u/k032

I'm getting conflicting info for this searching online. Looking into it probably for next years festival. We were thinking to do a van camping road trip to a national park, and then pair it with ending at the Telluride Film Festival.

My understanding is the Telluride Town Park is a campsite, but the festival uses it, do they open it for campers? Is it better to probably find some other site outside of town if these are too competitive? If so, then is parking at Telluride bad during the festival?

Anyone just have some advice for this in general! Camping + attending the film festival, would really appreciate it a bit lost on it haha.

*can't

Last night did grocery shopping and the cashier just auto clicked through for me to pay with points...I never even saw the prompt. So I just used 1.8k points to save...$7. Tried to cancel it but no luck, didn't even know that was a thing at Walmart.

I really hate this pay with Bilt points option everywhere, wasting redemptions.

We are coming from out of town flying in and decided to get the Contributor membership (not early bird) hopefully to get a better edge. I'm not sure what to expect with contributor membership though if should pivot anywhere. I think like Ink and Bucking Fastard according to TIFFR last night were most popular on our list. Should I plan or assume more won't be available by Contributor presale day?

**Thursday, September 10**

- 5:30pm — Stuffed — Royal Alex — Premium

- 8:45pm — The Housewife — Royal Alex — Premium

- 11:59pm — River — Royal Alex — Not premium

**Friday, September 11**

- 3:15pm — After Elena — Lightbox 2 — Not premium

- 6:15pm — Trash Mountain — Scotia 1 — Not premium

- 8:45pm — The Stunt Driver — Royal Alex — Not premium

**Saturday, September 12**

- 11:20am — Faith — Scotia 13 — Not premium

- 5:30pm — Babies — Roy Thomson — Premium

- 8:30pm — The Surgeon — Royal Alex — Premium

- 11:59pm — Vintage Violence — Royal Alex — Not premium

**Sunday, September 13**

- 2:45pm — Closing Night — Scotia 2 — Not premium

- 5:45pm — Back in Black — Scotia 1 — Not premium

- 9:30pm — All That She Wants — Lightbox 1 — Premium

**Monday, September 14**

- 12:00pm — Bucking Fastard — Lightbox 1 — Premium

- 5:30pm — Alpha Gang — Scotia 3 — Not premium

- 8:30pm — God Bless You, Mr Kopu — Scotia 5 — Not premium

**Tuesday, September 15**

- 11:00am — Bunker — VISA (Princess of Wales) — Not premium

- 2:30pm — Ink — VISA (Princess of Wales) — Premium

- 6:30pm — Elsinore — Scotia 1 — Not premium

- 9:30pm — Wild Horse Nine — Scotia 4 — Not premium

**Wednesday, September 16**

- 9:00am — Tangles — Scotia 1 — Not premium

- 11:45am — Look Back — Lightbox 1 — Not premium

- 3:00pm — The Man I Love — VISA (Princess of Wales) — Premium

Work on a rather small team that caters to building apps for this one specific team, but it does branch out to others. Maybe at most few hundred users. All internal apps.

I'm beginning to architect out this new application from a need that has rose, and a lot of it is now thinking about not only what the UI looks like, but how do people interact with this thing from AI and their own agents now.

Because like, some people are all in on AI running dozens of agents doing stuff. Others still prefer just regular old workflows and maybe using a chat bot LLM type thing.

It's kind of a weird balance to cater to both. But I don't know like just build an MCP, build a good thought out API and system and the AI should be able to just understand it?

I'm curious if others have come to this like building an app for AI and Humans requirement and how have you handled it, what have you learned?

My hunch has been, build a good app with a well documented API, and the people who want to use AI can just benefit from it. A human understandable app is an AI understandable one.

Hi!

We love going to the Virginia Film Festival, but this year seems like all hotels are booked around UVA for the October 23rd weekend. Which is wild because we've been plenty of years before and never had this issue.

Is there something else happening that weekend at UVA? Don't go there, not an alumni, just somewhat local to the mid-atlantic and this is the best film festival to go to locally.

I'm not sure if the festival just got a lot more popular all the sudden.

Maybe a dumb question, but find it hard to switch from Prime to using Rakuten for the points boost. The shipping costs from other stores makes it harder. Been able to put my Chewy orders through it for my cats but.

Like just now I needed dish detergent but buying individual bottles from like Staples or something didn't make sense.

So I'm just kind of curious, what do you use Rakuten for ?

How do you make the most of Rakuten? Transferring to Bilt then after.

My CM and JL are the same person...but I'll be honest he's not really in the same role as me. He's an analyst and I'm a developer. He sometimes develops when he has time, but tbh I'm guiding and leading him more there. He asks some pretty basic questions. Which like that's cool I'm happy to help him learn more dev work. But all in all he's just in a different trajectory and space than me.

But...I kind of rather talk to someone who is a developer about my career here. I do I mean have a whole network I've built up over the years, in and out of BAH, and even honestly I talk to some devs at competing companies on the same contract.

I actually do talk to my old CM from before in Civil some (I switched to Nat Sec) and have one BAH guy whose been around since I was in middle school lol.

I'm in kind of a weird org of mostly analysts and then a handful of devs who help.

I'm a L3 with 8 YOE.

Recommend doing this? Should I just not care ?

Current cards:

Card	Age	Limit	Status/Usage
Discover IT	8y 11mo	$4K	FROZEN
Amazon Chase Visa	7y 3mo	$14K	Actively used for Amazon purchases
CFU	6y 3mo	$21K	FROZEN Soon?
CFF	5y 9mo	$4K	FROZEN
Sofi Card	5y 7mo	$15K	FROZEN
CSP	4y 11mo	$16K	Not using, not frozen
Southwest Priority	2y 11mo	$6k	Use SW benefits frequently (local airport is SW hub)
World of Hyatt	1y 8mo	$19k	Transfer to Hyatt often; used heavily w/ Chase trifecta
Ashley Homestore	1y 1mo	$6k	Used for 0% furniture plan; paid off, FROZEN
Mattress Firm	1y 1mo	$6k	Same as Ashley, FROZEN
Bilt Palladium	0y 5mo	$38k	Active daily driver

FICO Score: e.g. 789

Oldest account age: e.g. 8y 11mo

Chase 5/24 status: e.g 4/24

Income: e.g. $185,000 + Fiancee makes $95k

Average monthly spend and categories:

dining $500

groceries: $700

gas: $200

travel: Varies? I save $2k/mo to travel

other: All Expenses are $3.8k/mo, plus or minus maybe $1k-$3k outside of that and the rest is investments/savings of my income

Open to Business Cards: e.g. Could be! I have some means to be considered a "business" but idk all this entails.

What's the purpose of your next card? Travel! Big big travel!

Do you have any cards you've been looking at? I think more cards and bonuses to boost things, kind of looking in the next few months to year what to apply for.

Are you OK with category spending or do you want a general spending card? Open I guess.

---

I'm trying to figure out a general strategy from here, not necessarily looking to get a card tomorrow. We are getting married next September and have some big expenses I can use for signup bonuses. We plan to spend a lot of time traveling for the foreseeable future. I personally am budgeting like $2k-$3k/mo roughly for it. I think my goal is aim for SUBs to have a more expenses paid trips.

I also wouldn't mind getting another Global Entry / TSA Precheck credit for my fiancee in a card.

I could use my fiancee as a player two, but she's been rebuilding her credit hit some financial walls I helped her out of.

CSR was one I was considering some. But in general I'm wondering what strategies should I go down?

Bilt Palladium has been basically my everything card now, seems like I transfer a lot easily from it.

I live outside of Baltimore, so BWI, IAD, DCA are main airports.

No upcoming travel that isn't already paid for, we are doing Toronto/TIFF in September and Maui in November. Next year looking at a few ideas but nothing concrete, the wedding probably eating more though into travel.

Also, we have 0 interest in airport lounges, I think they're dumb the ones we've been into. So those perks are effectively valued at nothing.

I'm trying to plan out a potential New Mexico trip around 2 days of skiing at Taos with my fiancee, brother, and sister in-law. Something where my brother and I can go skiing and fiancee and sister in law could relax at some resort or do something else.

Then spend some extra time road tripping down. I think white sands national park is pretty high on a list to see.

But idk...any recommendations ? Particularly around winter months. I'm not sure the climate of New Mexico otherwise I figured the southern part is warmer?

I think looking at just the plain Subaru lineup, the Forester, Outback, Crosstrek look great.

And then...you have Solterra, Trailseeker, Uncharted.

They all just look dull and weird, I don't know why manufacturers want to make electric cars all look this way. Don't know how to describe it, it's like tech-y futuristic-y Tesla vibes.

I want something that looks like an Outback but doesn't need gas. I don't want Subarus idea of a Tesla.

My Bilt Palladium card has better travel related insurances that would require me to put it all on that than my SW Priority card. But I still want the early boarding, better seats, 48 hour seat upgrade, etc of the SW card.

It sounds like yes from what I'm reading but can anyone confirm ?

Hello! I'm trying to plan out a trip we have coming up for Maui this fall. Never been to Hawaii. I tried to research and decide on an iternary. I just wanted thoughts, sanity check, things you don't recommend? Things you do? I'm planning this from my laptop in Baltimore based on vibes I have no idea most of this stuff. Never been, we doing more exploratory travel before having kids/post marriage when a trip to Hawaii from the East coast is unaffordable!

We're splitting our stay to be 2 nights at the Hilton Maui Bay Villas first and then Andaz Maui for the later days. Mostly to use the first two days to explore more.

I saw some things like the Road to Hana and Route 340, but nixed them...mostly due to hearing they are difficult drives and such.

I really wanted to do Lanai day trip because of the cat sanctuary. Love cats and I'll miss my cats at home.

Nov 6 (Fri) — Arrival 🛬

• Fly Baltimore → San Diego/Las Vegas/LA → Maui (Southwest, single layover)
• Check into front-end hotel (Kihei-area — Hilton Grand Vacations Club Maui Bay Villas)
• Grocery run, easy dinner, early night

Nov 7 (Sat) — Lanai day trip 🐈

• ~6:15am leave for Maʻalaea Harbor (minutes from hotel)
• 6:30/6:45am ferry → Lanai (~1hr15)
• Lanai Cat Sanctuary (go first, before it's hot/crowded)
• Hulopoe Beach — snorkel, Puʻu Pehe/Sweetheart Rock trail
• Lunch in Lanai City
• 5:30pm ferry back, arrive ~6:45pm

Nov 8 (Sun) — Molokini/Turtle Town + Iao Valley + move to Andaz 🐢

• Early snorkel boat from Maʻalaea (~6:30–7am), back early-mid afternoon
• Iao Valley & Needle on the way back toward Wailea
• Check into Andaz Maui at Wailea by 4pm

Nov 9 (Mon) — Hoapili Trail + relax + luau 🌸

• Morning: Hoapili Trail (close to Wailea, go early — exposed lava field)
• Afternoon: pool/beach at Andaz
• Evening: Attend luau (Andaz's own Feast at Mokapu)

Nov 10 (Tue) — Free day at Andaz 🏖️

• Fully unstructured — pool, beach, spa, snorkel Mokapu Beach

Nov 11 (Wed) — Haleakalā (daytime) + Makawao + fly out ⛰️

• Breakfast/pool at Andaz
• Late morning drive up to Haleakalā (~1.5–2 hrs), arrive ~7:30–8am for good light, no reservation needed after sunrise
• Explore summit/crater
• Makawao on the way down for lunch/coffee
• Back to Andaz early-mid afternoon, pack, relax, maybe one more pool session

Nov 12 (Thur) Travel home 🛫

Head to OGG for 11:30pm (Nov 11 technically..) flight home. Maui -> San Diego/Las Vegas/LA -> Baltimore

• Land back in Baltimore 6:30PM Nov 12th Thur
• Taking off work Friday Nov 13th and recovering that weekend before going back to work Monday.

Questions..

1. Thoughts? Just generally.
2. I'm reading the weather is decent early November but also the start of the rain reason. Is there a chance this whole trip is rained out or unlikely?
3. Hotel thoughts? I was aiming for the Andaz because credit cards I have and Hilton because idk just seemed cheaper.

We live in Baltimore like 15 minutes from BWI. I was looking at Sydney, Australia trips. Obviously they don't fly there.

I could just drive all the way to DC for Dulles and fly direct/book with a single itinerary.

However, has anyone booked just the connection flight from Southwest to an airport with a cheap long haul flight, and then had the long haul be a separate booking? Do you recommend it?

The cheapest but also not miserable combo I can find is BWI -> LAX via Southwest and then LAX -> SYD via Qantas. Might have to stay a night in LA but I have some free nights on some cards I can use each year.

Is self transferring awful? Do you recommend it ?

I kind of like shorter trips, once something gets to the week point I'm pretty done. My fiancee disagrees and very much will say some trips are way too short. We have cats, and I miss them, and I'm also a bit of a homebody myself as is.

I like the idea of a weekend trip or 3 day trip...but I also like doing ambitious things too. Like I've thought, why not do 2 nights in Hawaii or 3 days in Europe (we're from the East Coast USA)?

What do you all think or where you stand on this?

My brother has had quite a problem with gambling over the past year or so since we lost our mom to cancer. He actually got a large life insurance payout of some I think $100k from when she passed. He was her primary care giver through the cancer. But I'm worried he's gambling a lot of that money away.

​

In fact he showed me some FanDuel app of sorts that said he lost $20k, but sounded vague like he may have won a lot then lost it all. It's gone more like not only sports betting, but slot machine apps and then also going to the physical casino.

​

I think he definitely *knows* it's a problem. His girlfriend has come to my fiancee and I about it. And idk what to say to him I worry like coming off as condescending. I know we've been through a bit losing our mom, and honestly he probably had gone through more than I did seeing it everyday. I've tried giving him a list of therapists my therapist gave me.

​

Just worry, looking for advice.

Edit: Sorry kind of butchered the title...I just need to help my.brother with a gambling problem!

I have been using PandaCSS + Ark UI to build out my components on my app. I kind of like it, I mean really its an alternative to Tailwind basically using CSS in JS, but with full types so you don't need an extension to get auto-complete. Where it gets clunky for me though is the build tooling having to build the styled-system directory with everything...but I mean I guess Tailwind has its own building configuration.

I'm just curious cause I've kind of liked it, but really see it used much. Most I can find on info is like videos and stuff when it first came out.