Category Archives for Credit Cards.
The Citi Prestige Card is retooling, with various changes rolling out over the coming 10 months. The changes will make this a very good card for spending, not such a good card for benefits, which is the opposite of how I used to view the product when it came with American Airlines lounge access and Priority Pass along with free rounds of golf and unlimited 4th night free on hotel stays.
A year ago Citibank added Avianca’s LifeMiles as a points transfer partner. Now American Express Membership Rewards has done so as well.
LifeMiles is a fantastic Star Alliance program. I have a few hundred thousand of their miles, and I’ve never used them to travel on Avianca. Instead I use them for premium cabin awards on airlines like Lufthansa, Asiana, and Thai Airways. And I use their cash and points awards to book United’s domestic first class.
Chase has launched their new Apple Ultimate Rewards Store today. Sapphire, Ink, and Freedom cardmembers can spend points for Apple products.
If you do want to spend points for Apple products, log into your Ultimate Rewards account and be sure to complete the transaction while points are still worth a penny apiece towards these items. No doubt there are people with more points than opportunity to maximize them, and the holidays are coming.
This experience using trip delay coverage from the Chase Sapphire Reserve Card didn’t work out the way the cardmember expected.
Walking through the reason why so that you can set your expectations correctly and know how to succeed with your own claims may be useful.
Dining for miles is one of the easy and free ways you can rack up points. Register, use your credit card when you dine out, and if it happens to be at a participating restaurant you’ll earn miles automatically. And now there are several bonuses on top.
there’s a report that the Citi Prestige card is being relaunched — changes November 4 and possibly January 4 — with a new earning structure. The card would offer 5 points per dollar on airline and dining spend, 3 points per dollar on other travel, and 2 points per dollar on entertainment.
Meanwhile the card would keep its most valuable current benefit — 4th night free on hotel bookings — although one report suggests it would be limited to twice per year.
For years American Express has had an ‘International Airline Program’ for Platinum and Centurion cardholders which amounted to 2-for-1 business class tickets provided you were buying full fare.
This has had limited usefulness for many cardmembers, often full fare business class is about twice as much as discounted advance purchase business, at most you’d save a few hundred dollars buying business class for two passengers. A limited subset of cardmembers, though, found this very useful.
Last June they revamped the program and made it much more useful. And now you do not even need to call to use it.
In late August I wrote that Chase was about to introduce their new Sapphire Banking product — but not to sign up right away because a bonus would be on its way that you should wait for.
The bonus debuted in-branch a couple of weeks ago. Now it’s available online: 60,000 Ultimate Rewards points.
Bank of America has just launched the Air France KLM World Elite Mastercard.
Air France KLM Flying Blue has been one of the international programs most keen on that sweet, sweet U.S. credit card revenue. They’re a transfer partner of American Express, Chase, and Citibank. And now they have their own US-issued co-brand.
There are some creative elements to the card, and will help those looking for Air France elite status.
The Barclays Arrival Premier World Elite Mastercard just launched in April. It put Barclays into the transferable miles game alongside American Express, Chase, and Citibank.
The play with this card was the unique earning structure — a bonus for spending on the card each year instead of an initial signup bonus.
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 »
