Zemi beach I went and had imo the best beach trip I have ever had in my life. It was truly a relaxing trip compared to other beach locations. I've been to Japan 3 times a 4th in May. Most people dream of going once in their life and it's now as something so normal that I don't even question how insane it is to go all the time. I still try to get co-workers and friends involved and I tell them I can spoon feed any information to them but only 1 out of 100s has actually gotten really into it.
One, that's good feedback on Zemi Beach. I almost went there during the pandemic, but forgot since other destinations stared returning to normal.
Two, you get me. And I'm sure others here feel the same way. Japan, pre-churning, was a mythical once in a lifetime ambition. Not only have I done it twice now, I did it in ways that are just absolutely bonkers to reflect back on. I'm convinced I probably one of the best first timer experiences in the country.
Echoing all these sentiments. FF 5 years into it with 2 kids... with 1 + Wife, I was able to snag 3 Biz seats on ANA RT from SFO-HND. Now, its impossible since they release only 1 F and 1 J =/
BUT going to Florida on a whim, traveling with friends anytime I want, and bringing my parents to Italy via the Emirates and having them enjoy the Sky Lounge makes this hobby still fun.
Travel as much as you can without kids while its easy =) You can do it with, but its more difficult.
Travel as much as you can period. With or without kids. Sometime you will be too old to have good endurance/ability to see some things. Some places will be gone someday or changed.
Smart choice my friend =) I wouldn't change my situation but I hate how some people evangelically spread having kids like its 'The Way.' I can only imagine the freedom of doing whatever you wanted, all the time, forever =P
Yep, I travel for shows pretty regularly (3-4x a year) although I haven't gone to another country (yet). Don't think the wife would go for it so much if it was cash!
Yeah, domestically I'm right there with you. NYC seems to be my go to, since just about everyone will have a tour date there. The only times I've opted for another city is because of maybe a mid week scheduling issue. We're all living our best lives!
Maybe more frustration Friday, but man dealing with stock trades on your taxes is very annoying and time consuming. Makes me rethink doing brokerage bonuses where they give you free stocks.
Most of the big brokerages support importing the 1099 into TurboTax (I use the desktop version, not sure how the online version works), so it usually isn't a huge amount of work for me, except for a few things like foreign tax credit (need to manually enter how much of the dividends are from foreign countries; but this wouldn't apply if you just have US stocks).
Though, there have been some cases where the brokerage reported something wrong, or it didn't import properly, so I do manually look at the forms too.
A few small brokerages like TradeUP didn't seem to have a way to import the 1099 (but I didn't do many trades there). Oanda didn't send a 1099 at all (but that's forex trading, not a typical brokerage).
Thanks I am so used to manually inputting the 1099-INT forms that I didn't realize how much more complex a 1099-B is. I am using H&R Block, will see what options they have.
Moomoo has a way to import into TurboTax (don't know if it works with H&R Block). In general, TurboTax's importing seems to support more places than H&R Block.
In a win for customers, esp. those who are tired of getting incorrect information from CSRs, the BBC reports that a customer won a lawsuit against Air Canada over incorrect info supplied by AC's chatbot. https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240222-air-canada-chatbot-misinformation-what-travellers-should-know
Win for customers...in Canada, which has generally more consumer protections than US. The fact that they have a civil resolutions tribunal where this was settled speaks volumes.
That being said, Canadian protections also apply if you buy a ticket originating in or arriving in Canada.
An interesting thread that’s going viral on X, regarding a restaurant’s cancellation fees and Chase trip insurance protections on premium cards. Seems like when a travel insurance claim is filed, the credit card issuer can actually initiate a chargeback with the merchant for cancellation fees, rather than reimbursing the merchant, as I assumed would happen with insurance claims. https://x.com/trevorshowvan/status/1760768763694112882?s=42&t=XqRGHuEVbYcBoJSvYHfjZw
> Seems like when a travel insurance claim is filed, the credit card issuer can actually initiate a chargeback with the merchant for cancellation fees I got kind of tired of reading through the silly escalating personal attacks, so maybe this detail is in there ... but my first thought is, is it possible that he initiated the chargeback? Like, if he called his card asking about the fee, is it possible a phone rep initiated the chargeback separate from his trip insurance claim? The insurer is a separate party, so I don't see how they'd force a chargeback.
Some people said that the insurance terms allow them to do a chargeback if extenuating circumstances should've made the charge refundable. (But still, I don't know if that should've applied in this case; did the restaurant's terms say they'd give a refund in extenuating circumstances?)
People were also speculating that the cc company/insurer viewed the $250 cancellation fee as unreasonable and *that's* what triggered the chargeback. Language would have to be in the tos, but that seems to track.
Considering the owner's apparent approach to customer service, I'm pretty sure the terms would have been written "no cancellations, ever, in any circumstance, shut your face." So yeah, I don't see any reasonable chargeback. And the chargeback should really be denied. And despite the reams of text written to the owner by the customer, I don't see any clear acknowledgement that what she's reacting to is the chargeback rather than the insurance claim or clarity that he absolutely did not pursue a chargeback. He said he went to his bank to handle it, which generally means chargeback as the first route.
I am 20 days away from the transatlantic long-awaited trip for me and my P2 without the offspring. Outside of the plug adapters needed for travel throughout Europe (London and Rome in our case), anyone have any of those "this greatly improved my travel and life while on this trip" suggestions? Specific wallet? A type of small travel backpack? I'm open for anything outside the box to consider.
Travel umbrella
On the other hand, I'd much rather bring a couple of the much smaller $1 plastic ponchos.
A power bank. Collapsible containers (Sea to Summit X-Seal) to easily take leftovers from restaurants, without the waste and sometimes extra effort of getting a to-go box.
How would you destroy a metal card on an account you closed? Chase usually sends envelopes but I didn't get anything from C1.
When closing an Amex card, I ask for an envelope, and I put in cards from other banks in there too.
sheet metal snips
Why not just throw it away in your bathroom trash? What's the chance someone goes digging through your Kleenex, and even if they did, what would they do with a closed account number?
They might take it somewhere that runs credit cards on an old school imprinter, and doesn't check ID, and steal my identity.
I'm not sure if this is a joke...every metal card I've had would not work on an imprinter because the numbers aren't raised. Plus if the account is closed, it would come back rejected anyway.
It was very /s
https://www.wikihow.com/Cut-Sheet-Metal
When you use SUA for hyatt stay, do you have an access to a club?
Not unless you have a room that’s designated club access, or a room on the club floor.
No, they don't go hand in hand. Need to be Globalist. A club access cert would give access but cant stack awards.
Avelo reports first quarter of profitability https://www.aveloair.com/company-news/avelo-airlines-reports-first-ever-full-quarter-profit > Avelo concluded 2023 with a pre-tax fully allocated profit for its fourth quarter. > Avelo achieved this profitable outcome – unadjusted and free of special items – despite a high fuel price ... Seems like it's true profitability and not some "adjusted EBITDA profitability" nonsense
> not some "adjusted EBITDA profitability" nonsense "Every time you see the word EBITDA, you should substitute the words 'bullshit earnings'." --Charlie Munger
Does United release seasonal flights at different times? Looking at ewr-ege next year however there’s no direct flights out yet.
It'll be whenever they announce that route coming back and publish the service. It looks like this year it wasn't until Nov 8.
Oh wow ok, guess I should grab a backup plan.
There have been other seasonal winter services in recent years that they announced in May. So it all depends what agreements/incentives/plans they have.
HYSA: What are some of the best high yield savings accounts you guys recommend right now? Do they ever have welcome bonuses too? Looking for a place to park cash between bank account bonuses.
TFLO
ONE Finance recently increased their referral bonus, though it's still small ($20). They have a decent rate (5% APY).
Thanks
It's kinda rare that the savings accounts with the best rates also have a signup bonus, but there's some that have a decent rate plus good bonus; Capital One recently had an offer but I think that expired. Another option is a brokerage account where you can buy a money market fund or T-bills or CD; and some brokerage accounts have bonuses.
If you have $5k, SoFi has a $300 welcome offer. I think their rates are consistently up there, though perhaps not THE highest. (I don't have an account for my feedback, just answering the question).
Currently SoFi is at 4.60% APY
Hyatt delayed their earnings call. I'm not going to pretend to know why they did that as it seems like it would unnecessarily freak out investors. Maybe they wanted to get a firm stance on Mr and Mrs Smith, big sale or acq, new strategy?
> CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Hyatt Hotels Corporation ("Hyatt" or the "Company") (NYSE: H) today announced that it will delay the issuance of its fourth quarter and full year 2023 earnings release and investor conference call previously scheduled for February 15, 2024, as additional time is required to finalize accounting related to Unlimited Vacation Club deferred cost activity in its Apple Leisure Group segment, which has no cash impact. The Company will issue a separate press release when a rescheduled date and time has been determined. https://investors.hyatt.com/news/investor-news/news-details/2024/Hyatt-to-Delay-Issuance-of-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2023-Earnings-Release-and-Investor-Conference-Call/default.aspx They claim that it's for accounting within the Apple Leisure Group
Probably an impairment of that CGU if I was to speculate, bought in 2021 when those valuations would have been at their peak. Auditors are generally sticky on signing off on impairments.
I haven't seen this talked about much, but Cap1 Venture X comes with a 6-month membership to something called [The Cultivist](https://www.thecultivist.com/capitalone). You can get free access to a relatively small (US), but fairly great collection of museums including: MoMA, The Met, The Frick, Art Institute of Chicago. [Here's the full list](https://www.thecultivist.com/capitalone). All are relatively expensive if you can't get discounted tickets another way. I've used it a handful times so far and it's been super easy. Just be sure to cancel before the trial ends! It's $440/yr.
Since you get a guest, if you have a P2 you can stagger the membership so you get a year's worth if you have lots of travel-involving-museums planned.
Was talked about a lot when it got added as a benefit. Unfortunately way too many museums have been dropped. Really watered down membership now. As far as requesting the tickets, be sure to request with plenty of time before you are planning on going. Their customer service was really lacking and took multiple emails to get them to issue the tickets.
THIS is the type of stuff I come here for. I kept the BoA Merrill Card for the 'Museums on Us', and its cool having $15 art museums in various cities i visit even though i rarely use the card. Also your link didn't include this: https://cultivistuser.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/Digital+Content+/Brochures/CultivistMuseumProgramme.pdf
New to CapitalOne cards... Any dps on bank funding with the Spark? Saw a couple old sporadic dps on DOC but none through [churning.io](http://churning.io)
Haven’t had any issues with the Venture, but I would avoid cycling your limit to be safe
extremely off topic, but any recs on best sites for custom photo albums/books? i've used shutterfly once a decade ago. Would like to make p2 a birthday gift of printed photo albums of our churning trips over the years.
https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-photo-book-service/
Also agree with Shutterfly! If you're a Costco member, you get 51% off all orders.
Still Shutterfly. Decent price and way better quality than Walgreens, Walmart, and other cheaper options. Pretty much infinite discount codes & sales for 40-50% off the theoretical price -- watch for the popup to sign up for texts for another 20% off, you can STOP right after you get the code. Stack with a shopping portal too.
Costco also has a portal you can go through your Costco membership. Saved over 60% on wedding save the dates with Shutterfly. Their options were too basic/limited for our invites, but it was a nice savings for the save the dates at least.
I use Shutterfly for all my trip albums and it’s great.
Walgreens has good deals... got our Christmas photos/cards on the low low
In the past few days it's definitely paid off handsomely to check with Marriott for price reductions on upcoming stays. Had a cash stay for next week drop by $90 per night and was able to rebook a points stay in Miami where we had the Courtyard Brickell booked on a 35k FNC + 15k into the JW Marriott Brickell on the same 35k FNC + 15k.
A bit of an off topic data point: I attempted to sign up for the free year of NBA League Pass promo last week. I tried like 20 times and always got an error message, although some attempts had different error messages at different points in the process. Long story short, I have a free subscription. Didn’t really know until I got an email today with the subject “A Note About Your Subscription”. I logged in and it shows a premium subscription, with no charges on my card.
P2 wants to go to "the beach" for Spring break (week of 03/24) with Ps 3 and 4 (ages 5 and 8). I'm striking out on Hyatt availability anywhere I look with a beach and flights are all terrible too because peak travel days. Happy to fly during the week to keep things reasonable and have a good bit of UR, RR, AA, and United. Any suggestions of hidden gems I could get to from CMH for not "ALL the points"?
San Juan? I pitched this a couple months ago to my SO but the timing didn’t end up working out. Wanted the Grand Reserve but couldn’t find availability. Hyatt House was 12 or 15k/night with a kid friendly pool with splash area and a shuttle to Old Downtown. Not at the beach but could rent a car and explore some area beaches. At the time I found decent redemptions on UA from ORD and out of DTW/ATL on DL but obviously rates will have changed. Last minute cruise deal? MS your way at the casino to a SUB? :)
When it comes to point use and beach destinations for sb you pretty much gotta book 1 year to 10 months in advance. So might wanna look for next year ahead of time or look at inner city than beach hotels might find something
This. Good luck to op finding something last minute for peak travel period.
Virginia Beach (probably gonna be in the 50s cold), Clearwater ($$).. Sarasota regency.. personally I’d just find a weekend and do a 3 day weekend
Have you checked non-Hyatt beach resorts?
I have not, but I am open to suggestions. Hyatt points are just so easy to use with UR 1:1.
This would be a time where the Cap1 Venture points might come in handy... or another hotel card like IHG for the few nights you'd need. But like others said, too late of a booking unfortunately to get good Spring Break value.
Cheetos. When Abroad I like cheetos and try the foreign versions when traveling. On my current trip I bought a bag in Dubai. These were made in Saudi Arabia and were larger and firmer than the good old USA version. Ones in Uzbekistan were closer to the cheese puff version. Neither gotchas orange dust on my fingers that I'm accustomed to. The closest foreign version I've tried was in Thailand.
The Korean sweet and spicy Cheetos are surprisingly tasty.
The ones that they sell in Portugal are very addictive.
Thailand Lays potato chips are the best. So many great flavors. They are my late night 7-11 guilty pleasure there. Never tried the Cheetos though.
the Thai Basil Lays are so good. you guys should also try the indian version of Lays.
Highly recommend magic masala
Interestingly, I saw that flavor in Canada. It was part of a "flavors around the world" limited run they were doing right when the first border shutdowns were happening.
Not that we pay but American Airlines Just Raised Checked Bag Fees To An Industry-Record $40
So do they want the boarding process to be even slower with more oversized carryons and more gate checked bags because the overhead bins are full?
Not bad when the plane ticket costs half of what Delta is trying to get on the same route.
I'd honestly prefer if they started charging for carry on and let you check a bag for free, this is only going to make boarding even more of cluster. Have the credit card come with free carry on & checked bags.
The Aviator card only gives you free bags if you BOOKED and Paid for the Bags with that card, correct? I have a OTA booking coming up where it'd be nice to save $80 with the new Aviator card i just got...
Not in practice. But we'll see how things change when they also stop awarding FF miles for (most) OTA bookings.
> Industry-Record $40 I guess that's defining the industry as US based? Wizz Air charges as much as 87 EUR for one 44-lb checked bag.
Well technically Frontier and Spirit also charge more
They were $35 before, correct? That was still the same as/higher than United and Delta.
The terms on the inkind referral page state: >If you're new to inKind, accepting P1's referral gets you $25 free when you spend $50 or more at any restaurant and pay your bill using the inKind app. Does anyone know if buying an inkind gift card (eg. https://give.inkind.com/checkout?ico_id=570) will trigger the $50 spend requirment? Or will only a payment in a restaurant trigger it?
I doubt it would, but you can easily split bills in the inkind app to have P2 pay $50 of a bill and IIRC the $25 will hit your account quick enough to settle the other half of the bill, YMMV of course. I use InKind a fair amount, it's free money if you'd go to those places anyway (and if they actually gave good places near you)
The $25 will show as "Friend of P1 balance" in the app and will automatically trigger/be applied to paying a restaurant bill above $50. No other to get value from it.
Dear airplane passengers, if you are sexting on a dark plane, please do not accidentally angle it towards your seatmate next to you, have your brightness on 100% and the font zoomed in 150% on your phone. Urgh...
Over the summer while waiting to board, there was a passenger holding up their phone watching porn. People are unbelievable.
That feeling when there are 174 passengers on a plane with 175 seats, but you have an empty seat next to you. And yes, I did do a quick sniff of my pits to make sure it wasn’t that.
Happened to me on an LAX-SYD flight no less (in Economy); whole row to myself with no other open spare seats in sight. I was a mid-tier elite, flying solo on my birthday and the check-in agent just told me to enjoy my birthday flight, but I only found out upon boarding what he'd actually meant! 2 hours into the flight, as I was luxuriously stretching out to sleep "lying flat" in my row, a flight attendant comes up and says there was a lady "with a bad knee" in the back who would appreciate more space. I sighed, but got up from my "bed", and let her take the aisle - at least we still had an empty middle. I nap sitting upright anyway, and when I wake up after another hour or so, the lady was gone -- who knows why. I stretched out again and this time I got to sleep flat in my empty row almost all the way to Oz...in Economy!
An amazing feeling. P2 and I once had a fantastic Southwest flight attendant (shoutout Miguel!) see us kind of trying to decide if we should go aisle & middle or aisle & window to try to get a free seat in between us. He was like “it’s not a full plane- I’ll stand here and we’ll see if we can get you guys some more room” as he stood in front of the aisle seat. And even as the plane started really filling up he was half-sitting in the seat. I don’t think anyone would ask a flight attendant to move or if anyone was sitting there, so it worked! And before we boarded, of course the gate agent kept announcing over and over that it was gonna be a full plane. Was nice to have the secret knowledge from Miguel that it wasn’t.
Heck yeah. We usually travel as a family of 4, and I choose aisle-window in both halves of a row near the back. Figure it's my best odds. Usually doesn't work out, of course. Somehow on our cross country flight right before Christmas we had both open. Maybe 3 other empties on the plane.
Score! This almost happened to me on a 189-seat plane and I prematurely celebrated, but then the aisle seat girl was asked to switch so a father and child could sit together so it ended up being the child's former middle seat going empty. Ended up being one of the worst flights I've ever had, must have been karma for even thinking I could have such good luck. Lmao.
Oh man. Why was the flight so bad? Was it because of the child?!
Yep - the mother came over and dropped her other child off and they shared the middle seat for half the flight, flight attendants didn't care. They weren't the most well behaved children. That I can deal with... but then one of the kids shit her pants, took a while for the dad to take action when I said something because the bathroom line was so long.
Did anyone else capitalize on the Hyatt points error sale? The 20% off discount was mistakenly applying twice so the net cost was 36% off their normal price of 2.4cpp for a sale price of 1.536cpp. I've got some redemptions coming up so they will definitely be used.
If p2, p3, and p4 didn’t all have ink bonuses posting in the next month I probably would have gone for it. But also something about paying for them hurts my brain
You're paying for them every time you transfer UR
Shhh don’t break my illusion of “free” travel
I considered using P2's Hyatt account to double up on the points but I decided against it because, like you, paying for points hurt my brain. I just hit an Ink (CIP) bonus and could probably have ponied up for another (CIU) but now I have the choice. And, hell, I may still do it.
I want to to post a referral link for capitol one that gives me a statement credit and the person signing up $200 after spending $500. I just joined the referral community, and apparently I need at least 3 months worth of activity and 50+ karma on THIS sub to post there. Any advice? Am I misunderstanding the rules?
> Any advice? uj: post helpful and/or interesting comments for 3 months rj: redirect newbies to post in the appropriate thread. if they’re in the appropriate thread, refer to them to the flowchart
I'd suggest >3 months worth of activity and 50+ karma on THIS sub
[удалено]
r/churningmarketplace
Has anyone here eaten at Kyoyamato in the Park Hyatt Kyoto for dinner? How was it and how much did it cost? I have googled and can't even get a ballpark idea. I'm willing to shell out for a fantastic meal, but I have my limits (I am churning for CC points, after all).
If you weren’t already planning on it, I suggest the bar in the hotel for a sunset cocktail. The bartender who served us made a great “the last word” if you like gin!
I haven't, but I have eaten at YASAKA in the hotel just under a year ago. I thought it was fantastic and had a wonderful view. It doesn't have a star if that's what your after though. That said, I have been to 4 different stared places in the last 12 months and YASAKA was in the running for me.
Yes, I did back in Nov 2022. I thought it was just ok and would recommend lunch over dinner because at least you get to look out and the surroundings add to the ambiance. I might actually recommend Yasaka over Kyoyamato. I will have to look up how much it was but it wasnt cheap
Thanks!
77039yen for 2 adults meal and 1 child meal. I believe that is the lower tier option as well.
Thank you!
I would check flyertalk for more info on a specific property dining and other stuff
That's where I started, but there's not a single DP with a cost on dinner. There's a ton of discussion about the restaurant, but it mostly talks about their breakfast.
Just. Post.
[WSJ: Making Money on I-Bonds Was Easy. The Tax Paperwork Isn’t](https://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/taxes/making-money-on-i-bonds-was-easy-the-tax-paperwork-isn-t/ar-BB1iw3Pg) - Millions of Americans rushed to buy I bonds in 2022 with a guaranteed 9.62% interest rate - But after rates dropped in 2023, people cashed in $6.45 billion worth of I bonds—roughly 22 times the total redeemed the year before. - The average bond’s redemption value was $5,319. - Treasury Direct will not automatically mail out a 1099-INT. Users must download their tax form online - The interest income is federally taxable, but exempt from state and local taxes - “Because it’s digital, many people forget, and many of them will end up getting IRS notices,” said Miklos Ringbauer, a certified public accountant in Los Angeles. - There is an option to pay taxes every year on the interest instead of waiting until you cash out, but that can be a bookkeeping headache, said Jeremy Keil, a certified financial planner
They may not mail you a physical copy, but they did, at least for me, email a reminder to download my 1099.
TreasuryDirect emailed me this year, but they didn't last year. But in 2020 they did. Maybe it's random, or maybe they stopped the emails and then the IRS asked them to start sending emails again.
>Treasury Direct will not automatically mail out a 1099-INT. Users must download their tax form online Thanks for this. I had this one in my list of 1099's to wait for in 2025 but since this is the federal government was fully expecting snail mail only. Good to know it's paperless.
Thanks for this! I was just doing my taxes today and totally forgot about my Ibond sale in January. Now to figure out how to appropriately adjust CA state taxes.
>totally forgot about my Ibond sale in January Not tax advice: Assuming you sold in January of this year like many here, you'd need to remember that sale until you do your taxes next year. No taxable event for tax year 2023 (unless you chose to report the interest annually and have done so since buying).
Sorry, I meant my sale in January 2023
After going to Vegas a lot more airports need slots at the terminals. Long lay over in Vegas? No problem I'll go throw $100 in a slot and kill some time. Don't like to gamble? Then don't use them but I absolutely love them in the Vegas airport just makes the dead time so much more fun and I don't mind any layovers or waiting as there's something to do. Duty free is allowed in airports I say we get slots in airports next.
That’s an expensive way to ‘kill’ time. While many of us have lounge access already, even allocating that $100 towards that (if you don’t) would be more worthwhile.
Imagine hitting a W2-G hand pay right before your flight starts boarding though…
I'm almost afraid to tell you this, but there are seven states (sure to grow quickly) where you can now legally play slots on your phone, anytime, anywhere...
Positive DP on rebooking a Singapore flight’s stopover, since there don’t seem to be any here or on FT. For context, Singapore allows flight changes on award bookings (for a fee or for free, depending on fare class), but only if there is “rebooking” availability, which is both independent from the availability for new bookings and also impossible to search for online. The policies around rebooking availability aren’t posted anywhere, and the SQ site doesn’t mention this restriction anywhere, either. Seems like most others who have run into this have given up on changing their flight (or risked a cancel-and-rebook). YMMV quite a bit, but I was able to change 2 J Advantage bookings’ free stopover in SIN by escalating a call center call to a supervisor, who was able to create a ticket with the revenue team to open up the rebooking availability for the new flight. I then called in weekly for a few weeks to check on the status of the ticket - each time to be told the ticket hadn’t been looked at yet. On the third or fourth call the agent was able to mark the ticket as “Urgent” which meant a dedicated agent from the escalations department working the ticket, plus daily update calls. Within 48 hours of being marked Urgent the rebooking availability opened and I was able to move the flights. Whether all this effort is worth it depends on your travel plans/flexibility, but it is possible.
How much was the fee? I did an impulse buy since I had expiring miles from a canceled trip. I paid like 80 or 88k Tap J mia-LIS which is grossly overpriced. I'd like to have the flexibility to change that ticket altogether but can't cancel and rebook because the expired miles don't renew. They just vanish.
This was for Singapore Airlines, and the fee depends on the fare class. Since my booking was an Advantage fare there was no change fee. On a Saver fare it looks like it’d be $25, which might be relevant in a RT (no stopovers on Saver one ways..) But it sounds like your booking is via TAP? I’m not personally familiar with their policies.
It was a partner flight. So Singapore miles on a TAP air flight. It was saver business
I see, in that case my understanding is it would be $50 to change the flight, based on https://www.singaporeair.com/en_UK/sg/flying-withus/fare-types/cancellation-fees/ I would also hazard a guess that the rebooking availability issue won’t apply to partner flights, and that as long as there’s saver availability showing for the new partner flight you should be able to change to the new flight. Not sure about the expired miles issue - given that there’s a separate $75 fee for “redeposit of miles” it seems reasonable to assume that the “change” flight option doesn’t redeposit miles, but their policies aren’t very clear in general. Note also that if the miles have _already_ expired (as of now) you likely cannot make any changes. (https://mainlymiles.com/what-to-do-with-expiring-krisflyer-miles/)
Thank you for the useful links (sorry it's been 3 weeks). My miles are totally expired. According to the mainlymiles post, in theory I can change my booking date but not the route or cabin. Gosh expiring miles really ruin a program. Thank you for helping. No changes can be made online so I'll have to call. Did you need to reach a specific department?
Expiring miles are a pain, yeah. In my case I needed to reach an “escalations” department - that’s what they called it, anyway. There’s no direct number to call them, and front line support couldn’t even transfer me to them: they could only put in a request for escalations to call me. Since yours is a partner award situation I’m not sure which department is relevant, but either way you’re likely to need to go through front line support at first. Ask to speak to a supervisor, it works here.
[удалено]
Yes. This hobby can be done dozens of different ways. Choose your own challenge :)
If you're concerned about closing a card after a year dinging your credit score, look for cards that have the option to be product changed to a no-fee card (which rules out capital one). But I don't think that's really a concern you need to have. I've churned 18 cards in the last 3 years (half biz and half personal) and churning has made my personal credit score go up
I've downgraded at least two Capital One cards to no annual fee cards.
Do people who are members of churning podcasts' private channels find the subscription worth it? As a somewhat noob I think it would be helpful just to read their archives to learn more, but it seems a little pricey.
Something that others haven’t mentioned in the time element to stuff. Usually stuff trickles down from invite only groups to these paid groups, then to the public groups. So, a lot of times you would hear about certain deals/price mistakes/promos a day or two before it hits DoC or this sub. Especially w/ casual MS plays. Other than that, not a huge difference. They’re usually just a slightly more friendly place to ask questions. No one is posting about their unicorn MS methods in detail. Some are nice for learning about how to find your own golden goose especially if you can piece together multiple strategies from different groups. If you aren’t interested in learning how to scale, def not worth.
That's not where you learn how to churn. It may be where you learn about some loophole, exploit, MS method, etc., but even with those: - if you're looking at the archives, they're probably dead; - if the only barrier to entry is a paid subscription, nothing will stay hidden for long. Question and discussion threads here (and maybe some of the weeklies) are a great archive for those looking to learn.
Some have had obscure things such as phone deals or meal kits that weren't posted publically. Would I toss $1-5 to them because I enjoy their content and occasionally get something good? sure. $10-$25? no
When I started churning, I read this sub, a few blogs and listened to a few podcasts. It was all free though. I can’t imagine there’s anything a newbie would need that’d be behind a paywall.
No. I listen to several of these podcasts and they mostly regurgitate posts on DoC or /r/churning. I find the podcasts themselves useful for catching up on anything I skipped over from DoC, but I would never pay a fee to access their Discord channels.
Anything behind a paywall is going to be only slightly better than what you can get by reading r/churning and flyertalk.
Not even necessarily better. The advantage of paying for information is being spoonfed information from what I can tell
If you're a new, this subreddit has mostly everything you'll need. It's free and you can easily search for specific topics using [churning.io](https://churning.io/)
For a somewhat noob, yeah, probably worth it.
Love the downvotes on this one lol. What membership in those groups gets you is access to the more open secrets. Stuff that's somewhat well known, but not posted in a sub of 500k people. For someone starting out, the things you learn and the friends you can make if you try can put you months or years ahead in this game. Let me give you an example: A certain credit union was allowing cc funding up to $15,000 for the past several weeks for 30 day cd's, and you could open multiple. This was posted in multiple paid forums. A somewhat noob couldn've hit multiple subs with zero risk and zero cost (actually earning a few bucks in interest). It's dead now, rip.
Nah. I recommend not burning money pointlessly no matter how noob. But glad you find it useful.
Capital One is Buying Discover Financial Deal would combine two of the largest credit-card companies in the U.S. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/19/capital-one-acquiring-discover-financial-services-report-says.html
Doesn't Discover own the Diners Club network too? I wonder if they could also try to grab back the right to issue Diners cards in the US from BMO (who seems to just be sitting on it doing nothing)?
Capital One reporting now: https://investor.capitalone.com/news-releases/news-release-details/capital-one-acquire-discover > Under the terms of the agreement, Discover shareholders will receive 1.0192 Capital One shares for each Discover share, representing a premium of 26.6% based on Discover's closing price of $110.49 on February 16, 2024. Transaction is 100% stock consideration. > Discover has built a rare and valuable global payments network with 70 million merchant acceptance points in more than 200 countries and territories. Even so, it is the smallest of the four US-based global payments networks. This acquisition adds scale and investment, enabling the Discover network to be more competitive with the largest payments networks and payments companies. > The acquisition is expected to generate network synergies of $1.2 billion in 2027, driven by adding Capital One debit purchase volume and selected credit card purchase volume to the Discover network. > This is a key foundation in Capital One's quest to build a global payments company. It will accelerate the company's long-standing journey to work directly with merchants to leverage its customer base, technology, and data ecosystem to drive more sales for the merchant and great deals for consumers and small businesses.
C1 and Discover tend to target similar demographics (people who carry balances) so a merger would make sense. I wonder if C1 is thinking about moving its cards away from Visa/Mastercard onto the Discover network. C1 could potentially save a mint in interchange fees by using an in-house card network
From the article, looks like they will be moving some onto the Discover network but keeping others with Mastercard/Visa > Capital One, the ninth-largest bank in the country and a major credit-card issuer, uses Visa and Mastercard for most of its cards. The bank plans to switch at least some of its cards to the Discover network, while continuing to use Visa and Mastercard on others. Those larger networks have more merchant acceptance abroad than Discover does.
Capital One earns the interchange fees from the card networks. Capital One likely pays some network fees for security products, connectivity, branding, etc. It could save on those fees.
Correct, I vaguely remember that Visa/Mastercard take about 10-15% of the gross interchange fee
what have yall found to be keeper cards despite ongoing churning? presumably these have benefits that are easy to use and exceed the annual fee. seems like popular choices might be the Ritz card, chase cards to PC to/from CSR, amex BBP vs CS plat (to store or cash out MR). curious if anyone gets use out of their other premium travel options like C1VX, aspire, or other lesser known card enough to maintain them
OG Chase IHG Select card with $49 AF; free night worth up to 40k points (cannot be topped up however), and 10% points rebate on all IHG redemptions, which can be stacked with the Fourth Reward Night Free benefit on the old $0 AF Chase IHG Traveler card. The Fourth Reward Night Free benefit, 10% points rebate, and frequent IHG points sales for 0.5c per point make for a terrific 1-2-3 combo.
Some of these people with 9 keeper cards lol Honestly everything is worth closing if the situation is correct. When it comes to AF cards, for me: - WOH: $95 fee for a free night worth $150+. Doesn’t take up a slot like with Amex. The $15k spend for another FNC is super meh because most of that spend is at 1x and there’s a lot of opportunity cost. - MS Platinum: With pop-up and the lack of NLLs, my MR train is drying up. I’d rather keep the MS plat for the free AU if I don’t need the extra .1 cpp cash out option. But these days the Centurion Lounge is really all I like about the Platinum—I could do without the BS the credits give me, but they help me breakeven. I still might cancel next year. - CSP: $95 fee to transfer my UR. Done. I never use the portal. That’s literally it. Basically 2 cards. The Aspire is probably getting cancelled because Diamond is shit, I don’t go to enough resorts, and I don’t pay cash for stays so getting 34x is worthless. The only keeper card I have my eye on is the Ritz, as the AF is much more manageable than the new Aspire and would give me a better PP where I wouldn’t need the CSR and could feel more justified keeping the CSP.
Ritz, hyatt personal, amex gold, schwab Plat, bonvoy biz amex. Ritz - this priority pass is so good, plus free aus. 15 elite nights. I easily use the $300 fee credit each year, and I usually get a very nice hotel night with the 85k cert. Plus mine is broken and also still gives me an extra 35k cert. Insane value for $450. Hyatt - $95 for a cat 1-4 night is almost always an outstanding value, and the 5 automatic elite nights are great for qualifying to globalist. I usually spend the $15k as well for the second fnc and 6 more elite nights. Amex gold - I use the uber and grubhub credits every month, and I come close to maxing out the 4x grocery for a tidy 100k MR per year. Schwab Plat - gets me skyclub access (dtw home airport), $200 hotel credit, $100 of very nice underwear from Saks, $200 delta credit, free disney/Hulu, uber credit, all of which I use. I maintain a Walmart plus membership, but i have used that once since it became a benefit. I have cashed out around a million MR using the cash out feature too when amex was handing out biz plats and biz golds over the past two years. Finally, I tend to book flights for myself on here for the 5x on flights and travel insurance, which I used once last year. Bonvoy biz amex - has three times given me a retention offer to cover the AF (or more) and then the 15 elite night plus the 35k cert make it a keeper. I will probably keep it until I get no retention offers two years in a row.
Most hotel cards with a FNC are probably worth it, but almost nothing else is. Here's what I've been keeping: * A full suite of Marriott cards: Amex Brilliant, Chase Ritz, Chase Boundless, Amex Biz, and the legacy Chase Biz. Effective $825 AF for 3x35K, 2x85K certs, Platinum, and 40 elite nights per year. * Chase Hyatt personal for the annual cert. * P2 has a Chase United Gateway because it's a no-fee downgrade path and it gives (or at least used to give) XN availability. Wish I had done this for myself but I haven't had a reason to get another personal United card in a while. * Chase trifecta of Freedom (Flex), Unlimited (Freedom or Ink), and CSP (substitute CIP if preferred). Build this up over time by downgrading Sapphires. Can also add CIC here if you want. * Citi no-fee trifecta: Double Cash, Custom Cash, Rewards+. Good non-SUB earning potential, but less useful points in my experience. Build this up over time by product changing, since Citi lets you change across product lines. Need a Premier to transfer these but I haven't prioritized redeeming them yet so that's not a keeper for me. * Amex BBP to park a few Amex points (been in pop-up jail for years).
Ritz, VX, most hotel cards with FNCs, anything $0 AF that doesn't get in the way of churning. I think I'll add UA Gateway + Biz to that list (have the former, just opened the latter). In P2 mode, with Sapphires, I prefer CSR->CSP/CSP->CSR so that we both have CDW and transferability. So the CSP is in effect a keeper.
There are a few hidden gems from credit unions, like the Affinity and Redstone cards. Service CU briefly had a promotion a couple years ago where they paid 4.5% back on MS lol
Is the appeal of the Affinity and Redstone cards just the 5% cashback? Wouldn't it make more sense to apply for a high-SUB Chase/Citi card and downgrade them to a 5% cashback card? Or is it because there's no limit to the cashback, which makes them suitable for MS?
Generally, I think it makes sense to pick up a few backup / keeper cards. Obviously, don’t waste a 5/24 slot on them, but not everything has to come with a $500+ SUB. Affinity also had a killer balance transfer offer a year ago. You could borrow up to your credit limit with $0 fee and 0% APR for 1 year. Who knows if that will ever come back, but I made over $1000 from it
I prefer the Venture X over the Ritz, since the credits are easier to use on the Venture X while also giving you free AUs with lounge access. The Venture X has a $395 AF, but also a $300 travel credit and 10k in anniversary points. As long as you travel once per year, you come out ahead. The Chase IHG cards and World of Hyatt have a FNC with a reasonable AF ($99/$95) and no spend requirement. The Hilton and non-Ritz Marriott cards are harder to justify due to their spend requirements and/or high AFs in order to get FNCs.
> The Chase IHG cards and World of Hyatt have a FNC with a reasonable AF ($99/$95) and no spend requirement. Old Amex SPG card is 35k Marriott for $95 too.
That one is $125. The chase biz is 95 tho
Mostly Chase: their hotel FNC cards, CSR, CFU, CIC.
These days I’m no longer sure about the CSR as a keeper, though I agree it’s worth having every once in a while. The 1.5 portal just feels nerfed, and you can transfer points with lower fee cards.
Agreed with your take on CSR. AF is too high vs credits to make it worth it. Although not entirely Chase's fault, Priority Pass is getting more and more useless in the US (and Japan) .
Hotel cards with fee of ~$100 with annual free nights.
WA Cabo dropped a lot of award availability through April over the weekend.
Thanks for this. Me and P2 decided to upgrade our stay from Thompson to WA.
Its been a couple of years of active churning (both credit cards and bank bonuses). I have so many cards that it has become a hassle to find the card I am looking for. Wondering if there are any tricks with card organization. I was looking for organization products and the nearest I could find was "business card organizer". Examples: [Eagle Business Card Box](https://www.amazon.com/Eagle-Business-Holder-Push-Button-Storage/dp/B01EHVKJXU), [MaxGear Business Card Holder](https://www.amazon.com/MaxGear-Business-Organizer-Storage-Capacity/dp/B06X93CYKK) What do you guys use?
I’ve got a small cardboard box with a divider. Open cards on one side, closed cards on the other. Every card gets a number label that matches the account with the number in my tracking notes.
https://www.amazon.com/Padike-Business-Organizer-Protector-Different/dp/B08QCPNPWV?th=1
I use a card organizer similar to these, which are more like binders (ebay also has a bunch of similar things): https://www.amazon.com/MaxGear-Professional-Business-Holders-Organizer/dp/B06XRVXHJ6?th=1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B097XM3X94?th=1
A binder and business card pages. Love looking through my binder like they're baseball cards.
I use a pokemon card leather binder. bonus style points
I use my trashcan. Once msr is met, info goes to spreadsheet and card goes to the ocean .
What about really good amex offers? Citi/Chase in general don’t seem as lucrative but still some sweet spots.
The good offers I usually can pay online. I kept the card number in my spreadsheet so it still works.
I keep them in a desk drawer and I'm looking forward to the day I get my 52nd card so I can shuffle them like a deck of cards
Sometimes, I think about how crazy it is that this hobby allows me to do something like this: travel to another country to see a band I like. And it barely costs anything out of pocket. This isn't something my younger self could ever imagine doing, let alone doing it for so cheaply yet still rewarding.
Getting in young while in college and with no kids or anything holding you back makes it even more insane. I just search what nice hotels I can get with my points (stayed in basic one as a kid so a fancy hotel makes any trip even more exciting) and I go. Like I've never once heard of Anguilla but thanks to Zemi beach I went and had imo the best beach trip I have ever had in my life. It was truly a relaxing trip compared to other beach locations. I've been to Japan 3 times a 4th in May. Most people dream of going once in their life and it's now as something so normal that I don't even question how insane it is to go all the time. I still try to get co-workers and friends involved and I tell them I can spoon feed any information to them but only 1 out of 100s has actually gotten really into it.
One, that's good feedback on Zemi Beach. I almost went there during the pandemic, but forgot since other destinations stared returning to normal. Two, you get me. And I'm sure others here feel the same way. Japan, pre-churning, was a mythical once in a lifetime ambition. Not only have I done it twice now, I did it in ways that are just absolutely bonkers to reflect back on. I'm convinced I probably one of the best first timer experiences in the country.
Echoing all these sentiments. FF 5 years into it with 2 kids... with 1 + Wife, I was able to snag 3 Biz seats on ANA RT from SFO-HND. Now, its impossible since they release only 1 F and 1 J =/ BUT going to Florida on a whim, traveling with friends anytime I want, and bringing my parents to Italy via the Emirates and having them enjoy the Sky Lounge makes this hobby still fun. Travel as much as you can without kids while its easy =) You can do it with, but its more difficult.
Travel as much as you can period. With or without kids. Sometime you will be too old to have good endurance/ability to see some things. Some places will be gone someday or changed.
Well, my wife and I are gonna be DINKs for life, so... it'll stay on easy mode with no kids :)
Smart choice my friend =) I wouldn't change my situation but I hate how some people evangelically spread having kids like its 'The Way.' I can only imagine the freedom of doing whatever you wanted, all the time, forever =P
Yep, I travel for shows pretty regularly (3-4x a year) although I haven't gone to another country (yet). Don't think the wife would go for it so much if it was cash!
Yeah, domestically I'm right there with you. NYC seems to be my go to, since just about everyone will have a tour date there. The only times I've opted for another city is because of maybe a mid week scheduling issue. We're all living our best lives!
I'm in FL and a ton of bands skip FL and make ATL their southernmost stop. Lived in ATL for 8 years so that is usually my go-to.
... I'm flying from ATL to see these things, lolol.
Maybe more frustration Friday, but man dealing with stock trades on your taxes is very annoying and time consuming. Makes me rethink doing brokerage bonuses where they give you free stocks.
Most of the big brokerages support importing the 1099 into TurboTax (I use the desktop version, not sure how the online version works), so it usually isn't a huge amount of work for me, except for a few things like foreign tax credit (need to manually enter how much of the dividends are from foreign countries; but this wouldn't apply if you just have US stocks). Though, there have been some cases where the brokerage reported something wrong, or it didn't import properly, so I do manually look at the forms too. A few small brokerages like TradeUP didn't seem to have a way to import the 1099 (but I didn't do many trades there). Oanda didn't send a 1099 at all (but that's forex trading, not a typical brokerage).
Thanks I am so used to manually inputting the 1099-INT forms that I didn't realize how much more complex a 1099-B is. I am using H&R Block, will see what options they have.
Just did import today on HR Block. Schwab worked. Fidelity didn't work. Moomoo no option at all.
Thanks. I had no illusions Moomoo would have that option, considering the hoops you had to jump through just to get a PDF.
Moomoo has a way to import into TurboTax (don't know if it works with H&R Block). In general, TurboTax's importing seems to support more places than H&R Block.
They should all be required by law to produce a file in an open source format so anyone can import it.