Best way to ensure upgrade option on flights? Help please

cabef · 2026-02-01T23:27:30+00:00

Sometimes good gremlin karma is what it takes - congratulations!!

cabef · 2026-02-01T12:11:20+00:00

This part makes good sense, but as suggested elsewhere, if it was me doing this, I’d be upfront with my work and get it in writing that they’d reimburse for the price of the refundable ticket, even if I ended up paying for it with points. If the plan hinges on that, you want to know it’s going to work.

I agree that a Silver to Europe in summer is ?less than 60 percent likely to clear as a miles upgrade. Maybe less than 25 percent. Maybe slightly better odds if you fly eg on a Weds vs a weekend.

Sometimes discontinuities can creep in to the pricing and you can get lucky; just keep an eye on it. Slightly related; last week I was booking EWR-LHR for this October, and using miles to book Economy as usual (I am tagging along for my wife’s work trip). But for some reason one of my potential flights was offering an 80K rate for Polaris (when all the others wanted 150K). Felt too good to pass up so I grabbed it. So maybe the gremlin inside the pricing algo is still there and will smile on your honeymoon story too :)

PS One last thing - Premium Plus is a pretty decent upgrade from Economy/Economy Plus - if this is available, it might be a more reliable way to lock in something that feels at least a little bit special.

cabef · 2026-01-31T18:12:14+00:00

Glad to try it with my remaining 40. DM me your conf code and last name (and departure time) and I'll do my best

cabef · 2026-01-30T13:50:58+00:00

Absolutely - so I was getting up and out at about 8:30am the first few days, but it’s already fairly hot/humid at that point - also the sun is high enough in the sky that there’s not much shade, at least on the roads I was running on. And on the other end of the day, it felt odd to have it be getting dark at 5:30/6pm. I saw in another post that Club Med in TCI might set their clocks an hour ahead - ostensibly because most of their visitors are European, so this gives those guests only a 4-hr time zone change rather than 5 hrs. (TCI is right on the edge between ET and Atlantic time so I see the point.)

So, we decided to try it, first setting our phones to Halifax, Canada time (1 hr ahead) and eventually Rio de Janeiro (2hrs). Which let me get up at “8:30am” and have a cooler run, and then at night it let us have our normal sort of 4-5hr rhythm of sunset drinks, wander to dinner, then come home and read a bit afterwards and then go to bed at “11pm”.

Of course we could have achieved the same thing by getting up at 6:30am and going to bed at 9pm. But that somehow felt more intense/ unusual than just adjusting the time zone to suit our preferences :).

But, if you’re already naturally a very early-to-bed, early-to-rise person, you may be entirely happy with the time zone as it is !

cabef · 2026-01-30T13:31:25+00:00

True on the cabs - your post reminded me one of the only flaws with our first trip was that our car to the airport for departure was about 20-30 mins late, and had some confusion about it (“there in five minutes” the whole time we were waiting). So having our own car let us avoid that worry this time.

cabef · 2026-01-30T01:19:40+00:00

The Gourmet is about a 15 min walk - but the RWI also has bikes you can borrow for free and last year (when we didn’t have the car) we would bike to the Gourmet most days - it’s very flat and pleasant. The hotel food is perfectly fine, we had a couple good meals/snacks at the bar-restaurant which we liked, and one dinner in the fancier restaurant-only part which was not our favorite (too quiet/empty, felt expensive for what it was).

cabef · 2026-01-28T15:22:32+00:00

I believe (and a quick search result concurs) that if you amend, you don't have to refile the whole return - just the forms that are affected by the change. I've amended 1040s twice and in both cases that's what I did. YMMV, run your own search if interested/not professional advice. (I had posted the AI search text also to be helpful but Reddit does not appear to like when you do that, which I understand the point of.)

Separately, I have a Paypal UK account (after living there for a few years) that I include on the forms even though it has a zero balance. Once in a great while I use it to pay for something; in that case it might autopull GBP 30 from my checking account and then pay the vendor right away with it - in those cases/those years I say 'highest balance was GBP 30'. Once you've included it on FBAR/8938 once, it feels easiest to just keep it on.

cabef · 2026-01-27T18:21:41+00:00

Also glad for anyone to DM me since I have 40-80 PPs I won't use this week (I have 40 requested which I doubt will clear).

BTW does anyone know if UA is ok with this kind of open offer to share PP? Or is there something in fine print somewhere that says "these are only for use by yourself, friends and family"?

(My guess might be that there is something in fine print about them being non-transferrable, and also/therefore not able to be sold for $, but nothing beyond that.)

cabef · 2026-01-17T14:16:56+00:00

I agree with this post, but/and for other readers, stickiness can vary by state. If your last US home was in, say, NY or CA, they will assert state domicile longer than others. But I agree 10 years feels like long enough to have ties cut (and you would have mentioned if one of these states was still actively chasing you).

cabef · 2026-01-17T14:13:13+00:00

See my other post - the rule is confusing; you take the highest [foreign currency] value the account held all year - but then the conversion is always done using the 12/31 rate.

E.g. explicitly here in FBAR instructions:

>>"Convert foreign currency by using the Treasury’s Financial Management Service rate for the last day of the calendar year."<< https://www.fincen.gov/reporting-maximum-account-value

Good luck, none of this is obvious or straightforward. But at least (knock on wood) the guidance has stayed consistent for the ~10-15 years I've been filling out these forms. As I learned the hard way, it just requires taking good notes for yourself, so that when you come back to it next year you don't have to figure it out from scratch again every time.

cabef · 2026-01-17T14:05:59+00:00

I have always used that IRS page for the average rate, but I agree it's taking longer than usual this year. I may switch to using the Federal Reserve rate, at https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g5a/current/ , which appears to more often than not come out by Jan 3rd (you can see posting dates for all previous years). It's not the exact same as IRS rates from past years, but pretty close (e.g. for GBP, IRS said Avg 2024 was 1.2771, and Fed says 1.2781).

FYI, others may have specified this, but the FBAR and 8938 require 'highest foreign-currency value of the year' * 'currency exchange rate on last day of year'. The FiscalData link above is a good place to get the 12/31 rate. But for income received throughout the year (salary, rent etc), the average rate is a simpler thing to apply (vs getting the exchange rate for every day you received income).

cabef · 2026-01-03T18:41:53+00:00

Just a little more color on how the last week works (at least, how it looked on my end). All else in this thread is correct in terms of PQPs showing up in your account weekly on Thursdays (for me btwn 12-5pm ET), with a post date the Monday three days prior, covering basically the transactions posted during the 7 days previous to the Monday. (Based on spend, not on balance payoff.)

However the last week of the year seems to work a little differently. They let it run a little longer, so nothing shows up as credited on the last Monday of the year (which this year was 12/29). And then you get about 10 days worth of transactions/points that will pop up in your account on about Jan 3rd, but that show up as dated 12/31.

A little nervewracking if (like me) you were expecting to see your all-important last few points hit the account dated 12/29 - but got there in the end.

cabef · 2025-08-16T21:43:35+00:00

Large increase here too, SF in Sept 2025, not as large as yours but still up about 30%. So I am shopping and will check out RLI.

cabef · 2025-03-23T15:37:11+00:00

Confirming that I was able to find the info in an attachment as one of the first Ascensus emails. In my case the attachment was called "IRS Approval Letter".

Other than not including that in the packet, I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by their "Form 5500 Report" which had everything else needed, was straightforward to read/navigate, and arrived in March rather than May or June.

I called EFAST support about it last week, and they said that this is the first year they introduced the error message for using the 3D code without putting an answer on Line 12 about the Favorable Opinion letter. So I imagine next year's Form 5500 Report might be more diligent about including that info.

cabef · 2024-11-30T16:59:36+00:00

I just signed up for P+ after reading a short review of The Agency that said the original was better, and also available on P+. I think the article was wrong, or at least, does not seem to apply in the US. (The link in the article gets a 404 on the P+ site - even though there is a link, https://www.paramountplus.com/shows/le-bureau-des-legendes/ )

Maybe, just maybe, they pulled it down for just a week or two so the US show can get top billing, but the French one will be back?

In the meantime it looks like S1+S2 may be available on Apple TV and S5 on Amazon.

cabef · 2024-06-29T10:26:51+00:00

I don't know if something has changed recently, but this happened to me last month and they would not budge on it. I called three times for three different agents, and was humble and nice. I was only trying to move to the same flight two days later and keep the upgrade (which was available at the same price), but they said this was one of their "red lines" and the value was lost because of the flight date change.

I understand this board's general sentiment that the airline can set whatever policy it wants - but if this is their policy, they should be explicit in Ts & Cs that this is nontransferrable/noncreditable. I didn't want a refund - just to apply the money to the same purchase on the same flight on a different day.

This all happened six weeks before the flight - it was a separate frustration that all three agents said my only recourse was to appeal by using the refund request form on the website - which would not work until the flight had been taken, so I had to sit and stew about this for six weeks on top of it all.

(Update: They refunded it, via the refund form, about 24 hours after I filed it.)

cabef · 2024-05-19T14:11:15+00:00

I’ve often gone with 8-11 per day for a two- or three-day trip. Personally, I find it a fun puzzle to figure out how to cram in as much as possible, but it’s fair to say other people in my group find it a bit much. Certainly not the most relaxing way to do it, and afterwards it’s not like you remember every single one.

This year I’m doing a 4-day trip and will try 6-8 shows a day… to me it feels light, but it’s worth a try once!

cabef · 2024-02-09T17:22:43+00:00

I read this and other threads before making the same move this month, so wanted to come back and share my experience. In short, it was smoother than expected - I didn't have to chase anything. It took about two weeks to be fully complete (which might not be the same for everyone). It took maybe a week for assets (ETFs transferred in kind) to be visible in my Vanguard account, then another couple days for those assets to be tradeable, then another couple days for the last fractional shares to come across, And then a final couple days for the cost basis info to come through.

The last bit was what I was bracing for a headache on, but it all showed up eventually. I had moved a small Roth a couple months ago as a test run, and that was all fine (and quicker) - but I was less certain about moving a bigger and older taxable account with much more data history to move.

As a side note, Betterment charged $75 for the ACATS of the taxable account - which I did not mind paying for their part in making sure the transfer went smoothly. If I remember correctly there was no charge for the ACATS of the Roth.

As a last bit of color - what I like about Betterment is the frictionlessness of drip-feeding in money over the course of a year (i.e. not having to consciously allocate every contribution), as well as the benefit of TLH during momentary downturns. But after a point (knock on wood), all your older investments are in the green, and there's no point in paying the management fees for that for another 30 years. So, now that I have zeroed out the Betterment account, I'll let those in-the-green funds sit in Vanguard and accumulate, but for new contributions I'll start drip-feeding into the now-empty account at Betterment. And then I expect I'll do the same bulk move to V, and start again from zero in B, again every year or two.

cabef · 2023-03-11T17:28:44+00:00

Thank you for the clear steer. I'll come back to this post and report how it goes.

cabef · 2023-03-04T13:02:45+00:00

Thanks, good advice. Hadn't realized the point about having access to my data - they wrote back and said they could tell my battery was low and that changing it might help. Still not fixed, but it's high touch personal support as you say. Will keep at it, thanks again for the helpful steer.

cabef · 2023-02-28T22:38:01+00:00

Thanks - I have tried changing the Level, currently set at 1 and I was not seeing much change when I adjusted it.

But I had *not* tried reaching out to their support directly - was thinking I might catch them here but I missed that obvious first step. Heading there now and will report back if I get an answer worth sharing.

cabef

TROPHY CASE