Category Archives for Credit Cards.
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.
A new credit card rewards consumer protection law has been signed by the governor after passage this summer. Starting one year from now it will help customers who cancel a card – or have a card closed on them by the issuer for lack of use – to still use their points.
There are two challenges credit card companies face in marketing to consumers: Getting potential customers to apply for the card and getting cardmembers to use the card.
I already knew that the new Bilt Mastercard had a unique approach to the first challenge. Receiving my Bilt card I now see they have an interesting approach to the second as well.
Last year, when relatively few people were going out, Capital One offered to send cardmembers Michelin-starred dinners. Then over the summer they offered a series of Michelin restaurant experiences worth flying to in San Francisco, Brooklyn, and Northern Virginia.
For the winter they’re back with another three Michelin restaurant experiences as part of their “Capital One x MICHELIN Guide Destination Dinner Series.”
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 »
