Category Archives for Credit Cards.
Donald Trump’s Presidential campaign is asking for donations by offering a Platinum card to denote membership in an exclusive tier in exchange. It isn’t just a ‘Platinum card’ but features an image of a person (Trump / a Centurion) in the center and the card’s border is very similar to the American Express Platinum Card as well.
Democrats generally have been supportive of legislation that would limit how much credit card companies could charge to process transactions.
These limits would destroy the value of frequent flyer programs, which sell miles to banks. And we’ve seen when limits have been imposed in other countries that they’ve destroyed the value of credit card rewards.
Last year Chase launched a new premium Southwest Airlines business card. This was the card I wanted most in the fall and fortunately I was able to get approved for it. It puts earning a companion pass in reach and I’m loking forward to traveling with my wife and daughter again (my wife as my companion, daughter on points) — and the points from the card go a long way to a bunch of those tickets, especially when I then top off with Chase Ultimate Rewards points which’ll essentially become doubled in value.
We don’t know enough about this product yet to have a real idea of its value – if you can actually generate a 4% return through spend and referrals that’s going to be really strong, but most people won’t be able to successfully refer someone every month.
Referrals aside then we’re talking about 2% back on the first $15,000 of spend each year. This card is only interesting for spend above $15,000 to get to 3% back. But you’re going to have to spend substantially more than $15,000 on the card before you’re really getting enough value to make the higher rate of return worthwhile.
Chase has one of the most lucrative credit card offers we’ve seen for the premium Southwest Airlines business card. It’s a great card as I’ll show you in a moment but let’s first look at the initial bonus offer for the card, meant to make a really big splash and it does with up to 100,000 points as an initial bonus, which in 2020 is enough to earn a Companion Pass. When you earn the bonus you have enough points for a Companion Pass even under standard rules that return in 2021.
I like the British Airways Visa Signature® Card a lot more than I did before Chase updated the card with new benefits. This is the first card that ever had a six figure initial bonus offer in the U.S., it has a companion award ticket you can earn make it worth considering, but it’s the rebate up to $600 a year when you book award tickets that’s most enthralling.
Google is no stranger to financial services (GooglePay) and fundamentally checking accounts are about consumer data: how much do people earn (deposits, especially payroll deposits) and what exactly do they spend money on?
They’ve now taken the step of announcing digital bank accounts inside Google Pay along with eight banks.
Log into your American Express account and scroll down, there’s a new ‘Amex Offer’ that appears to be widely available that many cardmembers can opt into by adding it to the card account of their choosing: $50 back when you spend $200 or more with Marriott by September 21.
During the American Express second quarter earnings call, CEO Stephen Squeri offered a number of insights into their credit card business and travel benefits.
The company is seeing lower rewards expenses because the highest cost rewards are usually travel rewards, and that’s not how people are spending their points. There’s also less usage of travel-related benefits. I was surprise though that Delta, Marriott, and Hilton cards have been outperforming other American Express cards.
The New York State passed a bill that would require banks to give consumers 90 days to use their credit card rewards points if their account is closed either by the consumer or the bank.
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 »
