Category Archives for Credit Cards.
Capital One has launched its own Premium Hotel Collection for Venture X cardmembers. This is a value add for cardmembers. It addresses an area where competitors have had an offering, while Capital One has quickly ramped up in the space. Whether the specific benefits are best for you compared to other offerings is something you’ll need to consider in each case.
Bilt Rewards now has free Point.me award searches right inside its app. That way you can see where your Bilt points can take you – either ‘paying with points’ at 1.25 cents apiece, or transferring their points to an airline partner.
One of the most common ways to commit credit card fraud is by creating a synthetic identity. When the fraud is discovered it’s tough to go after anyone, because the cardmember doesn’t exist!
But credit card fraud has become so easy that it can be done by a fish. In fact, that actually happened.
Two years ago I wrote about the X1 Card. It was coming, and would potentially be a game-changer – a no annual fee card that earned up to 4x on all spend. It rolled out slowly, for a long time only available by referral. But it’s finally available and it is potentially very lucrative.
It took 20 years – and George W. Bush – for federal employees to be allowed to collect frequent flyer miles on official travel.
Now members of the U.S. House can pay for travel to D.C. themselves, on personal credit cards, collect miles and points and get reimbursed from their House office.
American Express has been opening a network of airport lounges over the past decade, because that’s where their cardmembers are. After initially trialing the first Centurion lounge with Centurion cardmembers only in Las Vegas, the program expanded significantly. New York is their biggest market, and it looks like they have a new space coming, at least initially for Centurion cardmembers only.
Centurion New York is expected to open in March on the 55th floor of One Vanderbilt, about a block from the Hyatt Grand Central (former Grand Hyatt), featuring food by Daniel Boulud.
We now have full detail on stores earning 5% back: JCPenney; Aeropostale; Brooks Brothers; Nautica; Forever21; Reebok; Eddie Bauer; Lucky Brand (brands earn 5% at Simon malls and online) as well as gilt.com, ruelala.com, and shoppremiumoutlets.com. 3% and 5% categories are capped at $10,000 spend annually.
When the Aeroplan® Credit Card from Chase launched they said they’d be adding a ‘Pay Yourself Back’ feature with points worth 1.25 cents apiece towards paid travel. That feature starts January 13, 2023.
While there’s a cap of 50,000 points annually you may redeem this way, that cap does not apply in 2023.
Now that the year has reset, so have a number of credit card benefits, and elite ‘tasks.’ Here’s what I went through first thing in the morning on New Years Day.
Capital One is eliminating non-lounge airport facilities from Venture X Priority Pass cards effective January 1, 2023. This follows a similar move by American Express in summer 2019.
As a result, Capital One Priority Pass cardholders will not longer be able to swipe their cards for $28 credits at participating restaurants. Chase, by contrast, will still cover restaurant swipes for their Sapphire Reserve cardmembers.
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 »
