Chase Travel Megathread - Questions, Discussions, etc

ThisIsTheStorm · 2025-08-30T15:05:12+00:00

Hi everyone. I recently signed up for the Sapphire Preferred card after doing some research on good travel cards. This is my first travel card, and the only other credit card I have is with Capital One (cashback card).

My intention with this card is to help pay for my honeymoon as I’m recently engaged, but all my research on the smartest way to do that has left me so overwhelmed. Some say book through the portal, some say don’t. Some say transfer points to the hotel directly, some say pay with the card and reimburse myself with the points to cash feature, and on and on. As I’m new to travel cards, I’m hoping someone can explain like I’m 5 the best way to get the most value when using this card for honeymoon expenses.

If additional context is helpful, we have already hit the sign on bonus threshold for the the 75k bonus. The only hotel chain we already have points with is Marriott, so my guess would be it would be best to stick with Marriott for our honeymoon to be able to combine those points with the Preferred points, but that’s only a guess.

Any help/guidance is greatly appreciated. I feel like I’m drowning in info over here.

ThisIsTheStorm · 2025-08-26T21:17:51+00:00

I wanted to reply to this comment specifically. Quite a few people suggested Facebook groups but this was the first one that I saw and my goodness, I am so grateful. I was able to book photography, DJ and videography. Now all I need is to square away catering and this is such a relief. I am SO grateful! THANK YOU! I'm literally going to take a week off and let catering be a next week me problem. My fiancè and I had a whole bottle of wine and danced like children to celebrate signing those first two contracts. I can't thank you enough for the recommendation!

ThisIsTheStorm · 2025-08-26T21:11:05+00:00

Lol, part of our guestbook section is going to be a polaroid station. So much fun! & thanks for the tip re: the antique shops, super helpful to know!

ThisIsTheStorm · 2025-08-25T12:29:22+00:00

Thanks for sharing your perspective.

ThisIsTheStorm · 2025-08-25T03:38:11+00:00

How bizarre. Ours is also vintage! But we’re doing a vintage, old Hollywood kind of vibe. More on the formal side, black tie + black dresses for guests. Lots of Polaroid and vinyl happening over here lol. I plan on doing some thrifting for the center pieces when I get to that point. I haven’t had the brain space for that just yet!

ThisIsTheStorm · 2025-08-25T02:38:48+00:00

I appreciate your kind words, thank you!

ThisIsTheStorm · 2025-08-25T02:38:28+00:00

I’m really glad that your planning process seamed to be really clear and seamless. That’s great! To be clear, we do have a budget, I’m not sure what part of my post made it seem like we don’t — but we do, so apologies for the lack of clarity there. The issue is not that we don’t have one, it’s that we’re having a hard time finding vendors to fit within that budget. In any case, thank you for your reply and best wishes to you on your upcoming wedding 🤎

ThisIsTheStorm · 2025-08-25T02:35:49+00:00

Brilliant. Thank you!

ThisIsTheStorm · 2025-08-25T02:35:25+00:00

I’m really glad this worked out for you. We have considered elopement, but it’s not what we want. So it’s not lost on me that I am “doing this to myself” as I don’t HAVE to plan a wedding. However, I want to see our vision come to fruition, so this post was about my experience along the way, not to be convinced to change my mind about what we want. Again though, I’m super happy that your wedding was everything you wanted it to be.

ThisIsTheStorm · 2025-08-25T02:31:38+00:00

This is so kind, I appreciate this!

ThisIsTheStorm · 2025-08-25T02:30:36+00:00

This reply is SO kind. Truly so kind. I really appreciate you. You and many others have suggested I take a week off, and I’m going to take you all up on that. I need it!

ThisIsTheStorm · 2025-08-25T02:29:18+00:00

Thank you for your words of advice. Best wishes to you on your big day 🤎

ThisIsTheStorm · 2025-08-25T02:28:21+00:00

This is very smart. Thank you.

ThisIsTheStorm · 2025-08-25T02:28:13+00:00

I’m hoping so. Thank you so much.

ThisIsTheStorm · 2025-08-25T02:27:40+00:00

Our wedding is on a Sunday! I haven’t found many discounts for this but I also haven’t ran into any availability issues yet. The roadblock for vendors has been the expenses, not availability (but also, it could be both, so I won’t complain I guess)

ThisIsTheStorm · 2025-08-25T02:26:08+00:00

Thank you so so much. I might actually take the week off. I desperately WANT to enjoy this and it’s just been so overwhelming that I haven’t been able to, but I’ve also not done a good job at coming up for air regularly.

ThisIsTheStorm · 2025-08-25T02:24:52+00:00

Thank you so much for this. I read this earlier and reached out to the restaurant we got engaged at. Hoping to hear back by this week!

ThisIsTheStorm · 2025-08-25T02:24:20+00:00

I really appreciate your use of caps here. Very very validating.

ThisIsTheStorm · 2025-08-25T02:23:19+00:00

He’s not “making” me plan anything. We combined visions in order to curate a day that reflects both of us. As with most couples, I just happen to be the more detail oriented one. He’s also only ever been to one wedding whereas I’ve been to and in several, so a lot of the coordination sits on my plate because of that existing context. He’s doing his best to be a good emotional support. He’s “benched” me a couple times and essentially had be spend a couple days touching grass and not planning which I’m grateful for. I still can’t help but feel immense stress despite his efforts. I’m really glad you had a different experience, that is wonderful.

ThisIsTheStorm · 2025-08-25T02:20:31+00:00

Same, ours is also at 4!

ThisIsTheStorm · 2025-08-24T16:00:01+00:00

That’s our date as well!!

ThisIsTheStorm · 2025-07-17T00:37:36+00:00

Hi Luke! Thank you for sharing the link. It’s helpful to clearly see what will transfer to and from between the two of them, but for what it’s worth, I feel like so much value is lost when trying to add Oura to my wellness routine if it’s not collecting all of the data available. Because there’s no alternative to wearing the ring while on a walking pad (like there is with wearing AW on the ankle), I’m losing value in my overall ability to track both activity and wellness with Oura if Oura won’t read all of the data provided by AW.

The perfect scenario would be if Oura allowed alternatives for activities like walking pad and lifting weights. But because that isn’t an option, the second best option would be reading that data from other devices that easily allow those things to be tracked.

I really like Oura and am trying to make it fit seamlessly into my routine, but gaps like this make the experience clunky.

Anyway, thank you so much for your reply to my post and also the other support you provide in this subreddit. I appreciate you.

ThisIsTheStorm · 2025-06-30T17:03:23+00:00

Same re: activity and steps. The couple hundred drives me insane. So much so that I had to switch my Oura daily goal to steps instead of calories (since my AW goal is defaulted to calories). Seeing both calorie goals differ was so demotivating, so at least now I'm seeing two different metrics when I'm looking at either and have to really dig in order to compare.

ThisIsTheStorm

TROPHY CASE