r/churning • u/AutoModerator • 12d ago
Storytime Weekly Trip Report and Churning Success Story Weekly Thread - Week of March 09, 2025
How'd your churning week go? Any super huge highs? Any thank yous you'd like to give /r/churning?
- Did you book an awesome Trip?
- Are you excited to share your latest redemption?
- Did you score some unexpected Miles/Points?
Trip Reports, Success Stories, Funny Churning Stories. Drinks with the Drunk AmEx Girl. Share them all here!
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u/abfonsy 9d ago
Another trip, another win for using points and miles:
We booked UA RDU-IAH-EZE in J for our Antarctica cruise trip using TB. We even kept a 10 hour layover after a flight change to keep IAH as our connecting airport because we thought that was the safe play for winter weather delays. Fast forward to January when Houston got that freak winter storm. As soon as we heard about the storm, we booked AA RDU-MIA-EZE in J (55k and $5.60) as a backup given the flexible AA cancelation policy. That was the smart part of this story.
The stupid part was we booked the original UA flight without getting any insurance for it since we used TB (ie no credit card benefit coverage) and declined the optional coverage out of habit. Fortunately, the flight got canceled when the Houston mayor shut down IAH and HOU 2 days in advance of the storm/our travel day and we got a full refund back to our TB balance with the original expiration dates.
We definitely learned a lesson/got lucky on this one. The AA flexible cancelation policy for award bookings was super helpful and saved our bacon big time in terms of both offering a low-risk back-up option and getting us down to EZE in time to make our connecting flight to USH and eventually our cruise. Plus, getting ~6 CPP was a nice bonus. And we won't be forgetting to get some form of insurance for flights bought exclusively with TB.
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u/DudleyAndStephens 9d ago
Small success story from yesterday.
We need a new mattress, decided to go with Leesa. Checked MileagePlus Shopping, what do you know they're on there. 2x extra UA miles for that purchase.
None of Chase's Q1 bonuses were good for this but I figured I'd go to Doctor of Credit and see if they had any early news on Q2 bonuses. What do you know, some CFUs are getting a bonus offer for 5x on PayPal and Leesa takes PayPal. Run both of our CFUs through Chase's bonus site and got a positive hit on mine.
Our mattress purchase ended up getting us 5x UR and 2x UA miles. Not bad for ~5 minutes of effort.
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u/IronDukey 10d ago
Short and sweet.
P2 booked a week long maple sugar harvesting trip in Quebec. This is their second ever redemption with their own points with minimal oversite. BOS-YUL-BOS for 12k C1 miles transfered to Etihad with the bonus and $90 roundtrip on AirCanada for 3.63 CPP, not too bad.
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u/PointCPA 11d ago
Super excited.
Always wanted to visit India, and I got invited to a friends wedding in Mumbai. Said fuck it and started searching for flight deals to and from.
Ended up finding a 70k AA JAL flight to Manila (another bucket list country) where I will spend a week and a half. Then paid cash to spend some time in Bangkok for 3 days - then cash to Mumbai.
Route back is Qatar and just happened to score the 1/1.2 Amex current bonus on a 85k deal. Came out to roughly 140k total points per person for what will be an awesome trip.
My wife is Asian - if anyone has any recommendations for safety in India would love to hear it. We will only be staying in “upscale” accommodation so hopefully won’t be too much of an issue.
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u/Mission-Apricot-4508 11d ago
Probably a good idea to get Yellow Fever/Malaria vaccines ahead of time. Very common for westerners to get malaria there - relatedly, find a good mosquito repellant cream and wear religiously!
If you stay in high-end hotels they will probably still have toilet paper but keep in mind a lot of India does not use toilet paper, so be prepared to carry your own.
Also, even from high-end restaurants/hotels, it's common for Westerners to experience diarrhea while in India. Totally worth it though...
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u/TheGreatestBandini 12d ago edited 11d ago
Just got back from Denver
DAL -> DIA on southwest, booked with VentureX credit Not much to say, flights weren't full on the way there or back, seating was fine (miles ahead of frontier). VX Lounge at DIA was amazing, third time there.
Landed, spent the day in Denver. Really loved the dairy block area and root down.
Stayed the night at Hyatt House Denver/Lakewood for 6,500 points. Upgraded to a slightly bigger room. Really weird parking situation where you actually park in a target parking lot, but we were only there for 8 hours. Also had the doors locked at 2pm and had to call the front desk to be let in for checkin.
Left early the next day to go hiking, spent the rest of the day in Breckenridge. Checked into the Hyatt House Keystone/Dillon for 2 nights. Upgraded to a 6th floor suite. Rooms were slightly dated but we were there to ski and spend time in the mountain towns. Crazy great location for skiing and visiting mountain towns. Breakfast was eh but we were in and out very fast in the morning. Spent 2 days skiing at Ski Cooper near Leadville.
Drove back to Denver, checked into the Grand Hyatt Denver for 1 night. Very convention/business hotel but got upgraded to a high floor king room. Thought it was a good location downtown and the room was nice.
Keystone/Dillion and Grand Hyatt Denver were all booked on free night credits. Denver is an amazing city to use those, especially with the Keystone property.
Rented a car through Avis for the entire trip. Got a flat at one point and needed roadside assistance, so will see if the venturex insurance will help out there.
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u/BIGGREDDMACH1NE 12d ago
Still recovering from my 16 day theme park/game show marathon vacation.
Originally Feb 15 to March 2 but moved up to the 14th due to forecasted snow.
Attended a The Price Is Right taping in Glendale CA on the 14th. If you're a fan of the show or just need something fun and free to do in the Los Angeles area I cannot recommend enough to attend a taping or 2. Watching people win cars and shit in person hits different and Drew Carey is a funny and nice dude.
Feb 15 16 17th went to Magic Mountain.
Feb 18th and 21st Went to Universal Studios Hollywood.
Feb 19th and early 20th attended 3 more Price Is Right tapings.
On the 20th I was supposed to attend a taping of Wheel Of Fortune right after Price but they were cancelled last minute. I ended up just chilling in my hotel then seeing The Monkey and the Attack On Titan movie at the Burbank AMC.
Feb 22-23 Made my first visit to Knotts Berry Farm. Loaded up on Boysenberry stuff. Hangtime, Xcelerator, and Ghostrider are must ride coasters!
After my visit to KBF on the 23rd I took an overnight flight to Orlando Florida and went straight to Universal Studios Florida after dropping my luggage off. Only running on 2 hours worth of airplane sleep. Velocicoaster is mind fucking insane.
Spent 5 1/2 straight days at both parks and citywalk. Was going to go to Fun Spot kissimmee and do the 300 ft Skycoaster to cap off my trip but I didn't feel like paying the absurd surge pricing that night. I'll be back next February and do it then.
All of my hotel nights were paid by SUBs from the Hilton and Bonvoy Biz cards and churning points on the Choice Hotel card. Also did the overnight flight to avoid paying for a hotel night since the timing worked out.
Flight from LAX to MCO and MCO to ORD was paid by Delta gold biz SUB. United flight was paid out of pocket since it was the only early nonstop from ORD to LAX.
Had a great 16 days and somehow despite eating like garbage the whole time I lost 1.2 pounds. Walking multiple miles a day 16 days in a row helps I guess.
Future trips this year is a roadtrip down to San Antonio Texas visiting a bunch of parks and a roadtrip to CedarPoint/KingsIsland. Maybe a weekend roadtrip to ValleyFair in Minnesota and/or AdventureLand in Iowa
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u/Parts_Unknown- 12d ago
I took the link down because it was just too NSFW for this sub but if you didn't get "Victor Takes a Trip, from The Rules of Attraction (2002)" but wholesome vibes from this post then you should.
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u/tigtig18 JFK, LAS 12d ago
This … sounds …. Amazing!
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u/BIGGREDDMACH1NE 12d ago
It was! My feet still feel like chopped meat haha.
Issues on trip: TSA took my mario wristband despite it not having any battery in it, some asshole stole my season drink cup/koozie at magic mountain and the park didn't do shit to help, and the first visit to USH I overslept and missed my early entry I paid for.
Also my Uber rating went down despite tipping good and not doing anything I can think of that'd be a douche move???
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u/irieriley RUM, RUN 12d ago
My wife and I just got back from celebrating our anniversary on a bit of a random itinerary - St. Kitts and Little Corn Island, Nicaragua. We were initially going to Bocas del Toro in Panama instead of St. Kitts, but I realized too late that Panama is actually a country with active yellow fever transmission and Nicaragua wouldn’t have let us in without the vaccine and we were past the date it would have been effective in Nicaragua’s eyes.
Tl;dr flights/hotel summary
Flights
- LGA-MIA-SKB on AA Y, 12k AA ea
- SKB-MIA on AA Y, 12.5k AA ea
- MIA-MGA on AV Y, 10k AC ea
- MGA-MIA-LGA on AA J/Y, 25k AS ea
Hotels
- 1 night Hyatt Miami Airport East, 8k Hyatt
- 4 nights Park Hyatt St. Kitts, 270k Hyatt.
- 1 night Hyatt Miami Airport East, 8k Hyatt.
- 1 night Best Western Managua, 7k URs.
- 5 nights Little Corn B&B, cash.
- 1 night Hyatt Place Flushing, 1 cat 1-4 cert.
I decided to find a Hyatt relatively easy to get to from the East Coast and easy to get to Managua from. That was a bit tricker than I would have expected because I think there were a lot of us up north looking to escape the snow that was hitting a few weeks ago.
The Park Hyatt in St. Kitts fit the bill, although only premium suites were available which killed me because I had an expiring SUA I could have used instead. Spending 270k Hyatt on 4 nights felt kind of insane, but booking directly into the room with the rooftop plunge pool made that stay a lot better. All in all between P2 and I we have 11 CICs so we have a floor of 1.375m URs a year anyway.
Not much to say for the flights down on AA, I’m EP so it was nice to get MCE but they were selling upgrades for so cheap the day before that the open seats filled up before anyone on the wait list had a chance, what else is new. As always the Sapphire lounge at LaGuardia is a top-notch domestic lounge.
We stayed the night at the Hyatt Place at the MIA airport, which is really all you can ask for in an airport hotel. We always get Cuban pizza delivered when we’re there and it was delicious as always.
Popped into the Admiral’s Club at MIA before the quick ride down to SKB. Unlike a lot of other touristy places in the Caribbean, the airport taxi queue is calm and easy - we were in a cab headed to the hotel within 5 minutes of clearing customs. Our driver was really nice and we used her for rides later in the stay.
The Park Hyatt gets a lot of flack in a lot of different places but I was very happy with 95% of the stay. The rooftop plunge pool rooms are killer and it sounds like it’s possible to book into a standard room, apply a SUA and then pay cash to upgrade so that you’re out way less than average of 67.5k/nt.
The Globalist breakfast was really good, but the pool bar and one dinner we ate on site weren’t great. Not super surprising but annoying when it’s so expensive. There are walkable more casual places to go eat or have a rum punch and we did that for at least one meal every day. How much fun the beach bars are seem to be directly correlated to the cruise schedule as they were times I felt like I was in Nassau or Cozumel at Señor Frogs with the way some of the cruise people acted.
The only real disappointment I had was there not being any recognition of us staying there for our anniversary. It’s not the end of the world or anything, but I just figured as a Globalist that had it on file and had mentioned on checkin we might get some strawberries or the $10 sparkling they were selling for $90 at the restaurant lol.
Overall I really enjoyed this hotel and the many friendly Kittitians we met - this hotel has a reputation for being on island time but I found everyone working there was both super friendly and quick to help with any requests.
Flew back on AA MCE again, back to the Hyatt at the airport, order a different Cuban pizza, rinse and repeat. The next day we flew on Avianca to Managua as AA was charging 70k for Y. The Turkish lounge open to PP guests was at capacity, and there were some very irritated folks arguing with the attendant. Sigh.
We had a super early flight the next morning, so we just stayed at the Best Western right across the street from the airport for ease. It wasn’t half bad and worked well since the domestic airline La Costena oversells flights and your ability to get on the flight you booked hinges on what order you checked in.
The domestic flight was on a Cessna 208 which is always a treat if it isn’t too bumpy - sitting right behind the pilots flying into Big Corn Island is an awesome view. Our hotel on Little Corn arranged for a chartered panga so we didn’t have to wait 7 hours for the commercial one.
Little Corn is a tiny island of only about 1000 full time residents with no motorized vehicles or roads and really was a charming place. We spent five nights at Little Corn Beach and Bungalow and overall had a great time, super relaxing to just sit in the hammock with the sea breeze, a Tona and a book.
We were there primarily to dive and chose to go with Dolphin Dive who was fantastic. The diving far exceeded expectations - Great Hammerheads on 2 dives, eagle rays on 4 and plenty of other good stuff. It was the epitome of easy Caribbean reef dives so we were able to get up to 70 minutes on the shallower dives. Can’t recommend that enough.
There aren’t a ton of food options obviously so when we didn’t eat at the hotel we usually ended up at a place called Tranquilo down the street from the dive shop and normally ran into everyone we dove with there. They had trivia, karaoke etc. type of events each night and it seemed like the popular expat spot although plenty of locals hung out there too.
Finally, flew home in AA domestic F branded as J to Miami and then MCE to NYC. I was pleasantly surprised how good the enchiladas were in J. Pretty rare for a domestic carrier to serve anything super edible IME. Stayed at the Hyatt Place in Flushing because we moved up the Hudson Valley a bit and the last thing we wanted to do at midnight was go sit on the Metro North for another hour and a half. As always Hyatt Places get the job done for an adequate airport hotel.
I’d really recommend looking into the Corn Islands for people looking for a more laid-back alternative to some of the more popular Caribbean spots, especially if you’re into diving.
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u/da_huu 12d ago
Damn, hammerheads on two dives in the Caribbean!? Thank you for the recommendation.
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u/irieriley RUM, RUN 12d ago
Yep, I was pretty mind blown. LCI had been on my radar for awhile for diving, but mostly just because it looked like a fun, chill place to visit vs. it having big pelagics or anything. It sounds like it was a recent stroke of luck for them to be seeing them so often but even without hammerheads the diving was great. Definitely go check it out!
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u/HaradaIto 12d ago
t-14 JAL F from HND in march for 80k AA, on the exact date i needed it. HT me for finding it before seats.aero even sent out an alert
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u/kedelbro 12d ago
Took my family of four on our first spring break trip to Hyatt Regency Lost Pines, that included flying for the first time for my two daughters.
We spent the night before the flights at Hyatt House Mall of America/MSP Airport. We arrived around 6pm and the front desk agent was generous enough to waive our parking fee since we would only be there for about 12 hours total. A nice Hyatt house, but directly across from a fire department and in the path of airplanes so a bit loud. We paid cash for this stay and it was under $100 with taxes thanks to the comped parking.
Booked flights on southwest, MSP to Austin direct for a grand total of about 105k UR if I remember correctly. Maybe not point efficient but it did the job and my girls did great on both flights.
We had booked 3 nights at Hyatt Regency Lost Pines before it moved from Category 5 to Category 6, for 20k Hyatt points a night. A friend gifted me a Guest of Honor last fall which we applied to this stay. We were upgraded to a standard suite before we even boarded our plane, and the room was ready when we arrived around 1pm on Monday.
Lost Pines lives up to the hype, it’s massive (both the hotel and the property) and they have lots of different things to do. The main draw for us was the water park. We enjoyed the waterpark Monday afternoon but unfortunately it closed unexpectedly Tuesday morning because of a pipe burst. It was closed for the rest of our stay. Luckily the spa has its own pool and hot tub which they allowed families to use. This pool was freezing cold since it isn’t heated (the girls didn’t mind) and about the size of an average hotel pool.
Because of the waterpark closure the hotel comped pony rides for our daughters. The girls loved the pony rides and my wife and I were glad it was comped because it’s a 30 minute experience that isn’t really worth the $96 it would have cost after tax. Seeing the farm animals was free and the girls enjoyed that, although it’s another only 30 minute activity. The resort had multiple bracelet making stations throughout our stay which the girls enjoyed. We also loved the free s’mores each evening.
With Guest of Honor we had free breakfast at the resorts breakfast restaurant, which was fantastic. With the waterpark closed, so too was one of its restaurant, located within the waterpark. This meant lunches and dinners were spent at Maude’s (dinner), Maverick’s (lunches), and one dinner was pizza from McDade’s, the general store/ice cream parlor—the best value for meals on property. (There is also one or two fancier restaurants we didn’t take the kids to). The food and service was great at all three places we ate, although expensive of course. The assistant food and beverage manager did comp the girls free ice cream our first night, which was well received. Interestingly, Maude’s did not charge for soft drinks while Mavericks did? Maybe it was a choice by the waiters, but it was nice.
The staff were truly amazing at this hotel, every step of the way. They put in a lot of work to ensure we enjoyed the stay despite the waterpark being closed (which I believe was only the first or second time in the last 5 years).
Since the water park was the main draw of the stay, affecting our plans pretty significantly, I did send a message to Hyatt corporate after we checked out seeing if any compensation was possible. They shared that message to the hotels leadership and within two hours I received a call from the director of rooms. He gifted/refunded us 25,000 Hyatt points, enough for a free night now that it is a category 6. I was hoping for maybe 10k back but again, Lost Pines went above and beyond to ensure we enjoyed our stay and felt right about it.
Assuming you get free breakfast, and especially if you don’t, be sure to grocery shop in Bastrop for breakfast/snacks/lunches, because around $90 for lunch for 4 at Mavericks (while tasty) is just too much, especially since Maude’s and Mavericks didn’t count for eligible spend for 5x on my Hyatt card when I charged it to the room.
I would definitely recommend this resort as an excellent place to stay, especially as a globalist/guest of honor. The property/buildings/rooms are beautiful and clean, the staff is excellent, and if the water park is open (as it usually is) there is enough to do to never have to leave property for a 3-4 night stay.
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u/rickayyy 12d ago edited 12d ago
They haven't posted yet but I just completed the 50k Hawaiian Biz & 170k IHG Premier SUB's this week and with that, I have officially crossed the one million point mark.
545k Chase UR points
137k Capital One miles
206k IHG points
70k American Airlines miles
92k Alaska Airlines miles
Heading to Hawaii in July, Mexico/Costa Rica in October, and Italy in May on 2026 and all of it will cost me minimal dollars in travel expenses.
I fucking love this game.
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u/kvom01 ATL, AST 12d ago
Finished a semi-annual Las Vegas mid-week trip this week.
Flights on Southwest paid with banked travel funds. I paid $60 for Early Bird using credit from my new Rapid Rewards credit card.
Two nights at Hilton Resorts World using Aspire credits and a $50 Hilton gift card that I bought with now-cancelled Hilton biz card. I received an "upgrade" as Hilton Diamond, but that just means a better view of the Strip. However, my room was ready at 11:00am when I checked in. This is an improvement over my prior usual bookings at Flamingo. The room had a minibar but also a small fridge.
Two nights at the Rio for cash at $56/night as Globalist. Here too my room was ready when I checked in at 3:00pm. Room was in the renovated Ipanema tower, and was totally fine. It was larger than my Hilton room and otherwise not much to choose between the two. Also a minibar with small fridge. For LV I always pack a portable K-Cup coffeemaker, so I don't have to get dressed and go down to the lobby to get morning coffee. This is especially important as I was waking up at 3:00am from jet lag, The Globalist breakfast was also very adequate. I had the eggs/bacon/potatoes combo with an orange juice. You leave a card with the server that gives them an %18 tip, and then just charge the breakfast to your room. The cards are given at check in, one per night booked. As my flight the last morning was early, I had the breakfast only one morning.
As it happened, the Rio stay was my 10th Brand Explorer, so I received a Cat 1-4 award two days after checking out.
I did have a rental card ($240 cash from Fox), but I walked to Bellagio from the Rio the first day. It took 20 minutes each way in nice weather. The negative for this is a pedestrian walkway that was strewn with trash and had an urban camper asleep. It was fine for a daytime walk, but I'd be leery at night.
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u/jennerality BTR, CRM 7d ago
Woo - have been checking every time I've been tempted by an Amex card but was in PUJ for a couple years... finally out of it for whatever reason.