Category Archives for Credit Cards.
Never sell your miles, never lie on a credit application (that’s a crime, though only the main perpetrators are charged here), and look skeptically at people contacting you to participate in schemes, there were even multiple assumed names apparently being used here.
The indictment by the way tells us how much a bank was paying airlines for frequent flyer miles…
It’s important to define who you are, and tell that to your customers. It’s also important to tell that to your employees, so they know how to make decisions inside the company.
Apple can focus on creative types, empowering them to pursue their missions and dreams. Nike can celebrate great athletes. Very few companies have been able to create a clear purpose that customers associate the way American Express has. Without that brand American Express might as well be Discover.
May 4th is Star Wars Day (“May the Fourth Be With You”). It’s easy to forget in the middle of a global pandemic that today – May 24th – is Chase Day because of the importance of 5/24 in whether you’ll be approved for a rewards credit card. In most cases you can only get approved if you’ve had fewer than 5 new credit card accounts in the last 24 months.
I’ve talked about this guideline in the past. If you’re already an expert on this, stop here, but 5/24 is important enough in signing up for credit cards and there are enough new readers that it is worth going over.
Barclays is offering their American AAdvantage cardmembers – both Aviator Red and Silver products – triple miles on all spending between today and June 30, 2020. The only unfortunate thing here is that you’re capped at 2500 bonus miles. So if you spend $1250 where you’d normally earn just 1250 miles, you’ll earn 3750 miles under this promotion.
Delta’s CFO acknowledges SkyMiles members taking “a little hiatus when people aren’t going to travel,” but that the program still continues to motivate spend because it gives people “something to look forward to [the] prospect of saving up for something.” Then he offers insight into how the Delta portfolio is performing relative to American Express’s other products.
Spending on Chase credit cards fell 8 times as much as average credit card spending during the start of the global COVID-19 pandemic according to the J.P. Morgan Chase Institute. A new study using anonymized transaction date from 8 million customers found that spending on Chase cards dropped 40% year-over-year between March 1 and April 11.
I have a wallet chock full of cards. I have a card for each kind of spending. I want to earn 5 points per dollar on my airfare, 4 points at restaurants and supermarkets, 5 points at office supply stores, etc. I also have a huge stack of annual fees, that only make sense if I’m getting a lot of value out of each card and spending a lot of money in each category I’m maximizing.
For most people the 10 credit cards in my wallet is too many. And that doesn’t count the cards in my desk drawer.
Earlier in the day Citibank shared that the companion tickets earned from their American Airlines co-brand business card (after $30,000 spend in purchases each cardmembership year, at card renewal) that expire in 2020 will be extended to June 30, 2021.
Barclays has shared that their American Airlines companion tickets – offered as an initial bonus on new consumer cards, and earned from spend on their Red, Silver, and Business cards – will have their expiration extended as well.
We’re in a recession. We’re not traveling. Rewards credit cards that are optimized for travel may not be top of wallet. Cards that are optimized for heavily travel customers may also not match current spending patterns. We’re beginning to see brands and issuers adapt.
Discretionary spending is down by a third, driven by a drop in travel spend which is down 95% – 99%. Amazingly travel and entertainment was nearly one-third of American Express charge volume.
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 »
