Grace Period on Final Payment?

[KrausHaus]

I am one of those people who 'churns' credit cards. Get a new card every few months and I turn those huge signup bonuses into free travel. My latest card is a Southwest Airlines card that will give us free companion travel for 2024 and 2025. I have a big $11k final payment due on December 23rd on a HAL cruise.  I need the cruise charge to post to my new SW card in 2024 in order to get the bonus. Does anyone know if HAL offers a grace period on final payment? I only need nine days grace period.

[kirkc]

Never heard of anything like that. Travel is pretty much a “pay for play” operation. I can imagine a grace period would be an impossible slippery slope for them and unfair to those who pay timely. JMO

[OlsSalt]

Assume there can be a wait list, eager to snap up any cancellations. Individual exceptions made by corporate for wanting to kite  credit cards does not seem like a winning argument.

 

However, they may be looking for new Club 21 members perhaps?  🤑

[POA1]

Be very careful. You'll be in penalty and at risk of auto cancellation if you try to stretch out final payment for a week plus.

[CGinMTL]

I would not chance it 

But it is your call

My uncle always told me to not gamble what I can win. But only gamble what I can lose 

.

Do come back in January and let us know 

 

[Haljo1935]

I asked a couple months ago and was told that it's possible to extend final payment date before initial deposit is made, but not once actual payment schedule is posted. So, if you do a courtesy hold, for example, and call in before converting it to a paid booking, they can adjust the final date then take your deposit.

You will see the new final payment date instead of the original one.

Edited November 11, 2023 by Haljo1935
Typo

[kirkc]

Courtesy holds have always been just that and apply only to to new and undeposited bookings.

I’d pay on time and figure some other way to try and get the point bonus.

[canadianbear]

2 hours ago, KrausHaus said:

I am one of those people who 'churns' credit cards. Get a new card every few months and I turn those huge signup bonuses into free travel. My latest card is a Southwest Airlines card that will give us free companion travel for 2024 and 2025. I have a big $11k final payment due on December 23rd on a HAL cruise.  I need the cruise charge to post to my new SW card in 2024 in order to get the bonus. Does anyone know if HAL offers a grace period on final payment? I only need nine days grace period.

Look closely at your statement.  For our 35 day cruise if we bought the Premium (I think that’s what it was called) HAL cancel for any reason insurance, final payment wasn’t until a month after that.  Not sure if that’s an option for you or not. 

[BermudaBound2014]

Hi 🙂 I'm also a churner. You probably already know everything I'm about to say, but just in case :).

 

The SWA CP is tricky. Are you saying the 11K will boost you past your SUB in 23? Any chance you can spend less between now and 12/23 so it doesn't? You could pay off your cruise in Dec without hitting your SUB and then just make a modest charge in 1/24. It only matters  that you hit the SUB in 24.

 

If I was that close to a CP on SWA, and the 11K would boost me past SUB, I'd probably cancel my cruise and repurchase in January. Of course, that depends on how much you fly, but a CP on SWA is easily worth close to 2k to me. 

 

Of course, I'd check capacity on the cruise before cancelling and I'm flex with cabin assignment. That strategy probably won't work for most.

 

Anyway, nice to hear from a fellow churner. It's an addicting game. Too bad only virgin cruises plays, but I suspect others will get onboard eventually.

 

Best to you 🙂

 

 

 

 

[oaktreerb]

1 hour ago, KrausHaus said:

Thanks for the answers. I'm certainly not going to gamble and hope it works. I will only do it if I can get assurance and permission from HAL or actually Costco Travel as that is who it is booked through (to get the $900 Costco gift card).

 

If you booked through CC you need to call them to answer that question.  Their final payment date may be prior to HAL’s final payment, and they would be more likely to adjust their requirements than the cruise company.

[FlaMariner]

4 hours ago, KrausHaus said:

Does anyone know if HAL offers a grace period on final payment? I only need nine days grace period.

 

Agree w/above, you need to ask your TA.

 

We use a big internet online only TA and I wanted to stall on a final payment by one week (to hit the next month's credit card statement) and the TA allowed because (I learned) the TA final payment deadline was actually a week prior to HAL's "drop dead" deadline. 

 

Ask. 

[alwayscruisetime]

As relatively new Holland America people, I can't speak to what HAL may or may not do, but as someone who's had a Companion Pass with Southwest for 20 years, I have good news for you.

 

Check the date that your statement closes on your Southwest credit card.  For us, the statement closes every month on the 8th, meaning last week, on November 8th, anything we'd charged to the card in the month prior became the "new balance" that must be paid by December 8th (or thereabouts - I'm thinking if the statement closes on the 9th, the payment is due on the 5th, but you get the gist).

 

Here's how December works.  Our statement ends on Dec. 8.  Everything that's been charged onto our SWVisa card by Dec. 8 has to be paid for by Jan. 5.  But starting on Dec. 9, everything that we charge to that card is a part of the NEXT statement - the statement that closes on Jan. 8 and has to be paid on Feb. 5.

 

Every charge that happens AFTER OUR DECEMBER CLOSING DATE (the 8th in our case, you'll need to check for yours) counts toward the 2024 Companion Pass.  So like you, we're timing our big expenditures.  If we have something we can charge later rather than sooner, we're making the charge happen after Dec. 9.  So if you want your big payment that's due on Dec. 23 to count towards your 2024 Companion Pass, all you need to do is make sure that your card's statement closing date happens prior to Dec. 23.  (If I were you, with that big payment, I'd shoot for the 20th, or even the 15th, but technically you just need it to be before the 23rd.  If it's currently earlier in the month, you're already set.

 

If not, you are allowed to change your credit card's statement closing date.  It can be done on the Chase website by changing the date you want to make payment (and the closing date adjusts accordingly), or you can call and have customer service help you with it.  You need to start this month, in November, so that come December it's automatic.  Be careful that if the date changes you don't go over 28 or 30 days between payments as a result of that change, or you'll end up with finance charges. We just did this.  We now have the 2nd of each month as our closing date, so that beginning Dec. 3 (we allowed a few days just in case) everything we charge helps us towards our 2024 Companion Pass.

 

(As a side note, depending on your card, you may have a promotion being offered - we do.  Ours is a Priority card, so if that's not the one you have, you may have to upgrade to that card for the offer - I don't know.)  From the Southwest website:  

 

"When you register and make purchases on your Rapid Rewards® Credit Card between 10/1/23-1/31/24, you'll earn 25% more points as a bonus on purchases made on your Rapid Rewards® Credit Card during the Promotion Period (up to 20,000 bonus points)."

 

"The 25% bonus points will count towards Companion Pass® qualification, but will not count toward A-List or A-List Preferred qualification. Please allow up to 8 weeks after the end of the Promotion Period for the 25% bonus points to post to your Southwest Rapid Rewards account. Bonus points will post to your account in 2024."

 

Hope that helps!  You could already be earning towards your 2024 Companion Pass with the bonus points (although not the base points - they start the day after your December statement).

[KrausHaus]

Thank you alwayscruisetime,..

I had read that there were workarounds with the statement dates etc. and I will check my due date. But I'm wondering how you have been able to keep the Companion Pass for so many years.🤔 That's incredible. I am expecting that now we have both churned enough SW credit cards, that we might actually have to start flying enough SW to keep it going but that's not likely.  Personally, I think that we will likely dump our SW cards after we get our next Companion Pass and move on to the next big bonus offering. 

[Iamthesea]

My head is swimming!!! 😁  Kudo's to those that can keep up with your "churning." 

Whew!!!...too much to deal with for me.

[alwayscruisetime]

14 hours ago, KrausHaus said:

Thank you alwayscruisetime,..

I had read that there were workarounds with the statement dates etc. and I will check my due date. But I'm wondering how you have been able to keep the Companion Pass for so many years.🤔 That's incredible. I am expecting that now we have both churned enough SW credit cards, that we might actually have to start flying enough SW to keep it going but that's not likely.  Personally, I think that we will likely dump our SW cards after we get our next Companion Pass and move on to the next big bonus offering. 

You said it - we fly enough to earn the Companion Pass and A+ Preferred.  The only reason we're having to work it so hard for 2024 is that we also achieved 1K on United this year, so we've upped the challenge!  We also don't get new cards - so no sign-on bonuses.  It's all flights and a single credit card for each airline.  I'd never even heard the term "churning". 

[KrausHaus]

2 hours ago, Iamthesea said:

My head is swimming!!! 😁  Kudo's to those that can keep up with your "churning." 

Whew!!!...too much to deal with for me.

If anyone is interested in this 'hobby' that some of us enjoy you may want to check out travelfreely dot com. I used to have to keep a spreadsheet but the guy who set up that website has made it much easier to keep track of it all.