I love shopping.  I don’t care if it is for myself, my kid, my husband, or for my cousin’s friend’s new baby.  I love deal hunting, and shopping is a great forum for that…while staying within a budget, of course.  As a result, earning points while shopping is almost second nature to me, but that was something that developed over time.  This week one of the questions I received via email was about this very topic, so I want to address it here in the hopes it will help some of you newer to this concept.  Grant asked:

Quick question…my wife has to do some spring/summer clothes shopping for our little girls. She shops mostly at places like Old Navy, Kohl’s, Target, etc.

I’ve read some about discounted gift cards, stacking deals, online shopping portals, store rebates etc, but am trying to figure out for in-store purchases, how to get the most bang for the buck.

Many of us are cleaning the winter items out of our kid’s closets and making way for some new summer items.  Like it or not, young kids outgrow stuff pretty much every year, so it has to be replaced somehow.  Grant hinted at many different ways to earn points while shopping, but it seems he is most interested in ways to do that in the store, as opposed to online.  You can make this process as complicated or as simple as you want, but I’m going to stick to the simpler ways to do this.

1. Buy retailer gift cards in retail stores.  Currently the easiest solution for earning some points at stores like Old Navy, Kohl’s etc. is to take your handy dandy Chase Freedom Visa card to Lowe’s Home Improvement stores and visit their gift card rack.  Lowe’s is one of the 5x bonus categories for this quarter via the Freedom card, so just purchase the gift cards you think you need and earn 5x Ultimate Reward points on the purchase – up to $1,500 max this quarter.  Then go spend those gift cards at stores like Gap Kids and Old Navy.  If you don’t have the Freedom, you can do the same with other cards that give bonus points at certain retailers.  For example, the Ink Bold® Business Card or Ink Plus® Business Card come to mind for their 5x potential via office supply stores.  Many cards also give bonuses at grocery stores, which usually have a decent selection of retail gift cards.

1. Buy a gift card online via online shopping portal.  Another option is to buy the gift card you want online via a shopping portal.  You can then use the card to shop in an actual store (or “double dip” place the order online back through the shopping portal).  Here is a post on the “ins and outs” of my favorite online shopping portal.  In some cases you will get up to around 10x points per dollar when going through a shopping portal like the Ultimate Rewards portal for purchasing the gift card.  However, there are some nuances to this, and while it will work with some retailers, it won’t work with all.  Who it works with also changes over time.  Sometimes it only works with physical gift cards, but not e-gift cards.  In other words, this is not an exact science.  That said, you can check out The Frequent Miler’s Lab to see recent reports with various retailers on whether or not this approach will work.
2. Register your credit cards to earn points in-store.  This one isn’t near as useful as the first two suggestions, but it does have some use so I will include it.  Certain online shopping portals, like United MileagePlus Shopping, will allow you to link your credit cards to your profile so you can earn bonus miles when shopping in participating retail stores.  This sounds great, but there are a very limited number of stores that actually participate – none of which are on your list.
3. Buy gift cards at a discount via a site like GiftCardGranny.com.  This won’t actually help you earn points, but it will help you save money.  You can buy gift cards to popular retailers such as the ones mentioned via online sites like GiftCardGranny.  I personally don’t use this service, but I know some others do.  I would rather buy the gift card myself and earn points than trust someone else’s re-sold gift card, but that is just me.

Grant, I hope some of these tips are useful.  I know we have tons of other shoppers in our mix, so please feel free to chime in with additional tips!

Disclosure: I do receive a commission if you are approved for a credit card via my affiliate links.  As always, thanks for your support!

As you have likely already read, American Airlines has just enacted a new policy where if you are traveling without overhead luggage, you can now board before Group 2 boarding. The point behind this is to try to get the planes loaded faster. To avoid checked bag fees, and the risk of your checked bags being delayed or lost, more and more of us are trying to carry on everything we possibly can. This means the planes are loading slower which is bad for the airline, for passengers, for costs, etc. American’s thought is to get those without large carry-ons into their seats. It (in theory) I guess it makes the customer happier, and speeds up the process.

I have no clue whether that will really help or not, but I do think about the boarding process frequently, and I wonder if early boarding matters to you? If so, I’m curious as to the reasons it matters. Here are my thoughts in a few different situations:

Early boarding with small children + car seats or similar contraptions:

Yes, I want to board the very first second I can if I have to lug and install a car seat on the plane. It is large, it is bulky, and my child cannot be seated in her assigned seat while I am installing it. This means I will absolutely temporarily leak into someone else’s seat while this process is happening. As a result, I would prefer for everyone’s sake that others not yet be around us. I will also temporarily be stalled in the aisle while I put the other bags in the overhead compartments, and get the car seat into our assigned row. I will go as quickly as possible down the (hopefully empty) jet-bridge and onto the plane to get ahead and minimize others being impacted by this cumbersome process.

We are absolutely “gate lice” who line up before boarding starts simply so that we won’t hold up a long line while we go down the aisle with the car seat and get it into position. In that case early boarding matters a whole heck of a lot to us, in an effort to be considerate to others (and avoid as many dirty looks as possible).

We are able to do this due to elite status that allows us to board with the first group, but if we didn’t have that status we would be SOL on most airlines as they no longer allow families with small children to board first. In the case of the car seat or other seat contraption, being one of the first really matters to me.

Early boarding with small children with no seat contraptions:

If I am not installing a car seat, there isn’t a whole bunch of incentive to board early with my kiddo unless I need spaces for overhead bags. In fact, the ideal situation is when my husband boards first to get all the “stuff” situated, and the kiddo and myself hang back until later in the boarding process. The earlier I get her on the plane, the longer I have to keep her entertained while remaining seated. Of course this only works if he can carry the car seat and any bags that would need overhead space. He is a good “donkey”, but even he has his limits on how much stuff he can carry at one time.

Early boarding with a roller bag:

I don’t need to be the first one on the plane if I am traveling alone with a roller bag. I do need to be in the first half of boarding to ensure an over-head bin, but I don’t need to be one of the very first on-board. So, for me if I am traveling with a roller bag that needs an over-head bin then early boarding does matter, but it doesn’t matter in the same way as if I had a car seat.

Early boarding without a roller bag:

If I am traveling only with a purse or similar that will fit under the seat in front of me, then according to the new American Airlines policy I now get to board earlier than I otherwise would if I had something like a roller bag that needed to go in the overhead bins. However, if I don’t have any luggage for the over-head bins, and I don’t have a car seat or similar to install, then what is my incentive to get on the plane earlier? On most airlines I have an assigned seat, so it isn’t like my seat is going to be taken out from under me just because I am the 100th person to board the plane instead of the 22nd person to board.

I guess if I am in first class I might be missing out on my “pre-departure beverage” if I wait too long to board, but that doesn’t really seem like a real problem. I just don’t quite get why someone would want to spend more time sitting on the plane if they didn’t have a specific need for getting on early.

I don’t have any issues with the new American policy, and I hope it does work for them. However, as a passenger I just wonder whether early boarding really matters when you aren’t concerned with bags, small children, or car seats?

One of the biggest perks from being an active member in the frequent flyer community has been the friendships I have made along the way. As luck would have it, many of those friendships are with other traveling families. After having hung out (sans kids) at various MegaDos and similar events with a core group of people, a few of us decided it was time to plan a joint family trip. As the lack of luck would have it, a wedding that many were attending got planned over the weekend the trip was scheduled for, so in the end it was just my family and one other that were able to hang out this time. However, we decided that two families was a party, and we were going to continue on with our planned trip to Disney World for the weekend.

Disney in a weekend with young kids may sound crazy to some, but to us it sounded perfect. We decided to stay at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress in Orlandosince I had won a couple free nights there via a charity auction a while back, and the nights were about to expire. It also would give me a chance to put my Hyatt Diamond benefits to good use. I am a huge fan of staying on Disney property with young children who still need naps in the afternoon, but I’m also not opposed to taking advantage of a good deal to stay close, but not too close, to all the Disney action.

Hyatt Grand Cypress location and overview:

The Hyatt Grand Cypress is very close to the Disney parks – not walking distance, but very reasonable driving distance. Depending on the park you are heading to, I would say it is an average of about a ten minute drive to get there, most of which is spent driving on Disney property. Of course traffic and/or parking delays could add to that a bit, but it did not take much time at all to drive to the parks in the morning. However, driving does mean that you now have a parking fee at Disney each day, and naturally you need a rental car as well.

The hotel is quite large and feels more secluded than it is. It has 800+ rooms, a kind of hybrid atrium style design, a lake, a golf course, several pools, a water slide, a Regency Club, Camp Hyatt, and more. It does charge a $12 per day self-parking fee and a resort fee of about $25 per day. Those are relatively substantial costs that need to be factored into the overall value. We had two of our three nights covered via the charity auction certificate, but the additional night that we paid out of pocket was about $225 + taxes/fees. The hotel did tell us when we checked in that they were waiving the resort fee “since it was our first time at the property”. I’m not sure if that was the real reason, if it was related to our Diamond status, the substantial renovations going on, or something else, but that was our experience. Our friends there the same weekend did not have the fee waived, but they did get some other fairly generous compensation in the end for some issues they had with their stay (more on that later).

Disney transportation options:

Other than driving yourself, you can take a complimentary shuttle from the hotel to Disney. While I think it is great that the hotel offers a shuttle, it is far from flawless. We didn’t use it as we had a car, but our friends did use it some when their schedule didn’t line up with ours.  The shuttle to the Magic Kingdom Ticket and Transportation Center departs at 8:50AM and 10:00AM. It picks up at the same location at 6:00PM, 8:00PM, 9:45pPM, and certain days at 11:15PM. This means you can’t get there for when the parks open, and you can’t use them to return to the hotel after lunch for a nap. This service would be much more useful it it were continuously running every 60 or 90 minutes in both directions throughout the day. However, with such a limited schedule it isn’t really practical for families with young children who can’t stay at the park all day.

We didn’t use a cab, but our friends looked into it and said to estimate about $25 – $30 for each trip, again not a great option either. I think most families with young kids who stay here will want their own car to go to and from the parks.

The rooms:

When we added a paid third night (which we actually used as the first night of our stay) to our two night certificate, I used a confirmed Diamond suite upgrade with that first night.  The hotel graciously allowed us to keep the suite all three nights. By looking at the website, our suite appears to have been the Executive Suite. Call us spoiled, but we do much better when we have ample space for us and our kiddo. What we lost by not being on Disney property, we made up for with additional space in the room. As you likely know, when you travel with a young kid you do actually spend a fair amount of time in the room with naps, downtime, etc. so the room matters more than when you are on an “adults only” trip that allows you to spend the bulk of your time out and about.

The suite had a full sized king bedroom, full bathroom, and balcony on one side, and then had another full sized room and bathroom devoted to the living area on the other side. The sofa did convert to a bed.

We had two issues with the suite. The first was that both bathrooms only had showers. It is clear to me that this was designed more of a conference hotel than a family hotel, but given the proximity to so many theme parks (and presumably families with children), it would be super helpful to have a bath tub instead of a shower.  Update: the hotel reports having tub/baths in rooms with double beds, so take that into consideration when booking your room.

The other issue was that the rooms of the suite were connected with two doors that only opened from one side. At one point our daughter shut the door to the living portion of the room with no one in it, and the keys for the rooms were all in the living room. This meant we couldn’t get in there without calling security. Had she shut herself in a different room than us with the keys it could have been a very scary situation. Since these rooms are not true connecting rooms, but instead one suite, I would much prefer if it were not possible for that situation to transpire. A normal door between the rooms that opens from both sides would be a better option in my view.

Despite that issue, the suite was perfect for hosting an impromptu “kids party”, complete with an explosion of toys!

We did enjoy the balcony, both to overlook the beautiful resort, and to see the fireworks at the Magic Kingdom at night. That said, balconies and young kids do make me nervous so we did not use it very much.

Dining options:

As is often the case for us on trips with our kiddo, we ended up just having dinner in the room most nights. By that point in the day we were totally pooped, and even staying awake to eat room service was a bit of a challenge. This hotel, like most/all Hyatts, has put an emphasis on healthy dining options for kiddos. This is a fantastic thing in my book, but can make it a little harder to order for a kid that is already wiped out and fussy. Sometimes a chicken finger will get consumed whereas a healthy veggie and noodle dish or salad might be passed on by a cranky kiddo. So, I love the healthy options, but they can be a double edged sword if your kiddo is not in the best of moods to begin with.  I think they will be even better for us as C gets a bit older, but again I really do like the effort Hyatt has put into this initiative.

The first night she fell asleep before her sunflower-butter and jelly sandwich with edamame could get delivered (though she ate it for breakfast happily the next day), and the second night she ate some of her noodle dish, but I may have eaten more of it than she did.

According to the hotel’s website, there are tons of restaurant and dining options within the hotel, but many of them were not operational during our visit due to the renovations.  This didn’t impact us very much, but the other family we traveled with had this to say, “the lunch solution was to use what would charitably be described as a 1980s cafeteria with terrible food and service.”  Eek – glad we didn’t eat lunch there!  Do note though that this is a primarily a temporary issue that should be much better now that renovations are complete.

In part two of this review I will cover the Regency Club, the awesome pools, getting Disney tickets from the hotel, and other pretty cool amenities they offer.  Have you stayed here before?  If so, what did you think of your stay?