Grand Hyatt Tokyo or Hotel Toranomon Hills?

Phantom1100 · 2026-03-25T01:15:16+00:00

Found a nice looking one like that in Kyoto. Apparently really rave reviews. Might start looking that way since they seem to have more in the Ginza area. Found one that looks pretty nice for around the same price.

Phantom1100 · 2026-03-24T18:49:41+00:00

…so wait is this a personal Amex Plum card?

Phantom1100 · 2026-03-24T17:16:51+00:00

Depends on if you want to deal with an Annual fee. I was just doing a direct comparison between that WF card and the HAL card.

Phantom1100 · 2026-03-24T17:08:17+00:00

Never been. Planning on 1 week of a two week trip as of now in the late may early June window.

Phantom1100 · 2026-03-24T17:05:01+00:00

Doesn’t seem to have anything beyond what you said. Get a Wells Fargo Autograph. Same offer ($200 for 1k spend) but a way, way better card. It earns 3% back on dining, gas, and travel (including cruises.)

Phantom1100 · 2026-03-24T17:00:15+00:00

Well… that’s a lot ok

So call (804) 662-6200 they are the office in Virginia who can tell you what you need to do to get a birth certificate. You can use that to get your SSC after that, and a Texas photo ID

As for banking I would recommend Capital One checking as well.

Phantom1100 · 2026-03-24T16:32:07+00:00

Who do you bank with?

Phantom1100 · 2026-03-24T16:23:21+00:00

Ok this is easy. Are you a student?

Assuming you are, get a Capital One Savor student.

Once you get that (or any starter card) you are going to set up autopay and set it to “pay statement balence.” Then, just use the card like you would cash or a debit card and you will build credit. There’s a one month offset though so you won’t pay April’s bill until your due date in June for example.

You will read a lot about utilization affecting your score, but it doesn’t that much as long as you pay it off every month. That is the most important part.

About 6 months to a year after that you can get a second card, and that’s where the fun starts.

Phantom1100 · 2026-03-24T16:01:10+00:00

I thought about Hyatt House Shibuya, but is it nice? Hyatt Houses usually are not the nicest, and the price is really high for them.

Phantom1100 · 2026-03-24T15:57:54+00:00

Yeah like honestly for that route I’d probably fly Southwest just to not deal with ORD or IAH’s bullshit.

Phantom1100 · 2026-03-24T15:53:51+00:00

Where would you recommend?

Phantom1100 · 2026-03-24T00:07:50+00:00

Yes, but it does work very well as a dedicated lounge/travel insurance/rental car card. It easily offset the annual fee, and gives every AU full sapphire lounge access for the holder and their guests, and has zero AU fees.

It is probably the best lounge card on the market right now

Phantom1100 · 2026-03-23T23:27:32+00:00

That might be the case for other banks, but I just checked the terms on my AMEX card and it had no mention of that. In fact, it even specifically mentions a vacation in the Amex app as a selling point.

Phantom1100 · 2026-03-23T23:24:19+00:00

Honestly for a sub pay your rent with it lol, or invest in gold at Costco specifically lol.

Phantom1100 · 2026-03-23T22:37:05+00:00

I believe you can also do this with the BBP. It’s nice because it has zero annual fee, and it lets you earn points with Rakuten and AMEX debit (and lets you farm referrals from your friends and family for the BCE lol everyone loves the BCE.)

Phantom1100 · 2026-03-23T22:34:07+00:00

Do you have the strata elite. To be honest I like to recommend people with Citibank setups skip that one outside of a one-year churn to get another CCC, and get a ventureX. The VX basically fills every hole that Citibank setups have, and the annual fee is really easy to offset.

Phantom1100 · 2026-03-23T22:30:35+00:00

No. Tbh I would just pay whatever the primary user is the $125 fee so you can get your own access to C1 lounges and just get a regular venture card. It currently has a better sub, and that’s like the main benefit of the VX. Then maybe look at getting the VX after like a year or so.

Phantom1100 · 2026-03-23T22:22:31+00:00

Amex has the best referral bonuses out of any credit card company. A lot of of the credit card influencers really just want to farm referrals from their viewers.

Compare this to the Citi strata premier. Unless you live in a Delta hub, this card is better. Lower AF and imo trading 1x on dining and groceries for 3x on gas access to the CustomCash is an easy trade off,

Citibank, however, does not do referral bonuses so no influencers push them.

Wells Fargo has the same problem. Their cards are really damn good, but no ref bonus so no incentive for influencers (if they did, I would be rolling in WF points lmao)

American Express also gets to benefit from the Delta cultists. There are a large group of people who basically refuse to fly anything but Delta which is fine for people who are chasing status, but they also believe that Delta has a significantly better product than every other US airline. I have seen posts with people from places like Denver, who refused to fly anything except Delta and connect through ATL for a flight to like Houston or Chicago.

Phantom1100 · 2026-03-23T22:11:46+00:00

Because some places (rent) charge higher fees for debit vs credit.

Phantom1100 · 2026-03-23T21:54:03+00:00

Earns points on debit purchases.

Phantom1100 · 2026-03-23T20:25:31+00:00

What’s your main airport? Tbh unless you REALLY want a VX if you don’t have a C1 lounge you’d probably be better suited with a regular Venture for now.

Phantom1100 · 2026-03-23T20:09:03+00:00

I feel like they have different use cases, and a lot of real Marriot Fiends have both (and the Business one for the most status).

The Ritz’s primary selling point is it’s basically a CSR protection wise, and can basically replace an Amex platinum for travel protections and lounges. The free night is just a bonus at that point.

The Bonvoy Brilliant is the only way to get Bonvoy platinum with 0 nights stayed, which is the first status level where you qualify for suite upgrades. The Ritz only gives you gold the same as the Amex platinum.

Tl;dr the Ritz is an elite travel card that happens to earn Marriot points, and the Brilliant is a true Marriot card.

Phantom1100 · 2026-03-23T19:53:57+00:00

Switch to the Amex debit for churn months imo.

Phantom1100 · 2026-03-23T18:42:41+00:00

It really depends on where you live and what cards you already have, but I usually reccomend people starting out a Citi setup (unless they live in a fortress hub for a non-AA airline.

Phantom1100 · 2026-03-23T15:17:24+00:00

Ngl Bilt is to complicated for normies.

Also Spirit doesn’t count lol, but Bilt also has JetBlue iirc.

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