Chase IHG Rewards Club Premier World Elite MasterCard now has a 105K + $50 credit signup bonus, the best we have ever seen on this card or the card it replaced (IHG Rewards Club Select MC).  The $89 annual fee is not waived for the first year.  The signup bonus: $50 statement credit after the first purchase + 100,000 points after spending $3,000 within 3 months of new account opening + additional 5,000 points after adding one authorized user and making the first purchase within the same 3-month period.  The bonus is not available if you currently have this card or have received a signup bonus for this card in the past 24 months. Note that this card is NOT subject to Chase' infamous 5/24 rule (you won't be approved for a new card if you have opened 5 or more new accounts within the past 24 months).

So do you apply now?

• Pros: (1) The best ever signup bonus on any IHG-brand credit cards (the previous best bonus was 85K).  (2) The card is NOT subject to the 5/24 rule, so for people who are over 4-card limit it could be be approved.  (3) The anniversary free night capped at 40K level, even not as lucrative as the un-capped free night previously available on IHG Select MC, is still a good reason to keep the card after the first year.  (4) If you still have the old IHG Select MC, you will have two anniversary nights going forward.
• Cons: The value of IHG points are generally not that great - our value is 0.4 cent a piece.  So the signup bonus in our book after considering the $89 annual fee is $380.  If you are interested in other great signup offers, you might want to check out our Promotions page for the list in the order of signup value.

Effective July 29, 2018, Citi has updated the travel and consumer protection benefits provided by its credit cards, and they get worse!  The last time Citi revamped the protection benefits was in May 2016 and it was a major enhancement.  We think it was a little too generous and undoubtedly represented industry-leading benefits, and this time around Citi has reduced certain benefits to get closer to the rest in the market.  The following summary is for Citi Prestige ($450 annual fee) which offers the best level of protection among Citicards; other cards may not have all these benefits, but if they do the changes will be the similar.  However, at this point, we are not sure if Citi AA Executive WEMC which used to share all the same protection benefits as Citi Prestige will be affected, though we highly suspect Citi will exempt one card from what seems like a system wide change.

• Car Rental Insurance: You may be reimbursed up to a maximum of $75,000, reduced from $100,000. In addition, coverage won't apply to charges or expenses for the loss of use of the rental car, rental agency fees, or taxes any more.  Note that cheaper cards continue to have a maximum of $50,000.
• Trip Cancellation & Interruption: You may be reimbursed up to a maximum of $5,000 per trip - this maximum used to be per person per trip.  Note that some cheaper cards reduce the maximum accordingly, for example, from $3,000 per trip to $1,500 per trip.  In addition, coverage will be limited to you and your family members - it used to also cover traveling companions.  Citi used to be the only issuer that cover traveling companions and it makes sense for them to reduce it to meet competitions.
• Trip Delay Protection & Baggage Delay Protection: Coverage will be limited to you and your family members - again it used to cover traveling companions. In addition, coverage will only apply to delays of 6 hours or more, down from 3 hours or more.  Citi used to be the only issuer that cover delays of 3 hours or more, for certain cards (Citi Prestige and Citi AA Executive), which was very generous and beneficial in practice.  Some other cards such as Citi ThankYou Premier continue to cover delays of 6 hours or more.
• Lost Baggage Protection and Travel & Emergency Assistance: Coverage will be limited to you and your family members - again traveling companions won't be covered any more.
• Citi Price Rewind: You may be reimbursed up to a maximum of $200 per item and $1,000 per calendar year - the maximum was down from $500 per item & $2,500 per year.  In addition, coverage won't include consumables, tires, watches, firearms, or ammunition any more.  You also won't be reimbursed if the lower priced item is found at a warehouse club where the merchant requires a membership fee.
• Damage & Theft Purchase Protection: You may be covered for up to $10,000 per incident for 90 days from the date of purchase or delivery of the item purchased with your card - it used to be 120 days from the date of purchase or delivery.  In addition, coverage won't include lost items, firearms, ammunition, jewelry, watches, tires or items that are under the care and control of a third party including, but not limited to, the U.S. Postal Service, airlines, or delivery services.  Also note that coverage will be secondary (meaning if you have another insurance policy, this benefit will cover only the amount your other policies do not). 
• Return Protection: You may be reimbursed up to a maximum of $1,500 per calendar year, down from $2,500 per year.  Coverage won't include firearms, ammunition, tires, jewelry, furniture or appliances any more.

In general, we are sad to see Citi reduces these benefits, especially the loss of traveling companion coverage, Trip & Baggage Delay coverage minimum changing from 3-hour to 6-hour, reduced maximum for a few benefits, as well as loss of consumer coverage for items like lost items, firearms, jewelry, tires, furniture, etc.  However, they are still considered reasonable adjustments.  Note that Citi's travel protection is still considered the best in industry, probably on par with Chase's, as it covers cardholders plus family members as well as awards tickets; also Citi's Extended Warranty is still industry leading (now on par with Amex, see below) because it covers two additional years.

In comparison, you need to be aware of the fact that effective August 26, 2018, Chase will be eliminating two consumer protection benefits: Price Protection (for all Chase cards) and Return Protection (for Sapphire Preferred, Freedom, Freedom Unlimited, Ink Preferred, United Explorer).  So we should actually give credits to Citi for at least not taking some benefit items away completely like Chase does.

Interestingly, when Citi and Chase scale back on the protection benefits, Amex has decided to improves some of its.  Effective August 1, 2018, Amex will increase Extended Warranty from one additional year to two and will extend Purchase Protection from 90 days (from date of purchase or delivery) to 120 days.

We haven't written many posts in the recent year or so, and the reason was explained in the previous few posts.  However, now we would like to change things up again, based on feedback from readers.  We will have more short, Twitter like posts, for new or updated reviews as well as credit card and poitns/miles related news.

Chase has introduced Southwest Rapid Rewards (RR) Priority Visa, with a up-to-65K points signup bonus.  The 7.5K anniversary points and the $75 annual Southwest credit combined more than offset the $149 annual fee, and you will enjoy upgrades to Business Select (who will mind A1-A15?) four times a year, 20% onboard discount, potential Tier Qualifying Points earning, etc. for free. A great card to keep after 1st year.  For details see our updated Southwest Visa Review.

The recent highlights on the site include the rebranded U.S. Bank Radisson Rewards Visa, the new Chase World of Hyatt Visa, the new Chase Ink Unlimited Business Visa, the revived Barclays Arrival Plus WEMC.

We have been continuing making updates throughout the site, and here are some highlights:

• Barclays has further increased the signup bonus on its Barclays AA RedAmerican Airlines Aviator Red Card.  Now at 60,000 miles (~$960 in our book), the best signup bonus we have seen on this product, and you only need to make one purchase to receive the bonus!
• Chase has brought back 60,000 points offer (~$840) for all three Southwest cards: Southwest RR Premier Visa, Southwest RR Premier Business Visa, and Southwest RR Plus Visa.  This is the highest signup bonus on these cards.  Please see our review for details and the signup links.  When you sign up two of these cards, you will receive 120,000 points which more than gets you the very lucrative Southwest Companion Pass status.  After you receive the signup bonuses, you will be upgraded to Companion Pass status for the rest of 2017 all the way to February 2019.
• We also added the "5/24 rule" language to all Chase cards that are affected.  What is Chase's infamous 5/24 rule?  Based on anecdotal reports, you won't be approved for certain Chase cards if you have opened 5 or more new accounts within the past 24 months; any new account with any issuer will count, not just with Chase; new accounts include most credit cards and charge cards but exclude non-Chase business cards and store charge cards; authorized users are also counted towards 5/24 by computer, but calling in and explaining it is an authorized user account may get them to remove it from 5/24 counting.  Currently, you can bypass the 5/24 rule when you are targeted (pre-approvals in branch; "selected for you" when you are logged in your account; targeted offers in the mail).
• Citi ThankYou has added Turkish Airlines, a Star Alliance member, to its transfer partners.  The transfer ratio is 1:1.  Also note that through September 6, 2017, there is a 20% bonus promotion for transferring ThankYou points to Cathay Pacific Asia Miles (1:1.2 instead of 1:1).

July 23, 2017 has been a daunting date for many Citi Prestige cardholders for about a year, since over a year ago, Citi announced the (mostly negative) changes that would come to Citi Prestige as of this date.  Now the changes finally kicked in: (1) American Airlines Admirals Club access is gone; (2) ThankYou (TY) points fixed value flight redemption has gone down from 1.6 cents per point (cpp) on American flights and 1.33 cpp on other airlines to 1.25 cpp across the board; (3) three rounds of free golf is gone; (4) 4th Night Free feature is based on the average rate over the entire stay rather than the actual rate of the 4th night (taxed will also be excluded in the statement credit), and you may now book hotels through ThankYou.com, in addition to calling Citi Concierge.  Citi threw in some enhancements: a new metal card design (everyone else in the high-end market has had this for a while), increased cash rewards from 0.5 cpp to 1 cpp (cashing out is not the best option to redeem TY points anyway), and the best ever signup bonus of 75,000 points (we don't know how long it will last though).

Obviously, we consider this as a major devaluation of this once dominating player in the high-end card market. It drops out of the Top 10 Best Card for Rewards (previously #9; our valuation of TY points earned from Citi Prestige has gone down from 1.6 cpp to 1.5 cpp, as the flexible feature that allows points to be transferred to frequent flyer programs such as Cathay Pacific, Singapore, Flying Blue, Etihad, etc. remains untouched).  Citi Prestige's position on the Top 10 Best Cards for Perks also changes from #3 to #7.  As a result, even the increased signup bonus doesn't prevent Citi Prestige from dropping one position on our Top 10 Best Credit Card list, surpassed by U.S. Bank Altitude Rewards.

At the same time, another Citi card - ThankYou Premier is gaining ground with the increased signup bonus from 30K to 50K.  ThankYou Premier is now #4 Best Credit Card by Dr. Credit Card, right behind its big brother.

Here are the snap shots of our Top 10 list before and after the changes.

We have been continuing to make updates throughout the site.  Here are the highlights of the week.

• Effective June 1, 2017, Amex Business Platinum has reduced the 50% rebates to 35% for its fixed-value redemption option when you use "Pay with Points".  Amex introduced the 50% rebate feature back in October 2016, essentially making the Membership Rewards (MR) points worth a fixed value of 2 cents each, when buying First or Business Class tickets with any airline through amextravel.com, and Economy Class tickets with your selected airline also through amextravel.com.  We wrote, "This makes Business Platinum Card a 2% & 10% rewards card, for general purchases and airfare, respectively.  In addition, it opens up opportunities for other MR cards to become more valuable, at least on paper.  For example, when paired with Business Platinum Card, EveryDay Preferred will return stunning 9%, 6%, and 3% rewards for grocery, gas, and general purchases; the personal Platinum Card will return 10% rewards for airfare; Amex PR Gold will return 6% and 4% rewards for airfare and gas/grocery/dining."  Amex has come to the conclusion that this feature is too generous and thus decided to kill it.  Now with the reduced 35% rebates, MR points will be worth 1.54 cents each when you use the "Pay with Points" option, and this value is actually similar to our valuation of MR points when you transfer points to the 21 partner airline or hotel programs.  If you applied the card between October 5, 2016 and May 31, 2017, you are allowed to keep the 50% rebates for a full year.
• Chase has brought the best ever signup offers for its Southwest Rapid Rewards Visa cards, you will receive 60,000 points (~$840 in travel rewards) on each of the three cards: Southwest RR Premier Visa, Southwest RR Premier Business Visa, and Southwest RR Plus Visa.  This is the highest signup bonus on these cards.  Please see our review for details and the signup links.  When you sign up two of these cards, you will receive 120,000 points which more than gets you the very lucrative Southwest Companion Pass status.  After you receive the signup bonuses, you will be upgraded to Companion Pass status for the rest of 2017 all the way to February 2019.
• Amex has another round of limited-time offers for its Delta SkyMiles cards: 70,000 miles on Delta Platinum Amex (both personal and business) and 60,000 miles on Delta Gold Amex (both personal and business).  Please see our review for details and the signup links.

Amex Blue Business Plus now replaces Amex Blue Business as the entry level Membership Rewards (MR) business card, with no annual fees.  Not only does it offer better rewards for most consumers - 2x (up to $50K spent per year) vs. 1.3x MR points, but it allows points to be transferred to frequent traveler miles/points without another premium MR card.  Amex Blue Business Plus is the first card ever that returns 2x points for general spending while allowing frequent traveler miles/points transfer.  Previously, the best cards of this type (earning SPG, MR, UR, TY, etc.) "only" return 1.5x points: Freedom Unlimited (no annual fee) returns 1.5x UR points but requires another premium UR card to allow miles/points transfer; Amex EveryDay Preferred ($95 annual fee) returns 1.5x MR points with a requirement of at least 30 transactions per month.  Based on our current valuation of MR points at 1.5 cents a piece, the Blue Business Plus returns an impressive 3% travel rewards for general spending; the only downside is that the 2x applies to the first $50,000 spent each year.  Please see our Amex Blue Business Plus review for details.  We are now even calling this no-fee card the "King of Business Cards" due to its lucrative rewards potential.

UBS has joined the already (over) heated high-end credit card market, with its Visa Infinite credit card.  Its 3-2-1 rewards structure competes well with its competitors, and while the maximum value is 1.8 cents per point (cpp), our more realistic valuation is around 1.5 cpp.  However, bear in mind that these points can not be transferred to frequent traveler points/miles, as in the case of its major competitors, Chase Sapphire Reserve, Citi Prestige, Amex Platinum.  Please see our UBS Visa Infinite review for details.  While it could be potentially rated high on our Top 10 Best Credit Cards list, as UBS's intention is to cater for its ultra affluent clients, we need more time to evaluate how easily accessible it is to regular consumers.  Now if you are not a UBS client, you have to call the 800 number and request an application to be mailed to you.

We have been continuing to make updates throughout the site, including an updated review for Delta SkyMiles Amex Cards with enhanced signup bonus (60K for Gold versions, 70K for Platinum versions)

© 2017 DrCreditCard.net  All rights reserved.

It is obvious that U.S. Bank learned a lot from the success of Chase Sapphire Reserve Visa Infinite, our #1 Best Credit Card.  Intentional leaks a few weeks before the official launch of its high-end Altitude Reserve Visa Infinite have already made many super excited.  On May 1, 2017, with the introduction of Altitude Reserve, most of the rumored details were confirmed true - Altitude Reserve offers a 50,000 points signup bonus (=$750 in travel rewards), $325 annual travel credits that are easy to recover, 3x points on travel and mobile pay spending (=4.5% travel rewards), Priority Pass Select membership with four free visits each year, hotel privileges through Visa Infinite, primary rental car collision coverage, and the highest level of travel/consumer protection among all U.S. Bank credit cards, all come with a $400 annual fee.  As you may have noticed, many of Sapphire Reserve's winning features are found here; however, we do welcome the competition it brings to the already heated high-end card market.  Please see our review for detailed facts and analysis of this card.

It comes no surprise that Altitude Reserve scores high in all four "P"s we evaluated - Promotion (#15 Best Card for Signup Bonus), Points (#2 Best Card for Rewards), Perks, and Protection.  Overall, it is now rated #3 Best Credit Card by Dr. Credit Card, right behind Sapphire Reserve and Citi Prestige.  As a result, our #1 Best Card for Rewards, Amex EveryDay Preferred, previously #10 Best Credit Card by Dr. Credit Card, falls off the Top 10 list.

During last couple of weeks, we continued updating the website.  You probably don't want to miss out the enhanced signup bonus on Citi AAdvantage Platinum Select MC (60K each, for personal and business) and BofA Alaska Visa (30K + $100 credit + one free companion certificate).
​
© 2017 DrCreditCard.net  All rights reserved.

As discussed before, Amex's iconic Platinum Card has several changes effective March 30, 2017.  We will recap the changes below:
​
Personal Platinum Card: (1) the annual fee is increased by $100 to $550; (2) free additional Gold Cards (used to be $45 for up to five additional Gold Cards); (3) receive up to $200 in Uber credits each year (limited to $15 per month plus a bonus $20 in December); (4) receive 5x Membership Rewards (MR) points on prepaid hotels and travel packages booked through amextravel.com (airfare booked directly with airlines or through Amex Travel has been earning 5x since last October); (5) its complimentary Priority Pass Select membership now allows two guests for free (used to be $27 per guest); (6) a new metal card design to rival Chase's Sapphire Reserve and Ritz-Carlton Visa; (7) the regular signup bonus is also increased from 40,000 points (after $3,000 spending) to 60,000 points (after $5,000 spending).  

Business Platinum Card: (1) the annual fee is kept at $450 and there won't be any Uber credit; (2) receive 5x points on airfare, prepaid hotels, and travel packages booked through AmexTravel.com; (3) its complimentary Priority Pass Select membership now allows two guests for free.

Even with a $100 increase in annual fees, the increased signup bonus and enhanced travel perks obviously makes the personal Platinum Card better than ever before.  It now overtakes JPM Ritz-Carlton Visa as the #1 Credit Card for Perks.  More significantly, the personal Platinum Card jumps from #8 to #5 on the list of Top 10 Best Credit Cards by Dr. Credit Card.  Chase Sapphire Preferred, Citi ThankYou Premier and Chase United MP Club Visa all drops by one spot as a result.  We also want to mention that Chase Sapphire Reserve still firmly holds the #1 position, even after the recent decrease in signup bonus (from 100K to 50K), as the gap was just too wide for the runner-up Citi Prestige.

If you have a small business, we argue that the business Platinum Card is probably even more attractive.  First of all, you essentially trade $200 Uber credits for the $100 difference in annual fees.  As the Uber credits are $15 per month (with a $20 bonus in December) and expire at the end of each month, most consumers probably won't be able to come out ahead with the $100 increase in annual fees on the personal card.  Secondly, even though the business version's 5x airfare is limited only to purchases made through amextravel.com while the personal version allows airfare booked directly with airlines, as there is no booking fees and the price is essentially the same and you could still earn miles on tickets booked via third parties, we feel that the business version comes very close in this area.  Of course, you need to consider the fact that some airlines such as Southwest can not be booked through Amex.  Also note that we don't consider 5x prepaid hotels and travel packages a major enhancement, because hotels booked via amextravel.com (and in fact most third parties online travel agencies) are not eligible to earn hotel points, stay credits, or elite benefits.  Lastly and perhaps the most importantly, while both cards allows MR points to be transferred to frequent travelers miles/points and our value for MR points redeemed this way is 1.5 cents per point, the business version offers another unique redemption option essentially returning a fixed value of 2 cents per point when redeeming MR points for airfare through Amex.  This unique option makes the business version a 2-10% rewards card, for general purchases and airfare, respectively.  It also opens up opportunities for other MR cards such as Amex EveryDay Preferred and Amex PR Gold to return higher reward value, at least on paper.

© 2017 DrCreditCard.net  All rights reserved.

We have been continuing to make updates throughout the site.  Here are some highlights.

• Chase has brought to us the best signup bonus on its Marriott Visa personal card.  You will receive 107,500 Marriott Rewards points after you spend $5,000 and add an authorized user within 3 months of  new account opening.  As the Marriott Rewards and Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) programs are on the way to integrate and allow points transfer between linked accounts at a ratio of 3:1, our valuation of Marriott Rewards points is now 0.75 cent per point, exactly a third of that of SPG points.  The $85 annual fee is not waived, so this signup bonus is worth ~$720 in our book.  107,500 Marriott points can be transferred to 35,833 SPG points, and this offer is similar in value to Amex SPG which offers 35,000 SPG points with an annual fee waiver.
• Amex has upped signup bonus of its Amex Hilton Surpass (annual fee $75) and regular Amex Hilton (no annual fee): Surpass offers 100K points upon signup plus a free weekend night at select Hilton Worldwide hotels after you pay the second annual fee; the regular Hilton Amex offers 80K points on signup.  As our valuation of Hilton points is 0.4 cent per point, the signup bonus is worth $325 for Surpass and $320 for regular Hilton Amex, respectively.  For the second year after paying the $75 annual fee, Surpass also gives a free night, which can invaluable.  Both signup offers are the best in history.

© 2017 DrCreditCard.net  All rights reserved.