As I mentioned last week, Chase has adjusted the terms of the sign-up bonus for the Chase Ink Bold card on their website, whereby the minimum spend requirement to earn the 50,000 Ultimate Rewards points went from $5,000 in three months to $10,000 in three months, as seen below:

Affiliate links, like mine, continued to show the lower minimum spend requirement of $5,000. Unfortunately, though, I’ve just received word that our links will be deactivated at 10AM ET tomorrow.

If you’ve been thinking about getting the card, this would be a great time to do so. I doubt we’ll see the sign-up bonus go any higher than 50,000 Ultimate Rewards points in the near future, and Ultimate Rewards points are arguably the most valuable points currency out there. They can be transferred to United and Hyatt, as well as several other airline and hotel partners.

Just keep in mind this is a business card, which can actually work to your advantage, since Chase has no problem approving a personal and business card on the same day or in close succession (sometimes they don’t have a problem approving multiple personal applications either, but it seems to vary).

The card offers 5x points on business expenses (office supply stores, and on cellular phone, landline, internet, and cable TV services) and 2x points on gas and hotels. Furthermore, the card comes with no foreign transaction fees. So the card actually complements the Chase Sapphire Preferred card very nicely, which offers double points on dining and travel. Between the two cards you have bonus points covered for dining, travel, gas, and businesses expenses.

Lastly, it’s worth keeping in mind that Chase rebranded the Ink Bold card last November, changing up some of the benefits. As a result, if you applied before then you can actually apply for the card again and once again earn the bonus. I’ve actually been lazy and haven’t applied for the new Chase Ink Bold card yet (since I assume they might make me cancel my old card), as I still have the old one from before they switched it over. So I’m applying today as well.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I do earn a referral bonus for anyone that signs up through the above links. It’s the best available offer, and of course I’m very appreciate of your support, regardless of whether or not you use my links)

Link: British Airways Chase Visa Signature Card

Last Friday Chase brought back the 100,000 Avios points sign-up bonus on the British Airways Chase Signature Visa, though with much higher spend requirements.

The card now offers 50,000 Avios points after the first purchase, another 25,000 Avios points after spending $10,000 within the first year, and another 25,000 Avios points for spending an additional $10,000 within the first year. So in other words if you spend $20,000 on the card within the first year you’ll get the 100,000 bonus Avios points. The annual fee on the card is $95, which isn’t waived for the first year.

This is a much higher spend requirement than they had in the past, as the last time they ran this bonus (about a year ago), they offered the 100,000 points after spending $2,500 on the card within three months. Not only that, but British Airways has substantially devalued their award chart since then, at least in many situations.

All that being said, this can still be an excellent deal, as I’ll outline below.

How to Earn Points:

Card Spend

The British Airways Visa offers 1.25 Avios points per dollar spent, regardless of the category.

Companion certificate

While it’s not bonus points per se, Chase offers a British Airways award companion certificate for any year in which you spend $30,000 on the card. I make an effort to try and earn the certificate each year.

It’s only valid for travel on British Airways and ultimately you still have to pay the high taxes and fuel surcharges which British Airways imposes for the second passenger, but when you break it down I’d say it’s still a good value. Say you spend $30,000 on the card this year. You’d earn the 100,000 Avios points sign-up bonus, 37,500 Avios points for completing the spend (since you earn 1.25 Avios points per dollar), meaning you’d have 137,500 British Airways Avios points to blow, along with a companion certificate. That’s more than enough for first class to Europe for two from many points in the US, and basically equates to 275,000 Avios points of “buying power” for travel on British Airways when factoring in the companion certificate.

Transfers from Membership Rewards, Ultimate Rewards, and Starwood

British Airways Executive Club is the only airline program which partners with American Express Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, and Starwood Preferred Guest. As a result it’s pretty easy to top off an account, and at times there are even lucrative transfer bonuses. For example, Membership Rewards is offering a 50% transfer bonus to British Airways through May 31, which is a great deal.

How to Redeem Points:

As I mentioned earlier, British Airways really devalued their award chart for North American flyers last November. Unfortunately they don’t publish an official award chart, though they do have a mileage calculator on their website.

While it doesn’t match in 100% of cases, here’s Iberia’s Avios award chart, which is similar to British Airways’ in most instances:

So while a lot of value was lost compared to the old award charts, there are still some fantastic values to be had. Paying only 4,500 Avios points for a flight of under 650 miles is an amazingly good deal. For example, New York to Montreal is available for 4,500 Avios points each way, when the fare is usually about $200 per direction:

Along the same lines, keep in mind that British Airways doesn’t charge close-in ticketing fees, so there’s no additional fee for booking close to departure.

Another great redemption is traveling from the west coast of the US to Hawaii, which is only 12,500 Avios points one-way in coach.

You can get some real bargains with British Airways for travel to Northern South America. For example, Miami to Lima roundtrip in LAN business class (which is a fully flat product) is only 50,000 Avios points roundtrip.

Now, British Airways does impose fuel surcharges for many of their award redemptions, though there are a few ways to avoid them:

• Fly LAN
• Fly Alaska Airlines
• Fly American to destinations other than Europe and Asia

Other Cool Features:

No foreign transaction fees

While it’s becoming fairly common among Chase cards, this card comes with no foreign transaction fees.

Smart Chip Technology

This is a chip card, making it more widely accepted in Europe and beyond. If you don’t have a chip card you might have issues using your credit cards in parts of Europe.

Link: British Airways Chase Visa Signature Card

(In the interest of full disclosure, I do earn a referral bonus for anyone that signs up through the above links. It’s the best available offer, and of course I’m very appreciate of your support, regardless of whether or not you use my links)

Link: Chase Ink Bold Business Card Application

It looks like Chase has increased the minimum spend requirement for earning the full sign-up bonus on the Chase Ink Bold card on their website. The previous and better offer (which is still available through affiliate links) is 50,000 points after spending $5,000 on the card within three months, while the offer Chase has directly is 25,000 points after the first purchase, and another 25,000 points after spending $10,000 on the card within three months. In both cases the $95 annual fee is waived for the first year.

We saw something similar happen with the Chase Sapphire Preferred card, whereby they decreased the sign-up bonus to 40,000 points on their website, and then within a couple of weeks the affiliate links were updated as well to reflect the lower bonus. While it’s no guarantee, I suspect we’ll see the same thing happen here, whereby affiliate links will also require the higher spend to receive all 50,000 points. So if you’ve been thinking about picking up the Chase Ink Bold card, this would be a great time to do so.

Anyway, the Chase Ink Bold card accrues Ultimate Rewards points, which are arguably the most valuable points currency out there, given that they can be transferred to United, Hyatt, and about a dozen other partners.

The card offers 5x points on business expenses (office supply stores, and on cellular phone, landline, internet, and cable TV services) and 2x points on gas and hotels. Furthermore, the card comes with no foreign transaction fees. So the card actually complements the Chase Sapphire Preferred card very nicely, which offers double points on dining and travel. Between the two cards you have bonus points covered for dining, travel, gas, and businesses expenses.

Lastly, it’s worth keeping in mind that Chase rebranded the Ink Bold card last November, changing up some of the benefits. As a result, if you applied before then you can actually apply for the card again and once again earn the bonus. Also keep in mind that since this is a business credit card you have a good shot at getting approved even if you picked up a couple of personal Chase cards in the past month or so, given that Chase allows a business and personal card to be approved same day without any problems.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I do earn a referral bonus for anyone that signs up through the above links. It’s the best available offer, and of course I’m very appreciate of your support, regardless of whether or not you use my links)

“Lucky, why hasn’t American Express Membership Rewards had a bonus for Delta SkyMiles transfers lately?”

I’ve been asked this question about once a day for the past couple of months, so I figured I’d address it here.

The short answer is “it’s anyone’s guess,” but that won’t stop me from speculating.

Historically the chances of having a Membership Rewards transfer bonus to Delta SkyMiles in a given month was about the same as getting a coupon from TGI Friday’s weekly. Both always happened. This is kind of understandable given that SkyMiles are a pretty devalued currency (they’re called “SkyPesos” for a reason), so even with a 30-50% transfer bonus Delta can still come out ahead when they’re charging 325,000 miles for business class to Europe.

So while there was hardly a month last year without a transfer bonus to Delta SkyMiles, we haven’t seen a single transfer bonus this year. To the best of my knowledge the last bonus ended on December 31 of last year.

So why hasn’t there been one so far this year? Well, it’s probably not a coincidence. Delta is American Express’ biggest airline partner, and I suspect Delta isn’t too happy about people using Membership Rewards branded credit cards to earn Delta SkyMiles instead of Delta co-branded ones. As I covered in this post, the best way to earn Delta SkyMiles is by using the American Express Premier Rewards Gold card (please note that’s my affiliate link which earns 25,000 Membership Rewards points after spending $2,000 on the card within three months), which accrues Membership Rewards points and offers triple points on airfare, double points on gas and groceries, and one point per dollar spent on everything else. Beyond that, you earn 15,000 bonus points for any year in which you spend $30,000 on the card.

Add to that the fact that Membership Rewards often had up to a 50% transfer bonus to Delta, and the playing field was really unfair (from Delta’s perspective). As I discussed in my previous post, I was earning an average of close to four Delta SkyMiles per dollar spent on my Premier Rewards Gold card. It’s funny, because when I called to cancel my Gold Delta SkyMiles credit card last year, the retention specialist tried to convince me to keep it, reminding me I was earning two miles per dollar spent on Delta with the card. As soon as I told him I was using the Premier Rewards Gold card which offers three points per dollar spent on Delta and two points per dollar spent on gas and groceries, he gave up and quickly responded with “I don’t blame you.”

So I suspect the lack of transfer bonuses isn’t a coincidence, and that it has a lot more to do with Delta than American Express. While Delta probably likes the revenue they get from Membership Rewards transfers, I suspect they like the revenue they get from co-branded Delta cards even more, as the earnings rate is lower and not all of the miles earned will actually be redeemed (unlike with Membership Rewards transfers, where you could put a ticket on hold, transfer exactly as many points as are required, and then make the booking, minimizing unused miles).

And there could be one other factor at play. Up until last September Continental was also a Membership Rewards transfer partner, and transferring miles to them was almost always a better value than transferring miles to Delta. American Express has long favored Delta over Continental, even when both airlines were in SkyTeam, given that Continental has a separate credit card that’s co-branded with Chase. So they were really only a half-assed American Express partner.

I assume part of the reason that Delta offered transfer bonuses was to keep the miles (and therefore money) “in the family,” so to speak. It would make sense that they do what they can to encourage people to transfer miles to Delta, while still adding value to the program by having Continental as a partner for those that see value in the relationship. Now that Continental is no longer a partner, there really aren’t very many better alternatives for transferring miles, so they no longer feel the need to incentivize people to transfer miles to Delta as much.

Again, this is all just speculation on my part, though I think it would explain why we haven’t seen a transfer bonus. Does this mean we’ll never see a transfer bonus again? Nope, I’m sure we will. But I suspect they won’t be as frequent or as generous as in the past.

Frequent Miler, the king of earning miles for free through the Chase Ultimate Rewards mall, outlines a pretty lucrative offer whereby you can earn 2,450 Ultimate Rewards points for free using the Ultimate Rewards mall.

I won’t give step-by-step instructions here since he does such a fantastic job of breaking down the process, but I’ll just share the idea behind it.

Basically, Staples offers some antivirus software for free after a rebate (which can be applied for online using their “Easy Rebate” system). You have to pay $35 upfront for the software, and then they’ll mail you a check for $35. You can buy up to ten of these and get reimbursed for each.

By going to staples.com through the Ultimate Rewards shopping mall you’ll earn two bonus points per dollar.

Then if you use the new Chase Ink Bold card you’ll earn another five points per dollar. That’s seven points per dollar on $350, or 2,450 Ultimate Rewards points.

There’s no doubt it takes a bit of effort, though I value Ultimate Rewards points at two cents each, so that’s basically a $49 “reward.” Is it worth the time? Probably for most of us.

The only reason I’m not taking advantage of it is that I still have the old version of the Chase Ink Bold card, before they rebranded a few months ago and started offering 5x points on office supply stores. So instead I’d just be earning three points per dollar total, or 1,050 Ultimate Rewards points. For that it’s a bit too much effort, in my opinion.

Either way, this can be a great way to reach the minimum spend requirement on a card, while picking up quite a few extra bonus points along the way.

Anyway, check out Frequent Miler’s post for step-by-step instructions.

On Saturday I wrote about the bonus on the Alaska Airlines Visa being increased from 25,000 miles to 30,000 miles. While a 30,000 mile sign-up bonus doesn’t sound especially compelling on the surface, I outlined the reasons this is actually a great offer, including that this card is churnable (meaning the sign-up bonus can be earned multiple times) and that it comes with a $99 companion certificate which can be used to purchase some very reasonably priced tickets, including first class to Hawaii.

Well it looks like the sign-up bonus has increased… again. It’s now 35,000 miles after the first purchase (the annual fee is $75, which isn’t waived for the first year).

So if you don’t have the card, this really is a great time to sign-up.

It’s also worth noting that Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan is offering up to a 40% bonus on purchased miles through April 15, bringing the cost down to about 2.1 cents per mile, should you want to top off an account.

On a related note, what’s going on with credit card sign-up bonuses the past couple of weeks? They’re fluctuating faster than the stock market, and I’ve never seen it to this degree before. While I’m happy to see bonuses improve, I wish they’d stabilize a bit more so links to the best offers wouldn’t be changing every few hours.

(Tip of the hat to Gary)

Alaska Airlines is currently offering an increased sign-up bonus of 30,000 Mileage Plan miles after the first purchase on the Alaska Airlines Visa. The annual fee on the card is $75, which isn’t waived for the first year. So why am I suggesting you sign-up for a credit card with a 30,000 mile sign-up bonus and an annual fee the first year? Three reasons:

The card is churnable

As I talked about in this post, anecdotal evidence suggests that the Alaska Airlines Visa is churnable. That means you can earn the sign-up bonus on the card multiple times. In other words, signing up for the card now isn’t preventing you from getting it in the future with a better bonus.

Alaska Airlines miles are valuable in many situations

Alaska Airlines has a ton of partners, and while there are some frustrating rules with their award tickets (like not being able to mix partner airlines), there are also some gems. One of the best value award redemptions has to be traveling from the US to South Africa via Hong Kong in Cathay Pacific first class for just 140,000 Mileage Plan miles per person. That’s four 14+ hour first class flights at an amazingly low price, and you can even have a free stopover in Hong Kong.

The card comes with a $99 companion fare

Don’t underestimate the usefulness of this. The credit card comes with a certificate every year good for a $99 companion ticket on Alaska. There are virtually no restrictions. One of the best values of the certificate is booking first class on Alaska to Hawaii, and then paying $99 for the second passenger. Fares to Hawaii are often around $1,350 all-in for first class, so for under $1,500 you’re looking at two first class tickets to Hawaii, which breaks down to $750 per passenger.

I know many people use miles for travel to Hawaii, and typically pay 70,000-80,000 miles per person for first class. Assuming you’re redeeming your miles for a route on which you could use an Alaska companion certificate, I don’t think you’re getting an especially good value, since you’re basically cashing in your miles at around a cent each. And that doesn’t even factor in that both passengers can earn miles when using a companion certificate.

(Tip of the hat to Gary)

Today only, American Express is offering a 50,000 point sign-up bonus on the American Express Business Platinum card after spending $10,000 on the card within three months. The current standard offer (on which I do earn a referral bonus, in the interest of full disclosure) is 25,000 points after spending $5,000 on the card within three months, so it’s half the spend and half the bonus. Obviously the 50,000 point offer is a much better deal if you’re a big spender and able to reach the threshold, as the other one is just the standard offer.

The card comes with a $450 annual fee which isn’t waived the first year, though does offer quite a few benefits to offset that. For example, you get a $200 per year airline fee credit, though it’s really a $400 credit since you’d get it for both this year and next year before your annual fee comes due again. And anecdotal evidence suggests that fee credit can be used towards the purchase of airline gift cards as long as you purchase them in small increments. Furthermore, you get access to American, Delta, US Airways, and Priority Pass lounges for as long as you have the card. So essentially a $50 annual fee for lounge access and a nice sign-up bonus is a fantastic deal, assuming you can reach the minimum spend.

Quite possibly the most exciting credit card sign-up bonus ever was the British Airways Chase Visa 100,000 mile sign-up bonus, which they most recently ran in April of 2011. At the time 100,000 British Airways miles was enough miles for a business class ticket to Asia on Cathay Pacific, so it was quite the value. Unfortunately they severely devalued their award chart back in November, so their miles (now referred to as “Avios”) are worth substantially less.

That being said, I was excited to see that the 100,000 mile sign-up bonus is back, though this time it’s not nearly as lucrative. Now you earn 50,000 Avios after your first purchase, an additional 25,000 Avios after spending $10,000 on the card within the first year, and another 25,000 Avios after spending another $10,000 on the card within the first year. So in other words you have to spend $20,000 on the card to earn the full 100,000 mile bonus. So I guess you could call this more of a big spending bonus than a big sign-up bonus. The annual fee on the card is $95, and it’s not waived the first year.

I do love how they’re at least transparent in their marketing materials about the fuel surcharges on tickets:

So is the sign-up bonus worthwhile? Well, I guess it depends what kind of travel you value.

Avios points are very useful for shorthaul travel, given that their new award chart is distance based. I broke down some of the best award redemptions here, which include 25,000 miles roundtrip in coach between the west coast and Hawaii, as few as 9,000 miles for shorthaul roundtrip economy awards, and 80,000 miles for business class between the east coast and London (though there are huge fuel surcharges and taxes).

If you’re a huge credit card spender I’d say go for it. Otherwise the offer may be worthwhile for earning the first 50,000 points. I’d just have a hard time focusing an additional $10,000 of spend on the card when I could instead put it on cards that offer category bonuses for my purchases, possibly earning me just as many (or more) miles.

NOTE: This offer has expired

Links:
Chase Sapphire Preferred MasterCard Application EXPIRED
Chase Sapphire Preferred Visa Card Application
Chase Ink Bold Business Card Application

Yesterday Chase finally yanked the affiliate link for the 50,000 Ultimate Rewards points sign-up bonus on the Chase Sapphire Preferred Signature Visa card, after only offering 40,000 points directly for several weeks.

This morning I received an updated affiliate link that offers the 40,000 points after spending $3,000 within three months, as is publicly available in most places.

But what I also received, which is more interesting, is a link the Chase Sapphire Preferred MasterCard. Previously some had reported being able to apply for a Chase Sapphire Preferred Visa card and get it switched to a MasterCard, though this is the first time I’ve seen a direct application to the Chase Sapphire Preferred MasterCard. The card offers 50,000 Ultimate Rewards points for spending $3,000 on the card within three months, which is exactly the same sign-up bonus as the Visa.

The great news is that since this is a different product than the Chase Sapphire Preferred Signature Visa card, I suspect you should be able to earn the bonus on this even if you’ve earned the bonus on the Chase Sapphire Preferred card in the past.

It’s also worth noting that there’s a link for the Chase Freedom card floating around that’s offering 35,000 Ultimate Rewards points after spending $500 within three months (if you have a Chase Sapphire Preferred). I don’t see it being publicly promoted by Chase, so they may very well pull it at any time. Note: offer has been pulled.

The nice thing about Chase is that they actually have humans empowered to make decisions answering their phones if you don’t get instant approval. Typically they’ll only approve a single personal and a single business credit card at a time (which is why I recommend the Chase Ink Bold Business Card, which still offers 50,000 points after spending $10,000 within three months), though that’s about the only rule of any sort they have. Even if you received another Chase card within the past few months, you can almost always call and either have your old card closed in favor of your new one, or sometimes have some of your credit line transferred over. Or some even report success getting approved for multiple cards in a day.

Anyway, while 40,000 points isn’t as good as 50,000 points, in many cases 80,000 points is still better than 50,000 points.

As always, the Chase Sapphire Preferred card remains one of the most powerful cards out there for everyday spend. It offers double points on travel and dining, a 7% annual points dividend, and no foreign transaction fees. In addition, Ultimate Rewards points are among the most valuable points currencies, given that they can be transferred to several airline and hotel programs, including United and Hyatt.

Full disclosure: I receive a referral bonus for anyone that signs up through some of the above link. As always I will only provide a referral link if it offers the best publicly available sign-up bonus.