Category Archives for Credit Cards.
Chase has brought back ‘return protection’ for the Chase Sapphire Reserve® card. That’s a benefit that had been dropped two years ago. I actually noted this in my full review of the card last month but it’s worth highlighting separately.
TripActions is a corporate travel management and booking tool that travelers seem to like a lot more than suffering through Concur. They’ve just announced their second product, which is a company credit card aimed at business travel and called Liquid. Companies using it in beta include Zoom, Lyft and letgo.
This isn’t a co-brand credit card, they’ve actually raised a $500 million debt facility to finance payments for the TripActions Liquid Visa themselves. This way they’re able to offer seamless integration between payments and travel without a bank getting in between booking, payments, reporting, and control.
I think I’ve figured out why Chase and Visa would agree to give United $400 million more a year – starting right away – for a credit card deal they already had in place for several years.
Much of United’s explanation why made no sense. This new deal isn’t likely to lead to a lot of “portfolio growth” (more cardmembers). They already were introducing new cards, new benefits, and have been running aggressive acquisition bonuses. However 5 words in United’s SEC filing seem to give away the plot.
Chase and United are long term partners issuing United-branded credit cards. Their existing deal ran into 2025. They’ve extended the deal into 2029. United says the new deal will increase their revenue this year by $400 million. I’m having a hard time making sense of that number.
Chase and United have extended their credit card agreement into 2029. United will remain a Chase Ultimate Rewards transfer partner. And Chase is, it seems, paying United more for the miles that it awards to customers – the airline says its bottom line will improve $400 million in 2020 alone.
Emirates offers a great product. They have some interesting airline partnerships. And they serve a number of U.S. gateways. To make a U.S. co-brand attractive they could take a lesson from the Chase British Airways card and offer a statement credit towards taxes and fees on redemptions each year, as well as offer fast mileage-earning and progress towards elite status along with upgrades on the airline.
Visa is adjusting merchant swipe fees across the board for the first time in a decade. The fees grocers charge will go down. Rates will also be lower for health-care, education and real estate, areas where Visa would like to win market share away from checks. Meanwhile the fee for online (‘card not present’) transactions will go up.
Banks want to bonus small dollar, frequent spend like groceries to get customers in the habit of using their cards, keeping them top of wallet for unbonused spend. The categories where this makes sense to banks though will change based on the revenue associated with each type of transaction.
A year ago Capital One launched a relationship with dining reservations site Resy, setting aside tables at great restaurants for cardmembers. American Express went and acquired Resy and now American Express has a much weaker Resy partnership. Capital One quickly went out and partnered with OpenTable.
Yet somehow I didn’t even realize that before these things happened – a full 19 months ago – Chase launched a partnership with restaurant booking site Tock, which sells tickets to restaurants (top end restaurants with limited seating charge you in advance for pre fixe meals through the site).
While other cards have come along and upped their game since Sapphire Reserve’s introduction, this guide should tell you whether it’s still the best card for you to keep top of wallet.
A companion pass is arguably the best deal in all of travel, it allows you to bring a companion along on your Southwest Airlines travels for just the cost of taxes – whether you buy your own ticket with cash or with points.
Now is the best time to prepare to earn one – because if you earn it at the start of 2020 it’ll last nearly two full years.
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 »
