Category Archives for Credit Cards.
The Capital One Venture X Rewards Card announced lounge access changes. I think the extreme nature of the changes are a mistake for the card issuer, but they don’t affect me personally with the card. In fact I will come out ahead.
Competition in the rewards credit card market has gotten so intense that I believe the Sapphire Reserve card – the ‘it’ product when it was introduced just six years ago – has become passé. It was the most rewarding in the marketplace, and now merely a good card that I think has been surpassed in its rewards-earning.
But what if that card threw in a full United Club membership at no extra cost?
The card is worth getting, spurred on by the initial bonus offer. It’s worth using for my ongoing spend. And it’s worth having for the benefits.
On June 1 Bilt will be offering up to a 200% bonus on points transfers to Accor. This is a backdoor transfer bonus from Bilt to Air France KLM Flying Blue, and up to a 100% transfer bonus at that.
There’s now a 50,000 point initial bonus offer for the Mesa Homeowners Card after $5,000 in purchases within 3 months. Use code Bonus50 when applying.
This move is another opportunity for the unprecedentedly large transfer bonuses that Bilt offers, and for other special promotions like status match offers.
Bilt is adjusting points-earning for rent payments on their new feature to earn rewards paying rent with any card, for a fee.
Bilt Rewards has added Japan Airlines as a 1:1 points transfer partner. Bilt says that most transfers will be completed within 10 minutes.
A few updates on earning points for mortgage payments. I wrote the other day about earning transferable points with no fee using the Mesa card. It’s better than I thought.
I had been waiting on Bilt Rewards to add mortgage payments. But that was dumb. You’re going to be able to double dip, earning through Bilt and with a Mesa card.
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 »
