Category Archives for Credit Cards.
The CEO of restaurant chains Fatburger, Round Table Pizza and Johnny Rockets has been under federal investigation for tax evasion. Agents raided the home of his daughter-in-law, whose mother is “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star Kim Richards (his son and daughter’s wedding was a plot line in the Bravo show).
During the pandemic credit card companies weren’t adding many new customers for travel credit cards. But customers were still cancelling cards, at least at normal rates. (Banks went to great lengths to retain customers and did stop greater levels of cancellations in most cases.)
But without adding customers to the funnel, portfolios shrank. That’s a major reason we’ve seen such big initial bonuses over the past 6-9 months. And we’ve also been seeing cards get refreshed with new benefits, to remain competitive, to better appeal to new customers, and to address customer preferences that have changed.
Honestly I had to look up what sport the Pelicans played (basketball) but this card is really good for 4% back in a popular earn category without an annual fee.
American Express just announced ‘Rewards Checking’ for U.S. credit card customers. It has no account fees or minimum balances, pays half a percent annual yield on balances, and comes with a points-earning debit card (1 Membership Rewards point per $2 spend). I expect this will be my go-to for tax payments.
Capital One discontinued their highly popular Spark Cash card for new business cardmembers over the summer, and at the same time introduced Spark Cash Plus as a 2% cash back card with a $150 annual fee.
A $3000 initial bonus offer with high spend requirement will certainly be attractive to many high spenders. Of course that’s exactly who they’re looking for with this offer!
Frontier Airlines re-launched their credit card and their elite program four years ago and did something that at the time was revolutionary: a dollar spent on the card earned an elite qualifying mile. But Frontier did something bigger in 2021 and somehow I missed it. All spend over 20,00 per calendar year counts double towards elite status now.
You can now search for award availability with American Airlines AAdvantage and Air Canada Aeroplan inside Bilt’s app. No other transferable points program has this, and it’s fairly unprecedented in the industry. That says something about the Bilt project, and the demographic they’re reaching that’s valuable to airline loyalty programs.
The Citi Prestige Card is no longer available to new applicants. It was Citi’s entry into the premium travel rewards space. Five years ago it was a great card for benefits. They re-tooled it as a strong earning card after shedding it of its best benefits (like unlimited flexible fourth night free on hotels, Admirals Club access and more). The card earns 5x at restaurants and airlines, and 3x on hotels and cruise lines. There’s still a fourth night free hotel benefit, limited to twice a year and more restrictive in its use. It comes with Priority Pass Select and an annual travel credit of up to $250. The card has a $495 annual fee. Like in 2020 and 2021 Citi is letting cardmembers use their travel credit for supermarket and restaurant purchases between January…
Arguably the most exciting new card of 2021 was the Capital One Venture X card. Along with the bank’s other miles cards, their points now transfer to a variety of frequent flyer programs at 1:1, an improvement that came last spring.
At the time Capital One improved to 1:1 transfers with most partners, they also announced Choice Privileges would become a transfer partner in late 2021. They missed that by a few days, but now this is live.
SimplyMiles lets you earn American Airlines AAdvantage miles for transactions with a variety of merchants when making the purchase using a Mastercard that’s been linked to the site. They host numerous ‘Mastercard Offers,’ sort of like Amex Offers. But Mastercard doesn’t have the direct consumer relationship that Amex has with its closed loop. So they’re going after American AAdvantage customers.
I earned 7 million miles with their latest promotion. Other readers earned more. And I’ve had several people ask me about the economics of these offers.
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 »
