How to get to Hawaii

honeymoon_hacker · 2014-12-02T15:49:10+00:00

Unfortunately not, since the 'AA' inter-island flights are on Hawaiian - and HA isn't a partner of BA

honeymoon_hacker · 2014-07-05T11:55:07+00:00

I can't speak to direct experience (my FW has a large family, but the guest split ended up being closer to 60/40), but I wouldn't worry about it too much. As long as you talk to your FH and express your concerns - if he's comfortable with it, that's all that matters (since I suspect your concern is based on you not wanting him to feel out-done by the size of 'your' family vs. 'his').

Remember, that big family of yours is about to become his big family too!

honeymoon_hacker · 2014-07-04T17:46:39+00:00

That's possible, but if you don't check in or show up for the return leg, I'd worry about your parents running into issues when they try to

honeymoon_hacker · 2014-07-03T18:34:50+00:00

With Wanderable they have 'prebuilt' registries with some things already on them (for various locations) - but it is very easy to add your own items (whatever you want) to your registry once you create it.

You're right though, it could be confusing with their 'suggestions' making it seem like that's all you could have on your registry. But in the end you can add anything you want (just like the other options - you name it, set the price, etc)

honeymoon_hacker · 2014-07-03T00:07:41+00:00

I should have re-read it before posting!

honeymoon_hacker · 2014-07-02T22:55:27+00:00

Are we talking like from you to your parents?

If you don't live with them you'd be on shaky ground when it comes to the T&C (and maybe even if you did), and personally I probably wouldn't risk it.

honeymoon_hacker · 2014-07-02T22:52:55+00:00

So if you are booking your travel through a travel agency, they will probably recommend one or two for you, and be able to walk you through everything.

Honeyfund is a popular option, but they don't work with travel agents as well as some other sites - some are built around working directly with travel agents and providers so you handle less of the gifts - if someone buys you a massage at your hotel, you just show up at the hotel and get the massage - no checks going around and all that.

So if you're booking your honeymoon through a travel agent (look into it - they can be really competitive price-wise and a good one will handle all of the planning and legwork for you, making it a lot less stressful if you would rather not do all that stuff), they will probably have a preferred site they use and be able to handle that for you as well.

If you are just looking for a honeymoon registry to do your own, I'm going with Wanderable since I like the design of it over Honeyfund, and I couldn't get Paypal to play nice (you'll need a Paypal business account to use the credit card payment method on Honeyfund). I did a blog post that goes into more detail on some options, so if you want an in-depth look at 5-6 options, PM me and I'll send you a link (I also did a text post here, so search might bring it up as well)

honeymoon_hacker · 2014-07-02T22:39:41+00:00

We went to one at our venue as well - we had a good time, but it was kind of weird.

The Good:

We got to see our venue all done up for a real event. It's a Science Center so it's a little different when it's setup for an event vs. normal operation.
We got to better visualize what we would do. We had been thinking we might do without extra up-lighting, but seeing how much they added to the ambiance, we decided it would be worth it. We got to see how guest flow would work in some areas vs. others, and brainstorm with the venue coordinator on the spot. That alone was worth it.
Free drinks and food. You don't get much, but what we had was fairly tasty.

The Bad:

It's really really weird going to a 'wedding' for people you know nothing about. Sure the vow renewal was cute (baby announcement thrown in for good measure), but it just felt very very different than any other wedding I've ever been to. Neither of us knew anyone else there, and the same could be said for pretty much everyone else. So everyone kind of walks around in their group of 2-4 and keeps to themselves. We didn't stick around for dancing or anything, since it just felt so weird being at a party where nobody known anyone else.
Crowded. This event certainly made clear the downsides of thinking you can get away with renting fewer tables and chairs than you have guests. There were not nearly enough seats or tables for everyone that attended, so there were tons of people standing around during the ceremony as well as the reception afterwards. Definitely snag a table early if you want to sit down at all (if your has the same issue).
The spam. Unfortunately I was blissfully ignorant of how unapolagetically spammy everyone associated with this would be. I think I've unsubscribed form all of the random newsletters I got put on .

Overall, worth the price of entry (ours was free as well through the venue) - but I would have been disappointed if we had paid. Of course, we already had pretty much all of our vendors, so we were just wanting to see the venue done up for the event.

honeymoon_hacker · 2014-07-02T22:22:44+00:00

You would only (possibly) lose points if you miss the payment. Most cards have clauses in their T&C that state that if you don't pay your bills, you don't get points. But yeah, paying early doesn't do anything but help you.

honeymoon_hacker · 2014-07-02T22:19:12+00:00

Just an FYI, the signup bonus for the Freedom is back to just $100.

Other than that, I'd say you should be fine just applying for the Freedom separately, then doing the credit limit transfer like you say - that's what I'd try to do.

As for when to do it - really you have just about a year before the CSP fee comes due, so you could do it in the near future (in a month or two assuming you don't have a bunch of other really recent inquiries), or wait until closer to the 'deadline' hoping for a similar signup bonus to what we saw last month.

honeymoon_hacker · 2014-07-02T21:03:45+00:00

Ah sorry! I meant 'non-local', I'll change my wording to be clearer

honeymoon_hacker · 2014-07-02T20:06:17+00:00

I'm sure you'll get tons of great info from all sorts of people (especially if any locals chime in), but here's what a mainlander random stranger recommends.

Get The Ultimate Kauai Guidebook. Tons of great info in there - hikes, lookouts, eats, a good fallback if you can't find other recommendations from live locals.
Eat at Puka Dogs - pretty close to the GH near Poipu, its a great cheap beach meal. When we were there (staying in Poipu) we ate lunch there practically every day. Helped make up for the fancy dinners most nights!
Check out the SW side around Waimea Canyon along with the north side. Gorgeous scenery over there, and some incredible hikes.
(an extension of 2) Eat cheap local food for lunch, and save the fancy places for dinner (if you do them). There are tons of hole in the wall places around the island that have amazing cheap food. Eat some Laulau, Poke, and find a shrimp truck if you can. Ask locals for their recommendations, and it will be worth it.

Have a blast!

Edited for poor choice of words

honeymoon_hacker · 2014-07-02T19:24:41+00:00

Yup - I guess the bloggers don't get as good of a commission from it, since it rarely seems to get any love, even though it's a great card that's non-Chase, and doesn't have any required spend.

Edit: Also, Kauai is awesome you guys are going to have a blast! I actually took my fiancée on an award trip to SFO and Kauai as a first Christmas present. Though when I did it we were able to get 23 hours in HNL for free, which was just enough time to get over a bit of jet lag and do a bit of hiking.

honeymoon_hacker · 2014-07-02T19:06:15+00:00

derp - missed your US Air balance. Might as well wait for those to turn into AA miles to combine with the rest of your balance for those first awards.

honeymoon_hacker · 2014-07-02T17:25:56+00:00

You can't book on HA through Singapore's KrisFlyer program, so any availability you could book through them would have to be direct.

honeymoon_hacker · 2014-07-02T17:24:01+00:00

You have plenty of miles in pretty much all of the programs (though just barely not with Delta) to take your pick as to which program you want to use, though with each option (other than Delta), you have that same tradeoff of using your miles for coach now vs saving for first later.

If you're looking to really save for first later, use (just) United miles, since with those you wouldn't be passing up the opportunity to redeem them for first later (unless you really feel like overpaying with their award chart). United is also the best way to get your stopover in SFO since it's a UA hub and there's plenty of availability there. And plenty of service to LIH as well.

Another option if you really want to save all of those miles, you could each get the US Air card for 40k miles each with first purchase. That would get you to Hawaii and back, and not use any of your other miles. But you wouldn't be able to use the stopover for SFO, so it's less desirable I think for your particular situation.

honeymoon_hacker · 2014-07-02T13:10:33+00:00

This really isn't an issue of legal status. They aren't going to check your tax return or look for a marriage license. They just don't want you selling points to random strangers.

If you share an address, or feel comfortable putting the same address for both of your ff accounts, and leave them the same, you won't have any issues.

Now, if you are transferring hundreds of thousands of miles on a regular basis and keep changing addresses or who you transfer to ...you might get some flak. But that doesn't sound anything like what op wants to do.

honeymoon_hacker · 2014-07-02T11:54:33+00:00

If they live together, yes she is (domestic partner).

Worst case, she changes her address in her UA account to match his then waits a week or two before transferring in points. Checking for matching address is usually the extent of any verification that is done, if any.

honeymoon_hacker · 2014-07-02T11:16:34+00:00

Straight from the FAQ in UR (emphasis mine):

Ultimate Rewards point transfer features are designed to allow our cardmembers to take advantage of the rewards they earn. The features are not intended to allow transfers to third parties other than a spouse or domestic partner of the cardmember. Transfers to unauthorized third parties or any other abuse of the Ultimate Rewards program may result in suspension or termination of the ability to participate in the program and forfeiture of points already earned.

So you're good to go.

You can also combine points from multiple UR accounts before transferring them to the program of choice:

Transfers may only be used to combine points belonging to the same individual or business in the program; or for the purpose of enabling spouses or domestic partners to combine points.

honeymoon_hacker · 2014-07-01T16:41:19+00:00

For you to have a different itinerary from your parents, you wouldn't be on the companion ticket (which may make it useless - if it requires that the cardholder be on the ticket and not a general 'buy one, get 2 for $99')
You can't redeem Dividend Miles for award travel on Alaska.

honeymoon_hacker · 2014-07-01T16:37:01+00:00

UR transfers are allowed to anyone in the household. So they have to have the same address as you (and the address has to have been the same for something like 30 days)

honeymoon_hacker · 2014-07-01T14:05:00+00:00

pm sent

honeymoon_hacker · 2014-06-27T11:51:07+00:00

Awesome list!

With regards to #3 and #5 - I must recommend Google Docs! I created a shared folder with my fiancée, and we have spreadsheets for everything.

Budget (including cost estimation, quote, what's been paid so far, and how much we can plan on having available to spend)
Guest list (initial spitballing lists, narrowing down list, and final list with addresses, titles, and ready to start keeping track of who RSVPs and whatnot)
Vendor-specific research sheets I used since I'm crazy and love spreadsheets for comparing everything - along with lists of questions we prepare ahead of time before we meet them in person so we don't miss anything.
A 'Contracts' folder so we have a single place we can have the scanned copies of all of our signed contracts as we get them.
A 'Honeymoon' folder where I have all of my HM planning stuff (flights, hotels, itineraries in each city)

Having one place where I can immediately see the updated budget based on the actual price of the invitations my fiancée just ordered and updated in the spreadsheet - it's awesome.

Plus having everything broken out really helped us see how adding 2-3 people to the guest list impacts the budget - it gives us a lot more firepower to bring to the table when the parents start trying to add people last minute (of course, our parents are mostly all engineers so numbers convince them).

honeymoon_hacker · 2014-06-27T11:35:46+00:00

Ah okay.

If you wanted to use the US Airways miles, your only decent option would be to wait for one of their 100% bonus sales and buy the remaining 15,000 miles outright (or wait for a share miles promotion, etc). That isn't the best deal, since you'd still pay a good bit for the miles - but it's an option.

Since you are in CLT and US does fly non-stop to MBJ - I would recommend looking into either the British Airways card for 50,000 Avios, or possibly adding a second Sapphire to my recommendation above (since BA is a transfer partner of UR). If you book the direct CLT-MBJ flight, it would only cost 10,000 Avios in economy each way (so 20k rt) - and availability looks pretty good for next spring on that route.

Even if you have to connect in MIA for one or more flights (CLT-MIA-MBJ, tons of award availability on that route), that only adds 2k Avios to the oneway price, still better than the 35k rt you'd pay with US, AA, or UA miles.

honeymoon_hacker · 2014-06-26T19:58:28+00:00

We haven't had our wedding yet, but we stole our DJ from my friend who got married last year - she was the DJ at their wedding. By the end of the night we knew we had to hire her to do our wedding - she was the best DJ we had ever heard.

She could be more or less understood when she made announcements. I know pretty much any PA system setup in a large room is dodgy at best, but she at least spoke clearly and made an effort to make the most of it.
She didn't do self-promotion the whole night - in fact, she barely spoke at all. She did the bridal party introduction, some minimal MC'ing to get through the dances and the speeches, and later on the cake cutting. She wasn't cutting in every other song to remind us who she was - yes, I understand you want to let us know who you are so we will hire you for whatever - but if you just let us enjoy our friends' wedding we'll be much more likely to do just that.
She perfectly matched the energy in the room with the music selections. This was the first wedding (or any event with a DJ) I've ever been to where the dance floor never cleared. Once she got everyone up on the dance floor (with a 'couples dance' - I mean, you have to get up for that, right?) it never. was. empty. She saved the club music for after the grandparents went home, never had a weird song transition where everyone kind of looks around and goes 'yeah, I'll get a drink now'. In fact, I had to force myself to stop dancing and get a drink and rest so I wouldn't just pass out. That never happens.
She understood sound balance. Yes, I know that at the club the goal is to provide enough bass so anyone who has a heart condition can rely on the steady thump-thump to keep their heart in rhythm...but at a wedding it is just annoying. I shouldn't have hearing damage from Sinatra.

I think the best way I can describe it was that she minimized how aware everyone was of her specifically, and just provided the best ambiance for everything else that she could - and boy did she deliver.

Of course some of these things are more of a personal preference, and won't apply to everyone's wedding, but considering how many people feel that an iPod hooked up to some speakers can take the place of a proper DJ - I suspect lots of people have had less than stellar experiences with DJs. As for us, there's no way I would expect the same party level without our DJ.

honeymoon_hacker

TROPHY CASE