New 4% Cash Back Card Sounds Great—Until You Discover These Hidden Flaws [Roundup]

by Gary Leff

News and notes from around the interweb:

  • An argument that the new 4% unlimited cash back card is not worth it – hassles aside, for a $2,000 credit limit it is not..

  • United Airlines flight attendant contact negotiations adjourned until the New Year. The union says they’re mad at the Biden Administration’s National Mediation Board, but also that they’re in a worse spot once the Trump administration appoints a majority of the board.

    Though negotiations have dragged on for years – the contract became amendable in 2021 – the union only just unveiled its compensation demands last month so claims about how the company is delaying are disingenuous. They purposely waited for American cabin crew to get a new deal to set a higher baseline in bargaining. (The union, AFA-CWA, even lent their lead negotiator to American to drive their bargaining – figuring that if a strike had to happen to get a better deal, better to let a different union do it.)

  • Barclays JetBlue card 80,000 point offer after spending $1,000 on purchases within 90 days and paying the $99 annual fee.

  • Bank of America Alaska Visa 75,000 mile offer plus a $99+tax companion ticket. Requires $3,000 in purchases within 90 days. $95 annual fee.

  • The Onion actually figured this out 23 years ago

  • I’m calling it: Riyadh Air won’t be a dry airline.

  • The striking thing here, to me, is that the hotel owner still wanted the guest to cancel the reservation themselves, fearing consequences from Booking.com. (They’ve been removed from that platform.)

About Gary Leff

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 »

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Comments

  1. I got 15K credit limit- which is lower than I was expected- but something I can work with. WIll likely ask them to increase it in a few months.

  2. Read the fine print on the Alaska offer. Apparently it requires you to provide an Alaska employee’s name and ID # for the last 5k.

  4. Please note that the US Bank card is really another 2% card, except that the rate increases as you increase your deposit with them. You need to deposit $100,000 to get the 4% rate. At least you’re not forced to put that in a checking or savings account earning crappy interest — apparently an investment account qualifies.

  5. Presumably if you have $100K to plant in a bank long term then you should be able to score a credit limit above $2K from that same bank.

  6. I got denied for the Smartly card lol. I have $250K+ at US Bank, a 780+ credit score, a mid-6 figure income and mid-7 figure net worth. Nuts.

  7. I was approved for the Usbank smartly card with a credit line of $35,000. Very happy. Will be my main card.

  8. So, in just a few words, Sheel Mohnot shows he 1) knows more about economics and 2) cares more about those with low credit scores than BS. I don’t know who he is, but great to-yhe-point post.

Comments are closed.