Category Archives for Credit Cards.
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.
American Express just refreshed their Premier Rewards Gold Card and renamed it “American Express Gold Card.”
Most importantly the card raises the bar for points-earning at US restaurants and US grocery stores, while retaining strong points-earning on airline spend. And they’ve added a new monthly credit for dining. Today’s changes to the product – for me – make it the most rewarding card for ongoing spend.
For many Chase cards you can only get approved if you’ve had fewer than 5 new credit card accounts in the last 24 months.
If you’ve had 5 or more new cards in the last 24 months, and you take a break from any new cards and fall back under 5/24, here’s the first card you should get.
While credit cards are generally less expensive for a merchant than taking cash, retailers push back on the cost of accepting cards.
The latest salvo comes from Amazon, along with Home Depot and Target. They want to be able to accept lower-tier Visa and Mastercard products, and not accept premium cards.
American Express offers its Global Dining Collection program to The Platinum Card from American Express cardholders and to Centurion (Black Card) customers.
These are top restaurants where American Express has an arrangement to set aside some tables for cardmembers. You’ve had to make bookings through their concierge service. They’ll be launching searches for reservations, including special set-aside availability, through the American Express mobile app first in the UK starting next month and then in the US next year.
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 »
