Category Archives for Credit Cards.
American Express is running a 30% bonus on transfers to Virgin Atlantic through July 1. You have to log in to see the bonus.
Virgin’s miles are fantastic for ANA and Delta redemptions. However I’d only make the transfer to redeem a specific award, rather than doing to preemptively or viewing the program as a store of value.
Plastiq.com is a service that will charge your credit card and mail checks on your behalf. (With some vendors they also make electronic ACH payments.)
Their usual fee for this is 2.5%. It’s worth it to incur that fee if you’re earning a signup bonus with the credit card charges, or you’re meeting a spending threshold for a bonus.
Right now Mastercard payments are costing just 1.5%, and you can even pay a residential mortgage with a Mastercard.
A Brookings Institution piece argues that the “poor subsidize wealthier consumers” in financial transactions from checking accounts to credit card rewards. I do not think this is quite right, but let me first lay out the argument.
Chase’s points normally transfer one-to-one to their airline and hotel partners. However Chase is offering a 30% bonus on transfers to British Airways through June 16. This is significant because I believe it is the first time Chase has run a bonus on transfers to one of its loyalty program partners.
I’ve been a proponent for about two decades for the idea of having at least one each of Visa, Mastercard, and American Express. Entirely apart from a card’s benefits, payment networks often have their own unique benefits and also run promotions in conjunction with travel providers. I always want to be prepared to take advantage of the best offers that come along.
Mastercard has introduced several new benefits to its cards, largely though not exclusively for its premium ‘World Elite’ cards. Fortunately two of the rewards cards I carry are World Elite Mastercards.
In many ways this is the golden age of rewards. There are big initial bonus offers, fast earning for spend, and rich benefits. And rewards expense is higher than ever for card issuers.
There are risks though, and challenges for issuers. Here’s how rewards are going to have to change to be successful.
Many rewards credit cards come not just with travel protections like delayed flight and delayed baggage coverage, but also with protections for the things you buy.
Cyberkit resells items that have been returned. That’s interesting because it reduces the cost of honoring return protection. And if you’re so inclined you can buy returned items online at a discount.
All of marketing, perhaps, boils down to a simple idea: figure out who your customers are, and how to find more people like them.
Too often though products get developed without the first part clearly in mind: the customer. What does your customer need that they aren’t getting now or at least are not getting as well as they could? The most important question to ask when new credit cards come out is: who is the customer for this product?
I view Delta cards as strong, of course for their initial bonus and for the benefits they convey to passengers (especially those without elite status) flying the airline semi-regularly. I do not view them as a strong tool for spending, independent of weakness in the SkyMiles program itself.
That’s because even if you want to earn SkyMiles through credit card spend, American Express offers cards that earn Membership Rewards points faster than Delta miles, and Membership Rewards points will continue to transfer to Delta as well as having the option of being moved to other programs as-needed.
I’m not a fan of travel insurance for most trips. I think it’s overpriced, and often fails to deliver what consumers think they’re buying. The hassle in getting a claim covered can outweigh the value of the claim. To my mind it’s something to consider for a ‘trip of a lifetime’ where a loss really would be catastrophic (a trip that could never be replaced) but not for run of the mill travel.
That’s a different matter from making sure your health coverage extends to wherever you’re traveling and to medical evacuation coverage.
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 »
