Category Archives for Credit Cards.
General Michael Flynn posted a letter to his social media account showing accounts being closed by Chase next month due to ‘reputational risk’. There was one thing odd about the letter – the first name it was addressed to had been blacked out. It turns out Flynn’s credit cards weren’t cancelled. It was his wife’s accounts being closed. And, amidst a backlash, Chase is re-opening them.
The new United QuestSM Card has launched with a temporary offer of up to 100,000 bonus miles. And it’s intriguing for its annual United Airlines statement credit and award redemption rebates.
Back in December I broke the news that American Express was looking at making substantial changes to their premium Marriott co-brand card. There was talk of a $650 fee (or more) to go along with better points-earning, waived resort fees, and even confirmed suite upgrades.
American Express is now surveying a more specific product, that appears to be taking shape.
New rewards credit card company Cardless has some strong new products, including one of the best no annual fee cards in the market. And now may be the best time to get two of their cards, because of a new offer that lets you earn up to 100,000 bonus points in your first year – indeed this amounts to earning up to 10% back on your spending for a year.
Credit cards no longer have to have raised numbers on them. Starting in 2024 Mastercards will no longer have to have magnetic stripes, either, and no new Mastercards will have them after 2029.
Capital One is discontinuing the highly popular Spark Cash card for new business cardmembers, and instead segmenting their market into two different products. They seem to want to reward high spenders more, while getting out of the financing game for those businesses, and seeking more revolve from lower-spend businesses.
They have an interesting model: you load your current rewards card into their app, and then when you use their card you earn the rewards you would earn anyway plus an additional 1% cash back on top for six months by joining the waitlist. They even say they’ll let you move charges you’ve already made in the past between credit cards.
The Uber credit card was supposed to be the centerpiece of Uber’s strategy to build its own currency, Uber credits, which would become ubiquitous as a payment system not just for Uber products but outside of the Uber ecosystem. The primary way these credits would be generated would be through the co-brand credit card, and they’d hopefully become spendable everywhere at retail.
Just as the refresh was reaching the finish line, Uber laid off a large portion of its marketing staff, including people responsible for the card.
Early in the year I earned 110,000 transferable points with a new Brex account. We hadn’t seen an offer than big before or since. And I was able to then add another 100,000 to the account after that.
You get a no annual fee card with no credit pull that earns 7x or 8x on ridesharing among other categories, and points can be used for 1% value in cash, gift cards, or travel or you can transfer to airline loyalty programs.
Many of you signed up for Brex when they were offering 110,000 points to new accountholders. I know I did. Well I’ve mentioned getting 100,000 Brex points (which transfer to miles) for signing up for Paypal merchant processing. And it was probably the quickest and easiest 100,000 points I’ve ever earned.
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 »
