Reader Andrew asked the following on the “Ask Lucky” page of the blog:

Any idea if Chase is going to return the $300/30,000 point bonus for the Freedom card? Have the Chase Sapphire, so would like the points, but 10,000 is low right now.

While I have no inside information, I’ve been putting some thought into this question, or more generally what I imagine Chase’s strategy to be the past year or so. Going back a few years American Express hands down had the most valuable consumer credit cards. However, Chase has quickly gained market share, and I’d argue on the whole now has more valuable cards for the savvy consumer (though there are cards with both issuers that are “must haves”).

I think the biggest growth we’ve seen at Chase is with non co-branded credit cards that accrue Ultimate Rewards points and not points in any of their co-branded points programs (like United MileagePlus, Hyatt Gold Passport, etc.). This essentially makes these “super-cards,” given that you can accrue points in a central currency, and later decide where you want those points transferred to. And while the cards that accrue Ultimate Rewards points have annual fees, they offer an extraordinary amount of value. The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Visa Card accrues double points on dining and travel and offers a further 7% annual points dividend, while the Chase Ink Plus® Business Card and Chase Ink Bold® Business Card offer 5x points on the first $50,000 spent annually at office supply stores, and on cellular phone, landline, internet, and cable TV services, and double points on the first $50,000 spent annually at gas stations and on hotels.

Both of these cards have annual fees of $95 which are waived for the first year, though don’t really offer any other annual “bonus” which incentvizes customers to keep the card. But for most, the sheer number of points you can earn thanks to the bonus categories more than justify the annual fee.

Interestingly a majority of co-branded Chase cards (including Hyatt, Priority Club, etc.) offer an annual bonus just for keeping the card. It basically makes the card a keeper regardless of whether you plan on using it or not. This is unique because there aren’t many American Express cards I can think of that offer such a bonus.

So with that in mind, my perception is that Chase thinks of both the Ultimate Rewards branded and co-branded credit cards as being more in the “stable” phase than the “let’s-grow-the-heck-out-of-it” phase. And I say that simply because they’re not offering mega sign-up bonuses for the most part anymore, at least not like in the past. I think there are exceptions, like the Chase Ink Bold and Chase Ink Plus where Chase continues to offer 50,000 point sign-up bonuses, mainly because it seems they still want to largely grow their business credit card division.

This brings us to the Chase Freedom® Visa Card, which is one of the most unique “valuable” Chase cards out there, given that it has no annual fee. Not the first year, not ever. The card is valuable because it offers 5x points in rotating quarterly categories for up to $1,500 of spend. This basically translates into an easy 30,000 points per year. It’s worth noting each point can be redeemed for 1% cash back, though if you link it to an Ultimate Rewards branded card, they can also turn into Ultimate Rewards points. As a result the card has been getting more popular, because it’s not just worthwhile for people looking for 5% cash back, but it’s also worthwhile for people looking for five Ultimate Rewards points per dollar.

Over a year ago we saw sign-up bonuses on the card ranging from 20,000-30,000 points, though nowadays it’s at 10,000 points after spending $500 within three months.

Could we see that bonus again? Sure, it’s definitely possibly. Is it likely? I don’t think so. This is a no annual fee credit card and I think the reason behind the higher bonus while the Chase Sapphire Preferred, Chase Ink Bold, and Chase Ink Plus cards were being promoted, was to try and get people engaged in the Ultimate Rewards program. I think Chase is done trying to promote the Freedom Card as an every day spend card, but rather all the branding focuses around the 5x points category, which is the card’s “hook.” And that makes sense because while a 1% cash back credit card might have been competitive a few years ago, it’s not anymore. Now that people are sufficiently engaged in the Ultimate Rewards program, they really don’t have to offer a huge sign-up bonus on the card anymore.

Anyway, just my guess, though hope I’m wrong. I’m going to be picking up the Freedom in my next round of credit card applications since I’ve had so many other cards I’ve prioritized over it, but at the end of the day not having it is costing me ~24,000 Ultimate Rewards points per year.

Has anyone else been holding off in hopes of a better sign-up bonus?

(In the interest of full dislcosure I earn a referral bonus for anyone that’s approved through the above links. Thanks for your support!)

Links:

• Chase Ink Plus® Business Card — Credit Card
• Chase Ink Bold® Business Card — Charge Card

Reader Rich asked the following on the “Ask Lucky” page of the blog:

Does Chase handle business cards/reconsideration the same as they do with consumer cards? I currently have the Ink Bold and would like to get the Ink Plus.

Based on past experience with Chase non-business cards usually I have to call and move around some credit limits, should I expect to do the same with the business cards?

I only have 2 business cards (Ink bold and one Citi card) and do have a legitimate business.

I get a lot of questions similar to this, so I’ll address it in general terms here so I can refer people to it in the future.

The sign-up offer

In my opinion the Chase Ink Bold and Chase Ink Plus cards offer the single best consistent sign-up bonus in the industry at the moment, with 50,000 Ultimate Rewards points after spending $5,000 on the card within three months. While the annual fee on the card is $95, it’s waived for the first year. The cards are also extremely rewarding for everyday spend given that they offer 5x points on the first $50,000 spent annually at office supply stores, and on cellular phone, landline, internet, and cable TV services, and 2x points on the first $50,000 spent annually at gas stations and on hotels. That translates to some amazing bonuses on everyday spend, especially given how many purchases can be made at office supply stores with a bit of creativity. Best of all you can actually have both cards, and earn the sign-up bonus on both of them as well.

There are also no foreign transaction fees, and since the card accrues Ultimate Rewards points, they can be combined with those points earned through the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Visa and Chase Freedom® Visa Card. Given the sign-up bonuses and bonuses  on everyday spend offered by these cards, I find Ultimate Rewards points to be one of the easiest currencies to rack up, not to mention one of the most valuable.

The Chase “country club”

Chase reminds me a bit of a country club. I find they’re the issuer where it’s toughest to initially be approved for a card, as they have pretty high standards for issuing credit. However, once you have your first card (and are in the “country club” so to speak), it’s not tough to get additional approvals.

They’ll almost always let you swap out cards once you have your first card, or reallocate credit. Basically if you have four cards and apply for a fifth and don’t automatically get approved, the reconsideration line will usually be willing to either close an existing card in favor of the new card, or typically at worst reallocate some of your credit lines (meaning they might take $5,000 of credit line from another card and apply it to your new account). The fact that the reconsideration line is staffed by intelligent people in a position to make decisions really makes me love Chase.

But how does the business approval process work?

Business credit cards are a different beast… sort of. You can’t generally transfer a credit line from a personal card to a business card, since they’re different types of accounts. But that’s also good news because even if you have “maxed out” your personal credit with Chase, they may still be willing to issue some business credit.

Though there’s one more complication, at least in theory. Like most other cards the Chase Ink Plus is a credit card, meaning you have a credit line and can (though shouldn’t) finance charges over time. The Chase Ink Bold, on the other hand, is a charge card, meaning it doesn’t have a pre-set credit limit and the balance on the card has to be paid off in full each month. So even if it were a personal card where a credit line could be transferred, you couldn’t do that because there’s nothing to be transferred — the card doesn’t have a credit line!

Fortunately it’s not that tough

While there are some complications in theory, I’ve found they’re actually quite flexible. So while technically you can’t transfer credit lines between personal and business cards, I’ve actually found them to be more flexible than you’d think.

For example, I got easily approved for the Chase Ink Plus card without having to switch around any credit.

However, when I applied for the Chase Ink Bold card they didn’t automatically approve it, so I called the reconsideration line. But since it’s a charge card and not a credit card, how could they switch around credit lines when there’s not a credit line on the card?

In my case they were willing to approve the Chase Ink Bold card if I was willing to lower the credit line on one of my personal cards by $5,000, which I was of course happy to do. The other option they gave me was to close one of my existing personal card accounts.

When my dad applied for the Chase Ink Plus card, which is a standard credit card, he was also given the option to lower his credit line on an existing card in order for it to be opened, which he gladly did.

Bottom line

So if you don’t have both Chase Ink cards you’re leaving 100,000 Ultimate Rewards points on the table. I wouldn’t suggest applying for both of them at the same time, but if you have one you really should consider getting the other, and if you have neither you should consider getting started by applying for one.

I’ve had a business credit card since long before I was officially incorporated as a way of separating my personal and business expenses, and had no problems being approved. You can apply for one as a sole proprietor and enter your social security number in the field that asks for your tax ID, your business name can be whatever you’d like it to be (including your name), the business address can be your home address, the number of employees can be just one, and your business revenue can be whatever it is. There’s no reason to lie. If you don’t get instantly approved I’d suggest calling the Chase business reconsideration line at 800-453-9719, as it can otherwise take a long time for Chase business applications to be processed.

(In the interest of full dislcosure I earn a referral bonus for anyone that’s approved through the above links. Thanks for your support!)

Update: unfortunately the deal seems to be dead

For several weeks now, American Express has been running a promotional 50,000 point sign-up bonus on the Business Gold Rewards Card. The 50,000 points can be earned after spending $5,000 on the card within three months. While the card has a $175 annual fee, it’s waived for the first year. Ordinarily this card doesn’t come with any sign-up bonus, so that was a nice promotion as is.

However, for whatever reason at the moment the same link seems to be returning a sign-up bonus of 75,000 Membership Rewards points after spending $5,000 within three months. In the past American Express has sometimes offered 75,000 Membership Rewards points, though always with as least a minimum spend requirement of $10,000. So this is the best deal I’ve ever seen on the card.

Anecdotally I find the Business Gold Rewards Card to be the single easiest business credit card to be approved for, and even many that didn’t previously have any business credit cards have gotten instant approvals. Keep in mind that even if you have a personal American Express card you’re still eligible for the sign-up bonus on this. The only people that aren’t eligible for this bonus are those that have had a Membership Rewards Business card in the past three months, or this specific card in the past 12 months.

Anyway, I doubt this will last long — maybe a few hours, maybe a day or two, but I highly doubt any longer than that. Also, the promotion doesn’t seem to show up in all browsers. I actually only showed the 50,000 point sign-up bonus in all browsers on my laptop, though when I switched to my desktop I saw the 75,000 point bonus.

If you recently signed up for the Business Gold Rewards Card it can’t hurt to send American Express a secure message and ask if they’ll match the better offer.

(In the interest of full dislcosure I earn a referral bonus for anyone that’s approved through the above link. Thanks for your support!)

We’ve gotta give Barclays some props for what they’re doing in the US credit card market, as they’re slowly starting to give American Express and Chase a run for their money as far as their sign-up bonuses go. In this case they just increased the sign-up bonus on the Lufthansa Premier Miles & More World MasterCard.

The official version of the increased sign-up offer is for 20,000 miles after the first purchase and an additional 30,000 miles after spending $5,000 on the card within 90 days.

However, there’s an unofficial sign-up offer which is also for 20,000 miles after the first purchase and an additional 30,000 miles after spending $2,500 on the card within 90 days. The catch is that if you’re not approved for the Premier card and are instead approved for the Platinum card (which sometimes happens with Barclays) you get only 5,000 miles, which isn’t the case with the official offer, which gives you the 50,000 miles for both offers. Furthermore, there’s no landing page to this offer, and in the past Barclays has sometimes auto-declined applications for unofficial links, so there is some risk with this offer.

Through both offers there’s an annual fee of $79, which isn’t waived for the first year. The card offers two miles per dollar spent on airline purchases and one mile per dollar spent on everything else, so really isn’t very attractive beyond the sign-up bonus. The card also comes with a companion certificate valid on coach fares, though unfortunately it’s only for higher fare tickets, so probably isn’t of much value to most of us.

In terms of redeeming Lufthansa miles, they have a zone based award chart, which can be found here. As you can see the redemption rates aren’t especially attractive. The other catch is that they impose fuel surcharges on award redemptions in most cases when the operating airline would as well. Miles & More miles are valid for 36 months from the date of issue.

Given that, there are only thress instances where Lufthansa miles are notably worthwhile:

For travel within the US

Lufthansa charges just 25,000 miles for a roundtrip domestic US coach award, or 35,000 miles for a roundtrip domestic US business class award. They even offer one-way awards at half the cost of a roundtrip.

While 25,000 miles is the standard roundtrip coach award cost, the 35,000 miles for a domestic business class award is pretty damn good. It’s worth noting that Lufthansa will charge the business class price for United domestic three cabin business class or United domestic two cabin first class, both of which book into the “I” (business class) award fare bucket. Unfortunately US Airways first class awards book into “O,” which is the first class award fare bucket and wouldn’t be eligible for those rates.

For travel in Lufthansa first class

Nowadays Lufthansa only releases first class award space to Star Alliance partners at most 15 days out. The only way to snag it before then is to redeem through Miles & More. A one-way first class ticket between the US and Europe costs 85,000 Miles & More miles, plus fuel surcharges.

This sign-up bonus gets you a good ways towards that, and given that you can transfer in points from Starwood it might not be too expensive to make up the difference.

For travel in Swiss first class

If you think Lufthansa is restrictive with releasing first class award space to Star Alliance partners, take a look at Swiss’ policy. They don’t release any first class award space to Star Alliance partners anymore. Not even a day before departure.

Despite that policy, they actually release a good amount of first class award space to Miles & More members, often a handful of seats per flight:

And Swiss does have one of the world’s best first class products, in my opinion, with amazing in-flight catering. So if you haven’t yet flown Swiss first class and want to use miles, Miles & More is your only option for doing so.

Is this a better deal than the Barclaycard Arrival?

The sign-up bonus was also recently increased on the Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard which offers a 40,000 mile sign-up bonus, good for up to $440 towards the cost of travel. Earning the sign-up bonus on that card requires just $1,000 worth of spend within 90 days, and while there’s an $89 annual fee, it’s waived the first year.

So which should you sign up for — the Arrival card or the Lufthansa card? Well, you can actually get approved for more than one Barclay credit card at a time, so if you wanted to you could pick them both up at once. And since most people are limited in inquiries with American Express and Chase, both of these sign-up offers are valuable if for no other reason than that they’re not American Express or Chase cards.

But if you wanted to get just one, which is a better offer? To simplify the offers, as I see it, you can get two roundtrip domestic coach tickets or three one-way domestic United first class tickets with the Lufthansa sign-up offer, and it’ll cost you $79. The alternative is more or less $440 of travel cash without an annual fee the first year and with a lower spend requirement, with the Arrival sign-up offer. Assuming you’d have no problem redeeming for three domestic one-way first class tickets with United, I’d say the Lufthansa card is a better offer. That being said, if you don’t have a specific use in mind I’d probably go with the Arrival card given how much more flexible the miles are, the lack of an annual fee the first year, and the lower spend requirement.

(In the interest of full disclosure I earn a referral bonus for anyone that’s approved through the official Lufthansa card link as well as the Arrival card link, though I don’t earn a bonus for anyone that’s approved through the unofficial Lufthansa link. Regardless of which links you use, thanks for reading!)

In 2009 the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act was passed, which in many cases ended up preventing stay at home spouses from applying for credit cards, as they had to list their individual income (as opposed to household income) on applications. Via The New York Times, this will be changing soon:

Stay-at-home spouses and partners may find it easier to get credit cards under a regulation revised by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The change, first proposed by the bureau last fall, lets spouses and unmarried partners who are 21 or older and don’t work outside the home, apply for credit based on shared income.

It’s worth noting that the regulations are more generous than before as they apply not just to those that are married, but also to unmarried partners. Credit card companies will have six months to comply with the new rules, so keep an eye on credit card applications as they should soon switch from asking for individual income to asking for household income.

(Tip of the hat to Gary)