Club Premier is 49% owned by Aimia, the company that spun off Air Canada’s Aeroplan, lost 80% of its market value when Air Canada announced its intention to start a competing program, and then sold the program back to the airline. Aimia has the demonstrated capability to run a good operation. In this case however they are part of one of the worst frequent flyer programs.
Credit Cards
Category Archives for Credit Cards.
New: 25% Bonus on American Express Points Transfers to Air France KLM
American Express Membership Rewards is offering a 25% bonus on transfers to Air France KLM Flying Blue through November 30. You’ll need to log into your American Express account to see the bonus (otherwise it’ll show with the standard 1:1 transfer ratio).
I find that Air France’s availability and award pricing is very attractive for US-Europe flying.
16 Things to Know About Getting Approved for Rewards Credit Cards
I’m incredibly fortunate to have earned millions of miles with credit cards. The products and bank issuer policies — and best strategies — are constantly changing.
If you want to approach your credit card applications strategically — not just get the best cards, but in the right order, here are my suggestions.
The Four Favorite Cards in My Wallet
There are four credit cards in my wallet that I like the most for purchases. That’s out of a couple of dozen cards total. I want to earn miles as quickly as possible. I also want to jumpstart my elite status and have access to the best airport lounges.
So these are the four cards I’m playing with most right now.
75,000 Mile Offer Back for Barclays AAdvantage Business Card
Barclays has brought back their best-ever 75,000 mile offer for the AAdvantage® Aviator® Business Mastercard®. I wanted to sign my wife up for this but just missed it, so this is in the chute for me.
What’s Fueling the Credit Card Rewards War – and What Could Bring it to a Halt
The economics of co-brand credit cards used to favor banks much more than airlines, though they’ve been lucrative for the airlines for years. By the time of United Airlines’ bankruptcy in 2002 the airline in some sense continued flying to support the underlying credit card business.
With banks spending more on their co-brand partnerships and more to reward consumers they’ve gone looking for ways to trim costs.
Goldman Sachs Spent $300 Million Developing the New Apple Card. Then Apple Claimed They Built It.
Developing the Apple Card turned out to be a huge drain on Goldman‘s IT resources: Goldman Sachs spent $300 million “to build it” and “[w]hen early testing of the software this spring revealed a security vulnerability, Goldman reassigned thousands of engineers from around the firm to patch it, people familiar with the matter said.”
Yet somehow Apple’s line on the product is “Designed by Apple, not a bank.”
Huge Changes to Delta American Express Cards, and New Limited Time Offers in October
American Express is increasing earn on some cards, adding new benefits, and taking away others while increasing annual fees for new cardmembers (and at renewal for existing cardmembers).
New perks will include access to Centurion lounges for Reserve cardmembers. The re-launch of benefits and earn will happen effective January 30, 2020 and the limited time offer will run October 1 – 30, 2019.
Bank of America: New Credit Card Application Rules
Bank of America adopted two new rules for card approval over the last two years. Now they have another one that is either stricter – or less strict – than Chase’s 5/24, depending on whether you have a banking relationship with them.
Barclays Will Focus More on Co-Brand Cards, Expect New Mileage-Earning Products
Barclays is moving away from issuing its own cards and acquiring its own consumer financial services customers, and focusing more heavily on co-brand relationships like their deal with American Airlines. As they work to grow on the back of co-brands, they need both more partnerships and to market those partnerships more aggressively. And they need to introduce new products to sell to their co-brand customers.