Wells Fargo has entered the chat. They’ve announced themselves in travel rewards, and transferring bank points to airline miles and hotel points. They’ve launched a rich new travel credit card, and launched points transfers to airline and hotel loyalty programs for both this high-earner and existing cards.
The Wells Fargo Autograph Journey Visa Card is a brand new product. It’s pretty compelling in its own right as a travel and dining card, but offers some great possibilities in combination with other Wells cards now that their branded portfolio of points cards all come with point transfers.
The New Wells Fargo Autograph Journey Card
This is a very strong card for points-earning – with 5 transferable points per dollar on hotel spend and 4 points per dollar on airline spend.
- Intro bonus: 60,000 bonus points after $4,000 spend within 3 months
- Earning: 5x on hotels; 4x on airlines; 3x on other travel; 3x on dining; 1x other purchases
- Statement credit: $50 annual statement credit for airfare purchase
- Other benefits: No foreign transaction fees; trip cancellation; lost luggage; cell phone protection
- Annual fee: $95
I think we can reasonably think of the $50 statement credit on airfare as being as good as cash for anyone that’s going to buy a ticket at least once a year (or redeem an award ticket with international taxes). That would leave the card with a ‘net cost’ of $45 per year.
In addition to points transfers, the card offers the ability to redeem points as cash against the card account or into a Wells checking account, as well as for shopping with points through PayPal (at 1 cent per point). Point transfers will generally offer the most value.
This wants to be your card for travel, and for airfare, but while it includes lost baggage and trip cancellation coverage, it does not off trip delay or baggage delay. There’s rental car collision damage waiver, but it’s secondary coverage so pays what your own insurance doesn’t rather than superseding your insurance.
Additionally, the 3x accelerator category for travel is more limited than I’d like. I’m told it includes “timeshare, or vehicle/auto rental, cruise lines, travel agencies, discount travel sites, campgrounds” but it does not include “transit, taxi, and ride shares.”
Transfer Points To Airline And Hotel Programs
All points-based Wells Fargo-branded credit cards will be able to transfer to airline and hotel points beginning April 4.
That includes legacy Wells Fargo products that are no longer available for application. Basically if it’s not a co-brand card, and not a cash card, it’s eligible for points transfer or works in conjunction with one of these cards that is.
Here are the initial transfer partners, noting that all are 1:1 except that transfers to Choice are actually 1:2.
- Star Alliance: Avianca LifeMiles
- oneworld: British Airways Executive Club, Iberia Plus
- SkyTeam: Air France KLM Flying Blue
- Non-alliance: Aer Lingus Aer Club
- Hotel: Choice Privileges
The initial stable of partners is light, though it covers all three of the global alliances so most award redemptions are possible. Wells emphasizes that they plan to add partners throughout the year. Even if they didn’t, 5x on hotel and 4x on airline spend in your choice of British Airways, Air France or Avianca is pretty good – and 10x and 8x into Choice is a sleeper.
Krista Phillips, Executive Vice President and Head of Consumer Credit Cards and Enterprise Marketing at Wells Fargo tells me that these are the “first of what’s to be many many points transfer partners.” She said that points transfer partners is an “area where we want to grow,” and that while “many of the large travel partners do have exclusivity with other banks and other issuers” that Wells wants “to have the flexibility for as many transfer partners as we can.”
In other words, like Capital One and (slightly more complicated, like Citi), they’re not going to be able to offer transfers to Delta, United or American – or to the big U.S. hotel chains. But they’re going to be able to add a number of foreign airlines that partner with those U.S. carriers as well as ones that aren’t part of global alliances, and they might be able to add hotel chains that don’t have U.S. credit card agreements too.
At this point, points cannot be transferred between members and points cannot be moved into the airline or hotel loyalty program account of a spouse, family member, or authorized user on an account. Hopefully those rules get revisited.
Consider A Wells Trifecta?
What’s especially interesting is that Wells Fargo points transfers don’t just apply to this new Autograph Journey Visa Card but to other points cards as well, such as the Wells Fargo Autograph Card.
And perhaps more importantly, their Active Cash (2x on all purchases) card will pool with these for redeeming.
I think that the Autograph Journey Visa Card with its 5x hotels, 4x airlines, 3x other travel and dining is a fantastic card paired with Active Cash to earn 2x on all other spend. That way you never earn less than 2 points per dollar on your spending.
Some folks will want a trifecta – paired with a legacy card or with the standard Autograph card which earns 3x on restaurants, travel, gas and EV charging, transit, cell phone and landline providers, and some streaming services.
However I’m not as big a fan of this card. You already get restaurant and travel accelerators with the new Autograph Journey. I’m not sure you need 3x (versus 2x paired with Active Cash) on gas and cell phone. And the streaming services 3x accelerator category is highly restrictive. For instance, it doesn’t include Netflix, Amazon Prime, MAX, or Paramount+.
Starting from scratch I’d consider a Wells duo rather than a trifecta, noting that generally you may find you’re only able to open one new Wells Fargo credit card every six months.
How This New Card Stacks Up
I have 6 initial takeaways on the Wells Fargo Autograph Journey Visa Card :
- I love another entrant into the travel rewards and points transfer space – especially a bank with significant resources like Wells Fargo. While Wells issues the Bilt Rewards card, and I’m a Bilt cardmember, I’m not actually a Wells Fargo customer (yet) because I have a legacy Bilt card from before the launch of their partnership.
- This is the richest card currently in the market for hotel spending, and by a lot. If I didn’t already have an Amex Platinum it would easily be my airfare and hotel spend card. And you can use it for dining, too (my Amex Gold and Bilt cards are more lucrative for that, however).
- To compare this new card to Sapphire Reserve (3x on travel and dining), this new Wells Fargo card gives you more points on air and hotel and you still get the rest of travel and dining at that same 3x. That we’re even comparing this new Wells card to Sapphire Reserve is impressive in its own right. That product gives you a Priority Pass, and this one doesn’t, but it’s a $95 annual fee card with a $50 statement credit each year for buying airline tickets. You’re getting potentially better earn value from this new Wells Fargo card and at a much lower price point.
- The ability to combine with Active Cash points means you can get both cards, and earn 5x on hotel; 4x on air; 3x on dining and other travel; and then never earn less than 2x on the rest of your spending.
- It actually surprises me that they are going to allow this, because it’s such a rich value proposition at a low annual fee – so they’re either going to need a lot of spending in unbonused categories to make money (which the Active Cash combo undermines), or a lot of revolve. Maybe they’ll get more customers paying the APR than Chase does on Sapphire Reserve because the lower annual fee will attract a consumer with a higher propensity to borrow. The point is, they’re spending a lot on the customer here.
- How good this product will ultimately be depends a lot on how their points transfer partnerships shape up. For now they have partners in all of the three global alliances, giving them good coverage. They do need a Star Alliance airline beyond Avianca’s LifeMiles – because while LifeMiles offers excellent value in rewards, their customer service is lacking and they can be a frustrating program to work with when there are schedule changes.
This seems to me to be the strongest value Wells-branded card. And for a premium product, Wells Fargo Autograph Journey comes at a fantastic price point, with very strong earning, and paired with the Active Cash card you never have to earn fewer than 2 transferable points per dollar on any of your spend.
Whether you get this card or not, I think we can all be excited to see another big competitor in the bank points transfer space because it puts pressure on American Express, Chase, Capital One and Citibank to defend their value propositions and to improve. Competition is a good thing.
They will most likely be able to get AC,VS, and EK since they will get in bed with anyone for the $$. The addition of AC would be a solid win. Hopefully they can get a couple of other niche xfer partners.
I assume WF will eventually have a group of transfer partners similar to Citi or Capital One (AmEx and Chase have their unique partners, and Bilt is probably a special case even though it’s now part of WF). This raises a question whether Citi Premier is still worthwhile card to have, because this new WF card beats Citi Premier in earning potential nearly across the board. As you said, the $50 airfare credit is also much easier to use (certainly compares to Citi Premier’s hotel credit). Until WF offers a similar card, Citi Custom Cash card may be the only thing that keeps people from jumping from the Citi bandwagon.
It seems like the strongest competitor to this card is the Citi Premier. With the Premier offering 3x on grocery I’d still say it’s a bit better than this card. Both the Premier and this new offering by Wells are both better (imo) than the Sapphire Preferred.
It’ll be interesting to see how Wells continues to develop their transfer partners. I could definitely see Virgin coming on board (everyone seems to have them as a transfer partner) and it’d be nice if they added Aeroplan.
What would really be interesting is if they could pull off something similar to how Bilt has done with American, and land someone like Alaska as a transfer partner.
Hopefully they partner with EVA, one of the few program left to offer North America to SE Asia for less than 90k miles in business class
And if past Wells Fargo business practices are any guide, they’ll sign you up for five of these cards whether you applied for them or not.
Seriously, of all the banks that have earned blacklisting …
@2808 Heavy
Between Chase and Discover (not to mention all the fee-free AmEx cards), people can get 5x on groceries nearly every calendar quarter, so there’s really no need to use Citi Premier for that purpose. Citi Premier also isn’t a good card to use for airfare and car rental, because it doesn’t offer ANY protection.
BA Executive Club, Iberia and Aer lingus are essentially the same.
LifeMiles — their site is often cranky and problematic although I’ve booked with them before
I’ll pass until WF gets a decent set of Airline Transfer partners.
@Jon – I’d argue that they’re basically good with oneworld, since they aren’t going to get AA. And they have the best SkyTeam partner already, more or less. So what they need is Air Canada Aeroplan and some unaligned carriers e.g. Emirates. I’d love to see them add Accor, maybe GHA.
@Ron – I especially like the extra availability for members using EVA’s own points..
@2808 Heavy – I think 5x on hotel/4x on airline trumps 3x on grocery but the ability to pair with other Wells cards is awesome.
They won’t be able to get Alaska or American, I’m pretty sure. Bilt isn’t really a ‘card’ program they just have a card, similar to Marriott. So they can partner with American and United without violating with exclusivity. That wouldn’t work for Wells.
Accor is just a rebate program. What am I missing?
@Gary For the road warrior, I agree with you on the 5x/4x being better than 3x on grocery. However, for the average person who doesn’t travel for work I could see 3x in grocery being a much better earning category over the 5x/4x options.
Think about the Amex Gold. You’d be hard pressed to find someone who wouldn’t recommend that card to the average consumer and it’s mostly because of the 4x on dining and grocery. Same applies here. The average person probably wants to earn enough points in everyday categories so that they never have to spend (or spend very little) in the category of airfare and hotels making the 5x/4x not all that interesting.
After Amex revised the PRG to what the Amex Gold is now, cards like the Citi Prestige didn’t stand a chance anymore, and that was before Citi dropped all the travel protections of the card.
@Tony Tell me one Amex card that offers travel protection that has an AF less than $95 bucks. And while you can always find a card to max the grocery category, you’ll have to constantly rotate cards which works for some but for those who may want an easier approach, you can’t knock the Citi Premier. The card is a strong earner in very useful/everyday 3x categories.
Travel protections, shy of the Sapphire Preferred/Bilt Rewards, name me one that offers stellar protection at $95 or lower? I’ll wait….
@2808 Heavy
That’d be easy. All no-fee AmEx cards (and a bunch of no-fee cards from other banks) offer secondary car rental coverage (and primary coverage with a small fee with AmEX). Even with its $95 fee, Citi Premier doesn’t offer any coverage (primary or secondary).
@Tony Secondary coverage isn’t what I’d call stellar and again, you failed to mention any travel protections that you called Citi out for. What card under $95 offer stellar travel protections?
If you dislike Citi that’s fine, we all have those we like and dislike for whatever reason. But you’ve yet to prove your point. Again, I’ll wait…..
@Gary – when you say all WF points earning cards will offer the ability to transfer to partners, do you mean only personal WF cards or are WF business cards included in that transfer partner blurb?
@2808 Heavy. Citi Premier is supposedly a mid-tier travel-oriented card with a $95 fee. What good is it if it doesn’t even offer basic secondary car rental coverage that other cards (with no fee) offer?
Let me turn around asking you a question. What other mid-tier travel-oriented cards with a $95 fee that don’t offer any travel protection?
@Tony with the exception of Bilt Reward and the Sapphire Preferred, none of them in my opinion. And the fact that you couldn’t name one card yet still calling Citi out tells me everything I need to know. Take the “L” on this one and walk away.
@2808 Heavy. I’m not sure you know what you’re talking about. Not just Bilt and Sapphire Preferred. All mid-tier (with $95-99 fee) Chase cards (Hyatt, IHG, Ink, United, Marriott, etc.) offer trip delay/interruption coverages, in addition to car rental coverage, for example. Have you been able to come up with a single mid-tier travel-oriented card with fees (besides Cit Premier) that don’t offer ANY travel protection?
@2808 Heavy – I’m not sure though given the much pricier annual fee on Gold, though I have it myself and it’s an excellent card
This card is way too complicated for your average consumer. Nobody wants to earn points with a bunch of random foreign airlines. A lot of people probably won’t even realize you can book on US airlines with the partners. Anybody who’s serious about miles already has cards that earn just as well in these categories with the same transfer partners + more.
@Raylan – consumer cards only, not business cards
@Jon – I dunno, seems to work for Capital One Venture/Venture X (not to mention Citi)
Let’s face it. Anyone really in this hobby is only looking at the SUB. 60K pts worth ~$900 for $45 net. $850 for a hard pull and $4K of spend will put this on my list (20-25% rebate). I might keep this and drop the citi premier only for the 5x/4x/3x mile categories and travel protections. (It will depend on whether the travel protections apply to partial payments). The other SUB opportunities will be in the new business cards they are supposed to be rolling out. What is not clear is whether or not you will have to hold this card to be able to Xfer points. Also hoping that this will put a little pressure on the Sapphire team to up their SUB’s and/or lower their spend requirements since I am currently 48+months since my last Sapphire Sub.
@Jon
They are the ones that cash out with gift cards…banks love those customers.
WF, give me JAL or Korean please.
JAL and KAL do not play well with other transfer partners overall.
The 48 month rule is keeping me away from Citi for a while longer. Made a rookie mistake not realizing a product change from the defunct Prestige to a no-fee card would change the account number and reset that stupid clock.
So a WF entrant gives me another option for a points currency.
And despite what some would believe, the earn rate also matters as much as a SUB for those of us who spend on particular categories. 5x on hotels is many tens of thousands if not more annually for plenty of us, particularly if business travel can be put on a personal card.
@2808 Heavy
I agree that it’s a compelling offer, and also that 5x on hotels/4x on airfare doesn’t move the needle for normal travelers. Only road warriors/business travelers care about those categories; anybody with the affluence to pay substantial sums out-of-pocket for those categories to matter such things are below their horizon. I work at a very well-known organization, and don’t travel for work. Normies spend way more at grocery stores/Costco than at hotels/airports.
@Tony
I agree that the Citi Premier doesn’t add much, since I have the Sapphire Preferred, Altitude Reserve, and Bilt cards. Combined, those offer vastly superior earning, perks, & travel protections for a comparable effective annual fee compared to any Amex or Citi card.
The elephant in the room is whether they’re going to mimic Bilt and offer something engaging for the masses, or go the way of Citi and lazily see what spaghetti “sticks”.
It is a nice start. It offers a lot to new people, and the ability to pair the original Autograph with the Active Cash means someone can run a full-fledged no annual fee rewards card setup for everyday spending. Right now, you can do that with Bilt and to a limited extent with the Citi Cards, but this is more robust than Citi no AF transfer options. The Journey, on the other hand, appeals to the traveler who does not want to fuss with a portal, with domestic airline loyalty, or with multiple hotel loyalty programs. I can see it being a nice alternative to most of the Marriott, Choice or Wyndham cards. While I would prefer 4x WOH points to 5x WF points, it would probably keep me from opening a WOH card if I didn’t already have one. If you like booking direct but you don’t care about status, this will work for you.
The drawbacks are also apparent. They need a card with a grocery category (the Autograph and the Journey have a lot of overlap right now) to draw people away from Citi or Capital One. It is, right now, the weakest overall program, but solidly above average in the earning category. They need Air Canada, Virgin, and probably a program like Qantas to round out usable options (more Pacific flying options). They would help themselves by getting even a middling program that offers a unique redemption value. On the hotel side, that could be GHA Discovery or even some budget programs like Best Western or Sonesta. On the airline side, Virgin Velocity, Aegean, Korean, Miles & More, or Copa Connect are all interesting, though they may not be the most valuable overall.
Overall, I’m not dashing to a branch next week, but I’ll be watching. The cards certainly make it easy to consider at the price point.
Gary, any indication of whether these WF points can be pooled with WF Signature card points, such that they can be redeemed for airfare at preferred rates via WF travel?
I’m assuming not, given that those signature points are freely transferable to 3d parties, and these are not. But would be nice to have that clarified.