4

Dec

Randy Petersen has recently been making the argument as I understand it that the big credit card signup bonuses are a temporary phenomenon, the gist of the argument is that during the financial crisis the airlines sold large blocks of miles to their credit card partners at deep deep discounts. The airlines raised tons of cash but sold the miles cheap, so it hasn’t been that expensive for banks to offer the bonuses, and the miles have to be used within a defined time period so they’ve had an incentive to use up the miles fairly quickly.

American Express pre-purchased half a billion dollars worth of miles from Delta, and Chase pre-purchased half a billion dollars worth of miles from United. That drove down their costs and help keep those airlines liquid.

There’s a certainly plausibility to Randy’s argument, except that the miles that were purchased in such huge quantities haven’t been the ones given away with the biggest signup bonuses.

One of the most frequent uber-large bonuses has been the 100,000 mile signup offer for the British Airways Visa Signature® Card from Chase.

They’ve made the spending requirements on that card more significant since they first brought out the offer, it’s 50,000 points after $1000 spend within 3 months; 25,000 more after $10,000 spend within a year; 25,000 more after the second $10,000 spend within a year. So $20,000 spending required to meet the full 100,000 mile signup bonus. But the real value in the card comes after $30,000 in spend anyway — a companion award ticket that allows you to spend the miles twice (for a second passenger on the same itinerary). And there are lots of ways to reach that minimum spend.

But clearly Chase — BA’s U.S. frequent flyer partner — hasn’t been the same sort of financial driver for the airline that they have been for United. There’s been no half billion dollar pre-purchase of miles from BA. And yet they make 100,000 mile signup bonus offers for that card. Because it’s a way of grabbing attention of busy, lucrative frequent flyer customers.

Meanwhile there’s been no 100,000 — or even 75,000 — mile offers with Chase’s United co-branded credit card — even though Chase had the biggest marketing budget in the history of credit cards ever for the rollout of the United Explorer card. I think they had one of the worst slogans ever for that card (“You’re In” sounds way to much like ‘urine’). But they had a ginormous budget, which they didn’t spend burning through those cheap miles. Their 25,000 – 55,000 mile signup bonuses are more generous than the 15,000 mile bonuses when I first got into the game. But it’s noteworthy that the biggest, cheapest mileage purchases don’t tier to the biggest consumer signup bonuses.

American Express has made a couple of brief, targeted 70,000 mile signup offers for their Delta co-branded card. But mostly the bonuses have hovered around just 35,000 miles. And whereas Membership Rewards had huge transfer bonuses to Delta in 2011, there have been no such bonuses at all in 2012. Again, the biggest pre-purchase deals haven’t been correlated with the biggest credit card signup bonuses.

And what are the very best credit card signup bonuses today, in addition to the 100,000 mile British Airways offer from Chase?

  1. Ink Bold charge card and Ink Plus credit card both offer 50,000 point signup bonuses after $5,000 spend within 3 months. These are Chase Ultimate Rewards points which transfer to United, British Airways, Korean Airlines, Southwest, Hyatt, Marriott, Ritz-Carlton, Priority Club, and Amtrak. (The cards also earn quintuple points on wireless/telecommunications services, cable and satellite TV and radio, and office supply stores and double points on hotels and gas stations up to 200,000 points per year.)
  2. Chase Sapphire Preferredoffers no fee the first year, 40,000 points after $3000 in spend within 3 months, no foreign currency conversion fees, double points on travel and dining, points transfers to United, Hyatt, Southwest, Amtrak, British Airways, Korean Airlines, Marriott Priority Club, and Ritz-Carlton. Probably the best all-around credit card, and with a great signup bonus.
  3. Citi® Platinum Select®/AAdvantage® Visa Signature® Card50,000 point signup bonus, no fee the first year — 40,000 points after $3000 spend within 3 months and 10,000 points after $10,000 spend within 12 months. This is a published, limited time offer scheduled to be pulled on December 13th and with a landing page detailing the offer. If you prefer there’s also an Citi American Airlines American Express or American Airlines Visa: 50,000 bonus points after $2500 spend within 4 months, no fee the first year. The links are direct to application pages, I’ve gotten only one report of a reader being told the correct bonus wasn’t tied to their account.

The first two of these are Chase’s own points, not a case where they purchased points on the cheap and have a deadline to use them. They can create as many as they wish, and at a fairly constant cost. In the case of the Ink cards they’ve even just cut the spending requirement in half for getting the full signup bonus in an end of year marketing push, signaling they may have some end of year internal goals to meet which aren’t in any way tied to a last opportunity to use up points.

And Citibank has had some good American Airlines offers, but in most cases I’ve seen them match to try to stay competitive with Chase. They were the last of the major co-branded issuers to introduce card benefits which approximate the first-tier of elite status, for instance. Rather than innovating, they’ve done what they’ve had to in order to stay in the game.

Signup bonuses are only one of the marketing expenses that credit card companies have, they spend big not just to buy miles and points to award to customers but also to sponsor events and advertise. Chase Sapphire Preferred is a sponsor and advertiser on one of my favorite current television shows, BBC America’s Copper.

Chase has been spending more than their competitors to acquire new customers not because they have to, or because they bought miles less expensively than their competitors, but because they believe they can generate more profit from those customers once acquired. Chase has branches and checking accounts and home mortgages and auto loans and investment management. They’ll offer their top clients private banking relationships. Citi has these things as well but Chase has historically been effective at cross-selling. A new customer is simply worth more to Chase than to Citi.

And that’s why we see big bonuses. Because those bonuses cut through the clutter and attract business.

It’s certainly possible that the banks are overspending to acquire customers; that their acquisition costs will exceed the long-term profitability of those customers. But the fact that some customers sign up for bonuses and don’t remain customers over the long-term doesn’t really undermine that proposition since this group remains a relatively small portion of the banks’ overall customer base.

Further, the banks have also much limited their exposure to folks just signing up for bonuses. It used to be possible to get new Chase cards — the same Chase cards — every 60 days and the same Citi cards every 90 days. Now Chase will rarely let you have a signup bonus for the ‘same’ credit card more than once, and Citi’s policies vary but the best offers require waiting 18 months between applications.

If signup bonuses dwindle it’ll be because of overall changes which undermine the profitability of the card products or the ability of banks to cross-sell and generate profits from across their suite of offerings, not because of an increase in their cost to buy airline miles. Which means their no ‘mileage bonus cliff’ as prepurchased miles expire. And it’s all simply subject to the overall competitive environment — an environment which is heating up (with new, aggressive products and marketing from US Bank and Barclays and a bit of stirring out of Bank of America which should put pressure on Chase, Citi, and American Express).

This game of ours isn’t going away any time soon. And it isn’t too late to play.

(As another sign that the banks are anxious to sign up new customers, in addition to the big signup bonuses they’ll also offer referral credit to me if you’re approved for cards using the links in this post, which I great appreciate.)

37 Comments

  1. robertw said,

    There is no way the bonus offers will stop coming. They need something to push people to sign up plain and simple.

  2. MilesAbound said,

    This sounds like a mortgage broker saying house prices will only continue to rise in 2006. (Hard to be objective when you are in the thick of it) Your argument and cross-selling doesn’t hold – how many people do you know who sign up for credit card bonuses also open checking accounts, take out mortgages etc? Very few. And they don’t even try to cross-market. I have taken out dozens of Chase cards and don’t get any calls, emails or snail mail on their other products. I know what it’s like to work in a bank and the guys in charge of credit cards don’t get paid a cent if Chase opens more checking accounts so they don’t give a monkeys about cross-selling. Credit card teams are after high spend and in an ideal world high credit score *borrowers* (i.e. folks who do not pay off every month and should not be doing credit cards) and that is why they are willing to pay more to acquire. The gig will end once they feel they can no longer penetrate deeper and/or their marketing budgets get cut (which is already happening). Nice card pimping though :)

  3. Ann said,

    And another please-use-my-referral-link story without a mention of the annual fee of the cards! Even though the story is supposed to be about sign-up bonuses, credit scores are affected by the average age of accounts; the longer the better. You know that. Even if people can avoid the annual fee the first year, opening and quickly closing card accounts can hurt them in other ways.

  4. Gary said,

    @Ann I write extensively about credit scores, about when to cancel a card. The Ink cards and the American cards have no fee the first year. And cancelling cards doesn’t leave you worse off than not having had applied in the first place.

  5. Gary said,

    @milesabound there are two different arguments here, and I apologize it’s likely my fault, I must not have laid them out clearly enough as separate.

    1. The argument for why big credit card bonuses will come to an end soon — that there’s a finite number of miles purchased cheap and those will expire soon — is wrong. (Delta and United miles were purchased cheap but those aren’t even the biggest bonuses.)

    2. Chase tends to offer the most generous bonuses — they believe they can spend more to acquire a customer because they expect to make more on each customer. The discounted net present value of a new customer is higher for Chase than for Citi or US Bank.

    In other words, Chase’s cross-selling isn’t the reason big bonuses won’t go away (the argument you seem to be rebutting). The credit card marketing folks don’t get paid based on new checking accounts or mortgages. But the amount of marketing spend per customer is derived from the expected profitability of a new customer. And the products a bank expects to offer helps fuel that number.

    My only other thought here is that you might try not to start and end your comment with snark. It’s far more productive to engage a set of ideas than to try to shut down conversation.

    Thanks!

  6. iahphx said,

    I do wonder how profitable these mega-bonuses are for the credit card companies because I have a suspicion that churners make up a significant percentage of new-card acquirers (and I assume the banks lose money on almost every churner application). Sure, there aren’t that many churners, but we apply for A LOT of cards. Kind of like how there aren’t that many airline elites, but the upgrade lists are always long because elites fly a lot.

    As anecdotal evidence, I was on a US flight yesterday and the f/a goes on the pa to pitch the 40,000 mile USAirways mastercard. As every churner knows, this card is a complete no-brainer. There’s NO DOWNSIDE to getting the card, and churning it every year. Yet, on my flight of 150 people, no one took an application from the fa (I think there was even an extra 500 mile bonus if you submitted the on-board app). If you can’t any interest from a plane-ful of travellers for 40,000 free miles, how much interest could the general public have in these cards? Not much, I suspect. As opposed to the small churner-community, that goes ga-ga over every new credit card deal.

  7. Webazoid said,

    Nice article. I’m interested in learning about chase purchase for united miles. Link?

  8. Gary said,

    @Webazoid – see item # 17 here: http://www.airlineinfo.com/form41/form%2041%200908/p2/united.pdf

    And indeed it’s worth noting that in the case of United, Chase couldn’t even BEGIN TO DRAW ON the prepurchased miles until 2011. So the idea that the clock is almost done ticking on those miles is also incorrect.

  9. MilesAbound said,

    Gary – gotcha. I do not “confirm or deny” the argument around cheap miles. I think it’s really a Tea in China situation where it really has nothing much to do with the issue at hand, as you point out. So the argument boils down to is the NPV of a customers profitability greater than the cost of acquisition. If answer is Yes this will go on forever. If not, cost of acquisition will come down until it is at a sustainable level. So right now using whatever metrics Chase uses to evaluate the NPV of a customer they are coming to a number that makes money for the credit card teams. Either one of two things is at play, and possibly a combo of both. Either they have a marketing budget which subsidizes the cost of acquisition side of the equation, artificially boosting one side of the equation. I think that has been true and always will be true to an extent but is coming down quickly. I think it existed as a function of a change in strategy from trying to appeal to everyone to trying to focus on high credit score high spend clients, but that is duration limited and won’t go on forever. And then the other side is that their metrics on profitability are likely just wrong, and the people who get paid off of false metrics have no motivation to change. This is where the analogy with Mortgages and 2006-7 is spot on. The guys at the banks (myself included) were being paid off of Mark-to-Market valuations based off of models of profitability – just like the credit card guys know. Those of reasonable intelligence knew the models were bogus, but when you get paid well for using them, you have no incentive to change. And those “on the street” selling the underlying product – so in this case the affiliate networks – have every reason to talk up the product too. Even if it’s only subconscious. At some point, someone will realize that the reality on profitability is nothing like what the models are showing, and then the house of cards will collapse and the payouts will come down and normality will resume. I think we are seeing signs of that with the increasing spend requirements, as actual profitability on sign ups clearly under-performs expected. You are arguing we are in a world of *new normality* and I can find dozens of comparables for that argument for houses, stock prices and just about any other commodity from 2006. We have a market where people are getting something for nothing or close to nothing, everyone is raving about it, and a few critics are branded “angries”, “whiners”, “complainers” or “cynics”. This is the pattern in all bubbles. So snark removed, but I think my arguments hold true.

    Regards, Phil

  10. Alex said,

    Regarding BA sign up bonuses the explanation is simple. BA could afford to give away miles for free and still make money. All the fuel surcharges and co pays are finely tuned by BA to make profit even before any profit from miles is considered, so the more miles they give away the more money they make. This is probably not true on US-South America and domestic flights, but I’m pretty sure those are not a significant portion of redemptions worldwide.
    On the other hand BA rewards customers with status mostly based on revenue rather than mileage(fling JFK-LHR in business will get you one world sapphire status about 3 times as fast with BA than with AA and economy is twice as fast in AA vs BA).
    This is actually the most sustainable and profitable model in the miles game and if Delta was smart they would switch to BA model rather than Southwest.

  11. Gary said,

    @milesabound very good arguments. The banks — and Chase in particular — will either be proven right or wrong based on their expected valuations from new customer acquisition. Where you see higher spend requirements than in the past as a breakdown in the model, I see it as evidence that they’re getting smart and tweaking their model based on evidence (that folks who spend more on the card adopt the card and are retained as customers over time). The churners are at the margins.

    I do not claim their internal valuations are correct, but they are not obviously incorrect either.

    My claim is we’re not on a cliff and about to see the end of big bonuses, which was what many were taking away from Randy’s remarks.

  12. romsdeals said,

    Does anyone think the points bubble is going to pop? i.e. Too many people in the game and not enough award availibility. I am already having a hard time finding convenient dates to travel to Hawaii (with avios).

  13. jeanne said,

    Thanks, Gary. This is a terrific overview and confirms for me that I’m making good choices in how I use my credit cards for points. A trip to Germany – and a side trip to Paris,perhaps- and a trip to Hawaii are in my scopes so far this year and most of my travel and hotel expenses will be covered by points in good value ways- thanks in large part to your information. So Thank You!

  14. Dan said,

    I am with Gary on this one. Airlines will keep selling hundreds of millions of miles for less than a cent since they are a major cash cow. We may redeem these miles for premium cabin international flights on alliance airlines but I would wager that most people use these miles for flights on the issueing airlines metal as lower level redemptions. These seats are almost always seats that would have gone empty anyhow and as such cost the airline very little money. As long as the card companies can keep getting miles cheap, they will keep having big bonuses.

  15. nycman said,

    Here are additional ways banks are making money:

    1) A certain percentage of applicants will “screw up” one way or another. And every screw up nets big fees to the bank. Not everyone treats miles earning as a serious business. Some will forget the payment date, pay late. Some will forget to cancel, pay annual fee. Some will carry a balance. Some will get cash and some will forget about their miles. Some won’t meet the minimum spend. Kinda like the $10 car rental. They make it back by charging for dings, people forgetting to top off gas, insurance, etc.

    2) Selling data on you. Banks sell your purchase habits and other info to marketers, etc. They build a profile on you for future CC offers.

    3) Market share. Even unprofitable customers increase your market share, which looks good on the books and to wall street.

    Banks will have to continue to bonus CC spend. People are paranoid about id theft. Small merchants/restaurants scowl when using a CC for small purchases. I’m often worried that restaurants will sneak in an extra couple of dollars for the tip. What are the chances anyone will catch that? I would much rather pay in cash and not have to keep track of things and worry about screwing up and having to pay fees. The only reason CC companies see much usage from me is the bonuses.

  16. Dan said,

    Chase may not need to allow churning, but AmEx and Citi have to — even if it’s limited ala the 18 month wait between AA aps.

    Why? Chase has a *deep* portfolio of products, pretty much all of which have some use to me. Furthermore, all else being equal, Chase has a product on which I’m most likely going to put my daily spend. So, with Chase, I can either work my way down their long list of products and associated min spend, or absent a sign-up bonus, there’s always my favorite card.

    If Citi or AmEx wants my business, they have to allow some churn on their products. One time deals mean that once I earn the bonus, I never touch that product again. Not only does Citi allow an AA churn every 18 months, but they’ve been offering me a 20k bonus on 5k spend for renewing and paying the annual fee. So I do that too.

  17. Dan said,

    Gary,

    In your write-up, I think you missed a point on AA. About two years ago, Citi/AA were offering 75k and 100k bonuses on multiple products. To my knowledge, Citi wasn’t doing this with cheap miles acquired from DIP financing, as AA wasn’t even close to BK at the time.

    I do think the 50k bonuses are the new normal. As I mentioned, at one point, Citi was offering 75k and 100k signups, and we haven’t seen those since. They also haven’t shown many signs on backing off their 50k bonuses. Chase runs 50k bonuses on WN multiple times per year. AmEx still runs huge bonuses, albeit for very limited time periods.

  18. Gary said,

    @nycman – ‘market share’? they lose money on every transaction, but make it up in volume? :P

  19. Ike said,

    My, perhaps wholly-uneducated, guess is that there are going to be a lot more cards like the Hilton Surpass/Reserve, New Club Carlson signature cards, and AA Executive Mastercard. Ones that grant status and other bennies but have a non-waveable fee and perhaps a high ($5K+ spend). Maybe using the AmEx ‘can’t have the card for a year’ restriction on bonuses to prevent churning.

    Still lucrative for users and M/P freaks, but a more guaranteed return for the issuers.

    Ike

  20. Skwok said,

    I believe that if you look at the minimum spend for some of the chase ink cards ($10k in three months), chase would be able to make back most of the money from the fees associated with the spend. They charge merchants about 2-4% per transaction. It used to be higher (still within 2-4% but maybe on the higher end of that scale) before the credit card reform bills were passed earlier this year and also the giant lawsuit against Visa and MC for keeping transaction fees high. The lawsuit and US credit card reform could explain why the minimum spend on many cards has been increasing lately. If you were to spend 3k a month for a year, Chase could easily make back the money from the spend alone.

    Also, there have been articles recently stating the actual cost of the miles to airline companies, which is much less than pennies per mile. The information was released during bankruptcy documents from United I believe. This is mostly due to the fact that miles expire and many don’t cash them in before they do. I believe this calculation is based on all miles given out (cc bonuses, flying with them, etc) so the calculated cost of miles might be artificially lower.

    Also, some people sign up for the bonuses and then for one reason or another, they keep the card because they are too lazy to switch or day to day benefits are good. My dad signed up for an AA card many years ago and still have it. I don’t think he even knows that there is a yearly fee and that the miles he earned on signup have expired a long time ago. I myself have a SPG Amex and have kept the card beyond the bonus because the points earned have a lot of flexibility. I also intend to keep some of the hotel cards because the annual fee gives me free nights, which could be valued at higher than the annual fee. I also still have a few AA credit cards and have churned them every 2-3 years or so, instead of the minimum 18 months. I believe the extra few years as a customer has easily paid off Citibank very well.

  21. Nick said,

    The great thing about the big bonuses is that to some degree they become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more big bonuses are offered, the more customers are hesistant to get a new card without a nice bonus. There’s a similar dynamic in the wireless and cable industries–customers have been trained to think, “What’s in it for me if I switch?”

    I also suspect it’s at least in part a function of industry fundamentals–high customer acquisition costs, high customer lifetime value once they’re hooked, and non-trivial switching costs for the customer. I seem to remember reading somewhere that customers tend to be loyal to their toothpaste brand, and therefore it’s not too hard to find discounted or even free toothpaste as the brands fight each other to try to get you hooked. Same dynamic maybe? I haven’t thought about this too deeply.

  22. TravelBloggerBuzz said,

    Absolutely fascinating discussion, I am really enjoying it! I need to get my sick daughter to the doctor now…I am watching you:-)

    Just a couple of statements:

    -Only in the US we see huge signing cc signing bonuses!
    -For banks to continue this, it is obviously profitable enough. I believe the the churning group is still small to affect profitability. So…obviously, there must be a whole bunch of idiots who get the cards and then provide the banks with late fees and INTEREST!! And many of these were hooked by relentless pushing of these cards by bloggers. Oh, do not forget, credit is your most important asset (hey snark baby)
    -Excellent point about BA and how they lure you in and then stick it up to you in ridiculous fuel surcharges. Yes we know better but most new BA credit card holders sure do NOT! When Delta goes rev based and all others follow (they all do, they are just waiting for DL to pull the trigger) we shall see how eager we will all be to burning 1 million points for that aspirational trip vs 100 or 150k:-)
    -Time will tell, it always does. I think this game has legs for a couple of more years. Hard to see what is coming down after that.

    Like I said, fascinating discussion. So, newbies enjoy this bonanza. Veterans, I have a feeling we may have seen the best days of this hobby.

    I will really appreciate it if you click on the links in my blog:-)
    -

  23. Michael M said,

    The Citi American Airlines American Express link is showing “system error”, while the American Airlines link is loading OK. Does state to try again later, so hopefully is still good to use later.

  24. John K said,

    Hmmm…1/2 billion dollar purchase of mileage. I would say that there would be some kind of stipulation in the purchasing contract that the airline can not devalue those miles for some years to come, or would compensate in fair value in case of devaluation. What are your thoughts on that.

  25. MilesAbound said,

    @TBB – quote “For banks to continue this, it is obviously profitable enough”. For someone who claims to work in finance, this is incredibly naive :) If you had said, For bank to continue this, it obviously appears to be profitable enough, I’d buy it. And in fact it’s not even “the banks” it really is only one bank – good old JPMC that everyone thinks is fine and dandy, and Citi and Amex try to play catch up a little. The rest maintain their senses. I have no doubt the books are basically being cooked at Chase and once the masters running the shop work out they are tasting a crappy product, the end will come. With affiliate payouts and the bonuses Chase seems to be willing to pay $500 – $1000 per card. Nobody is paying 4% interchange fees as someone suggested above – hell I can get a card reader for my iPhone and swipe at 2.75%. 1-2% is more the norm. So even for 10k spend best case they get $1-200 back in interchange fees. Hope the client puts another $10k on it to get another $1-200 back. Hope they pay the annual fee a couple of years. That’s another $190 back over 3 years. Hope they have a couple of late fees. Another $50. That still only adds up to less than $500 so in a BEST case scenario they are breaking even. But these are banks. I know from my time there that if you have a lemon then you make a model to make it look not like lemonade but to make it look like Cristal Champagne. So I pull out all kinds of half baked stats on 5% chance customer will take out a hugely profitable mortgage, and 25% chance they will pay x amount of interest etc. Make it all look fancy and everyone will buy it. Now you have your lemon converted to Champagne

  26. John S said,

    I am sure this has been answered in the past but are AA Visa and AA Mastercard considered the same card for the purposes of getting a signup bonus? I have the AA mastercard, AMEX, and Business Visa, but was wondering if the consumer VISA is a different card. If so, I have never had it and am hoping I can get the 50,000 bonus.

  27. Adam K said,

    Note 17 in that United 10-K linked in the comments notes that there’s an annual cap on the number of miles that Chase can cash in to United, and the 1.1 Billion dollars (not $500 million, no, $1.1 billion) worth of miles that they had pre-purchased are specifically notes as intended to last until 2017.

    That may explain why the 65K mile offer is suddenly nowhere to be found – Chase could be nearing their annual cap.

    It also says that Chase is paying United $100,000,000 just to be their exclusive partner – nothing else at stake.

    They’re going to keep giving out big bonuses on that card, if for no other reason than to get their money’s worth from that $100MM payment, but moreso because they’re committed to awarding $120 Million+ per year in miles to their customers for each of the next 5 years.

  28. Gary said,

    @Adam K – the $500mm was a single prepurchase, there is a limited drawdown each year, basically it’s structured as a securitized loan (with United having the right to re-buy the miles as a specific, higher rate). There’s not actually a maximum that Chase can award each year however, additional miles would be a separate deal.

  29. Zz said,

    @Gary,
    “But the fact that some customers sign up for bonuses and don’t remain customers over the long-term doesn’t really undermine that proposition since this group remains a relatively small portion of the banks’ overall customer base.”
    Given that this is a “fact”, please provide a reference.
    Thanks

  30. Zz said,

    @Gary,
    Comment #4 “2. Chase tends to offer the most generous bonuses — they believe they can spend more to acquire a customer because they expect to make more on each customer. The discounted net present value of a new customer is higher for Chase than for Citi or US Bank.”

    Please provide a reference! Are you sure this isn’t your belief? What is the total CC customer acquisition cost for Citi/BoA, Amex, Chase etc?

  31. Gary said,

    @Zz I realize you’re being cheeky, since you’re not actually like ‘disputing’ the claim. But try International Journal of Data Analysis Techniques and Strategies, (August 2008)

  32. Tom / SitInFirst.com said,

    Gary – The Chase BA card has one of the highest spend rates of any domestic card that does not have a $400+ fee. Except for us crazy FF-types, the average American doesn’t really care too much about BA points. This promotion is very effective to get the attention of the target customer (high end international travelers based in the US) while not getting the run-of-the-mill consumer in the US.

  33. Travel Summary – 12/4/12 | Travel Summary said,

    [...] at View from the Wing speculates that big credit card bonuses are here to [...]

  34. Don T said,

    I did open a Chase checking account because I had a Freedom card, and I wanted to get the trifecta with my CSP. I am considering a Chase mortgage in the near future because I feel that they are a good bank, based on my experiences with them so far.

  35. Links / info problems 12/4/12 said,

    Gary, there seem to be some problems with the card links you posted under #3 in the text box above.
    “Citi American Airlines American Express” link is broken,
    “American Airlines Visa” goes into the same “Citi® Platinum Select®/AAdvantage® Visa Signature® Card” link.
    More importantly, this latter, AAdvantage® Visa Signature, says there that:
    “If your credit card account is closed for any reason, these benefits will be cancelled.”
    And it also seems to limit purchases only to AA vendors.
    Please advise.

  36. Michael M said,

    Well still the same today as yesterday for the Citi American Airlines American Express link stating a system error and to try later.

  37. Big Credit Card Signup Bonuses are Here to Stay - View from the Wing said,

    [...] in December I laid out the argument that big credit card bonuses are here to stay. The crux of the argument was that big bonuses are necessary to cut through the clutter and get [...]

    38. Add A Comment

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