Category Archives for Credit Cards.
On Saturday I wrote about four great ways to earn LifeMiles, points in Avianca’s Star Alliance frequent flyer program.
They’re now an American Express transfer partner as well as a Citibank transfer partner.
When Barclays introduced a new card earlier this year with points transferring to airline miles and bonuses for spend each year, the rest of the industry waited with baited breath to see what would happen.
There was no sign up bonus. And even Barclays’ competitors were rooting for them to succeed. Is it possible to get consumers to adopt a rewards card without a big up front bonus?
I don’t rent cars nearly as often as I used to given the ubiquity of Uber and Lyft. However I really like Silvercar and wish they were in more cities, and really like Silvercar discounts even more.
Silvercar has an all-Audi fleet (and they’re now owned by Audi) and their all-inclusive model comes with free GPS, wifi, and satellite radio. You pay only actual tolls (no administrative charges) and can pay a flat $5 and they’ll refuel your car at market rate.
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.
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 »
