Category Archives for Credit Cards.
Answering this question starts with looking at the transfer partners each program has (they’re all different), which partners provide the most value, and also how flexible each currency is when you want to use your points directly against a paid ticket or hotel night rather than redeeming for a free flight or free hotel award night.
Wow wow wow. On New Year’s Day “Rent Day” January 1st, Bilt Rewards is offering up to 150% bonuses on points transfers to Air France KLM, Virgin, and IHG One Rewards. They call this “2023’s Most Loved Benefits Return” a repeat of some of their best offers from the prior year, together on one day. These are bigger transfer bonus offers than we see from other programs.
My county takes credit cards for property taxes, but they charge a 3% fee. I could have Plastiq charge my credit card for the rewards and send the county a check, but they now charge a 2.9% fee.
Property taxes in Texas are a big deal. I pay about 1.5% of my home’s assessed value each year (the assessed value is likely lower than current market).
Loyalty programs are really two components bundled in one: recognition and reward. Earn and burn of points matters, but so do elite benefits, which entail better treatment for your best customers.
Bilt Rewards has been mostly an earn and burn program to do, and a very lucrative one at that. But when they launched they clearly recognized the need for an elite level and built out the skeleton of one.
Chase travel did $8 billion in sales in 2022 with 40% growth in number of customers purchasing travel through their portal. They have had public goals to hit $10 billion in sales this year and $15 billion in sales by 2025.
Chase Travel believes they’ll pass American Express and become the third largest travel agency within two years. Last year they were less than 8% behind.
Avianca LifeMiles is a popular Star Alliance frequent flyer program for U.S. members because they sell miles inexpensively on a regular basis, and because you can transfer points into their program from several different credit card currencies.
They have generally reasonable redemption pricing with no fuel surcharges, though getting customer service when things go wrong can be challenging at times.
Airlines charge banks more for loyalty points than the average consumer realizes, often differentiating between initial bonus miles and ongoing spend, and also accounting differently for miles earned through flying versus credit card spending. During the pandemic, financial disclosures revealed significant margins in airline frequent flyer programs, with American, Delta, and United showing varied margins due to different internal accounting and pricing strategies.
The initial bonus offer on this card is about to drop. For card launch there is a limited-time offer of 60,000 points after $2,500 spend within 90 days. This is only available for approvals before November 30th and it is 50% larger than the regular bonus offer that will replace it. So, jump on this offer now.
United, Delta, and American Airlines all have airport lounges for premium customers. Alaska Airlines has them, too. Southwest Airlines doesn’t offer lounges.
These lounges are also a huge perk of premium credit cards, which are a lucrative business for airlines. Southwest is competing with one hand tied behind its back placing cards in consumer wallets without lounges.
The New York Times embarrasses themselves arguing that rewards credit cards drive inequality. The Times doesn’t understand the issue beyond retail lobbyist talking points.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
