K&T June 25, 2022: Deja Vu All Over Again
Final payment for K&T and our Rhine River trip happened to fall on the same date. Credit card shock … I think I used three credit cards to cover it all. Anyone else forcing your credit cards into the ‘pig pen’?
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No, use Amex, it has no limit
Amex! no limit .. for now
))
I don't have a large limit on my credit card, so I have to get creative with paying for these trips. In the past I have made incremental payments to Tauck against my credit card before the final payment is due so that I don't exceed the limit on my card. I make sure that I pay off the card every month. Of course the only negative in this situation, during these crazy times, is that one never knows if a trip will be cancelled at the last minute. This happened to me in early 2020 when Covid first arrived. If Tauck credits the payments, there will be aot of money sitting on your card. In this case, I had the Credit Card Company issue me a check for the excess money.
In another case I made a payment to my credit card company for the final payment amount about 2 weeks before it was due so I had money sitting in my credit card account above the card's limit.
I normally wait till due date to make the payment- as a rule, I do save at least 1/2 of the total cost, if not all.
I charge the cc because it gives me milage & than, I pay them the entire amount, for daily use I do the same "Charge & Pay"
I usually have to break up the payments because the card we use for travel (with the best benefits) we specifically chose a 10k limit. Also balancing out how much of the benefit comes in a particular year. It's a Costco card and we get a big voucher that has to be cashed out at Costco.
The first payment after the initial deposit I pay an amount that evens out the amount so the remaining balance is easier to remember. Ex, if we owe $21,436.00 I'll make a payment of $1,436.
I don’t use Amex cuz AA does not have an Amex Aadvantage card. They did in the past as did CostCo, but no longer. I used three cards mostly for ‘mileage’ reasons. Citi would not increase my wife’s credit limit in spite of her 850 FICO credit rating. So she applied for a different Citi Aadvantage card, which was instantaneously approved … with a higher credit limit and 50,000 bonus miles. I was trying to even up our miles as I had lots, and had already gotten Aadvantage Gold, and she had not. So when the smoke cleared she had 71,000 more miles and Aadvantage Gold. In my view, the main Aadvantage in being Gold is the ‘secret’ phone number that doesn’t put you on hold for hours. I also sometimes pre-pay the credit card to avoid exceeding the limit. That also protects your credit rating.
Our kids turned us on to Chase Sapphire - lots of double and triple points for travel and dining.
We were AA Advantage users years ago, but you must use American or a One World partner for air. Which is fine for British Air, except they slammed us with taxes and other charges. Not a fan of Iberia, but it did work well with Quantas. Free coach to Sydney, even if I was nearly crippled when I got off the plane!
Years ago, I was able to put my son's college room and board on a card without additional fees. I used department store cards and got stacks of $25.00 gift certificates! THAT was a deal!
One thing we found out about American Express because of Covid was when we booked flights with Amex points and the tour was canceled, they gave us cash back instead of points and at a good rate. I’ll take cash back any time over points which can never be a guarantee to do anything with them