Tag Archives for barclays.
The new American Airlines elite status-earning program that goes into effect next year is going to make some flyers very happy. Anyone who can spend a lot on credit cards is going to find status-earning much easier. In fact, you can earn Executive Platinum status with $200,000 in spend alone.
It turns out that in addition to having a longer period in which to do credit card spend, you don’t even need to spend as much next year.
The Uber credit card was supposed to be the centerpiece of Uber’s strategy to build its own currency, Uber credits, which would become ubiquitous as a payment system not just for Uber products but outside of the Uber ecosystem. The primary way these credits would be generated would be through the co-brand credit card, and they’d hopefully become spendable everywhere at retail.
Just as the refresh was reaching the finish line, Uber laid off a large portion of its marketing staff, including people responsible for the card.
There are (3) things I did not realize about this card when I wrote about the 60,000 point initial bonus offer and the ability to spend towards elite status this year. All three are good for cardmembers.
The Emirates credit card in the U.S. has a limited time bonus to earn up to 60,000 miles, and the Emirates cards let you spend towards elite status through end of year.
Frontier Airlines won’t offer you business class award tickets to the Seychelles. But if you live in a Frontier Airlines city, and you’re reasonably likely to fly them, the credit card can be a great deal because every purchase on the card counts towards elite status with $1 of spend earning 1 elite qualifying mile.
And Frontier’s elite program offers real benefits – top tier 100,000 mile flyers see no fees at all, which is impressive with a fee-based ultra-low cost carrier.
These are paper certificates that you have to mail in. American doesn’t actually issue the tickets until they receive and process the certificate. I was entitled to two companions at $99 plus tax, but American Airlines was overcharging the tax. Here’s how they took me for $21.
JetBlue moved over from American Express to Barclays as issuer of its co-brand credit card in 2016. There’s probably a seven year deal in place expiring late in 2023. But JetBlue is already shopping their co-brand business to Goldman Sachs as they renegotiate with Barclays on an extension.
We rarely see large loyalty programs change issuers. It’s much more likely to see smaller brands with less lucrative products changing hands, which is why JetBlue could move again after just seven years.
With people thinking more about getting out more in the not too distant future, on board card promotion is back in a big way in fact for March and April they’re incentivizing this with additional cash and donations.
What’s perhaps most interesting though is the statistic they’re promoting, that only 14% of passengers on a given flight have an AAdvantage credit card.
Barclays is offering 100,000 points as an initial bonus for the $99 annual fee JetBlue Plus Card. The offer is also available for the $99 annual fee JetBlue Business Card.
You’ll generally get 1 to 1.6 cents per point in value redeeming for JetBlue flights. Mint (business class) flights will skew towards the lower end. I value a JetBlue point at around 1.25 cents apiece, so a 100,000 point offer means $1250 worth of travel, or $1151 net of each card’s annual fee.
Barclays has introduced a refreshed suite of Wyndham credit cards and they’ve done as good a job as possible considering the limitation that they’re working with Wyndham, a motley collection of brands and a loyalty program that last year doubled the redemption cost of its best hotels.
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 »
