It also may not be as easy as you think it will be to get all your ducks in a row. The timing and logistics are sometimes problematic. Are you sure there will be enough award space on your Virgin Atlantic flight? Are you sure you can get a Global Entry interview appointment in time for your application to be approved? Are you sure your flight to Florida will be affordable? Do you understand the pitfalls of booking a hotel through a travel portal in the event of a change of plans (e.g. flight delay or cancellation)?
There are some other risks you should weigh with this plan as well. Capital One's decisionmaking is heavily algorithm-based. What happens if dropping more than $4K on that card right off the bat trips Capital One's anti-money laundering / fraud algos and they move to restrict or close the card? Plus, your mother would need to make the charge in her name, you can't make a first month charge that high with declared income that low with history that short as an AU with that PU:AU spend ratio without serious alarm bells going off at Capital One's end. Of course, there is the possibility that nothing happens, especially if your mother makes the charge and she has a history of heavier spending, but you need to be prepared for that chance. Credit is a 2 way street, while you are evaluating what you can get out of a card, the issuer is evaluating what they can get out of you and how much of a risk you could be to them.
Additionally, what happens if you were to suddenly lose your job tomorrow? I try not to judge what people spend their own money on, but I really don't recommend spending more than 20% of your annual income in one shot unless you have some hefty savings banked to cover unforeseen emergencies.
If most people complete the global entry process in 2 weeks, but it "can" take months...then you need to be prepared for it to take months. When big money and plans with many moving pieces are on the table, you don't plan for the rosiest scenario, you plan for the average at best, mostly planning for the worst. Assume that anything that can go wrong, will. Sometimes things just happen and when you're traveling, one hiccup can snowball into a much worse situation in a hurry. Global entry depends on a federal agency - what if they are too understaffed to interview in the expected timeframe? What if they go on strike? What if the government shuts down and they defer non-essential business?
You can guess what I would personally do in this situation - either take the cruise with that debit card, or not take the cruise until I had higher income, a strong profile that could get a VX application approved in my own right, and a strong spend history that supports the ability to just casually drop 4 grand on whatever I want no questions asked by the issuer. Of course, as someone who has lost jobs, blown my finances, and completely cratered my credit in the past, I am more financially conservative than most. It would kinda suck to use debit and not get rewards for that cruise, but think about it this way - the rewards you'll reap from that spend amount to like 2 days' worth of my pay and there is no risk to either yourself or your mother paying cash for it. Not to mention how many moving parts there are to the plan, moving parts that require actual experience to navigate properly.
Just food for thought. I do hope whatever you choose to do actually ends up working ok. Also all this makes me sound really old, although I'm not lol.
VS4: 709
Does the cruise line offer any type of discount if you pay by check instead of credit or debit card? I paid for a Viking cruise last year with a credit card, but I was given the option of paying by e-check for a discount. I used a credit card anyway because the discount was less than the credit card rewards I would receive.
@LandonM wrote:I'm actually waiting for the discounted rooms to come out. After the final payment is due, if Disney thinks the cruise won't sell out, they will offer a deal where you can book a certain statement category but don't pick the room called a guaranteed stateroom with restrictions (they pick the room for you but it is in the category you selected). Typically, these deals are great because you save 20-30% of what the original price was however you cannot cancel or change the guest list for a refund. My last cruise we went on I booked my family a guaranteed restricted room and we had no problems with it (allowing them to save a little over a thousand dollars). I also have chatted with many people who have booked these and a vast majority of people don't have problems with it.
Be careful with cruise bookings where you don't have an assigned stateroom. You might wind up in a lousy part of the ship, like near a service elevator where they bring catering or cleaning carts around at all hours. You might also be right below a noisy area like a music venue. The same problem can happen with "free upgrades". You might get a better stateroom, but the location could be problematic.