- Capital One Spark Cash Business Card: up to $2,000: $500 after spending $5,000 within 3 months of new account opening and an additional $1,500 after spending $50,000 total within 6 months. Even though requirement of the additional $45K spending to get the full $2,000 is undoubtedly on the high side, the effective cashback of 5.3% (3.3% from bonus + 2% from regular cashback) is not bad at all. For comparison, the best business card for general spending is Amex Blue Business Plus which returns 2x Membership Rewards (MR) points on the first $50,000 each year and with our valuation of MR point at 1.5 cents per point represents equivalent cashback of 3%.
- Capital One Spark Miles Business Card: up to 200,000 miles: 50,000 miles after spending $5,000 within 3 months of new account opening and an additional 150,000 miles after spending $50,000 total within 6 months. Capital One Miles can be redeemed for travel rewards at exactly one cent a piece, so this signup bonus is similar to Spark Cash's. However, one thing to know is in the coming December, Capital One will finally introduce the miles transfer feature that allows its Miles to be transferred to the following partners: Aeromexico, Air Canada (Aeroplan), Alitalia, Avianca, Cathay Pacific, Etihad Guest, EVA, Finnair, FlyingBlue (Air France & KLM), Hainan Airlines, Qantas, and Qatar. The transfer ratio will be 1 Capital One Miles = 0.75 frequent flyer miles (1,000:750). Based on these transfer partners, our valuation for Capital One Miles will be 1.1 cents a piece, and the 200K miles you obtain from this signup bonus will be worth $2,200, a little more than the fixed value travel redemption.
- Capital One Venture Card: 75,000 miles after you spend $5,000 within 3 months of new account opening. Similar to Spark Miles, these miles are worth 1 cent a piece when redeemed for travel rewards, but can be transferred to frequent flyer miles after December.
- Chase United Explorer Visa: up to 65,000 miles: 40,000 miles after spending $2,000 within 3 months of new account opening, and an additional 25,000 miles after spending $10,000 total within 6 months of new account opening. If you don't want to spend $10K to get the full 65K miles, you may consider another offer of 50,000 miles after spending $3,000 within 3 months of new account opening.
- All three personal Chase Southwest RapidRewards Visa Credit Cards are offering 60,000 points: 40,000 points after spending $1,000 within 3 months of new account opening and an additional 20,000 points after spending $12,000 total within the first year of new account opening. All three personal Southwest Visas offer the same signup bonus: Southwest RR Plus Visa, Southwest RR Premier Visa, and Southwest RR Priority Visa. Note that the Southwest RR Premier Business Visa still has an easier offer of 60,000 points after spending $3,000 within 3 months of new account opening.
- Banca Popular Avianca LifeMiles Vuela Visa: 60,000 miles after the first purchase - increased from the regular 40K offer. You need to enter the promotion code LM17WB to receive this offer.
Several cards are offering increased signup bonuses - please always check out our Promotions page for the latest credit card signup offers, sorted by our valuation.
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There have been quite some updates throughout the site and these are the highlights for the past week.
The wait is totally worth it! It has been rumored for several months that Chase would introduce this high-end Sapphire in August with a 100K points signup bonus - and now everything has come true. Please see our review for the new Sapphire Reserve Visa Infinite for details of this new favorite. Here is the new card in a nutshell:
Sapphire Reserve is now ranked #1 in signup bonus, #3 in rewards, #9 in perks, and #3 in protection, among all credit cards. By a large margin, it beats Citi Prestige to become the new #1 Best Credit Card by Dr. Credit Card! Let's look at side-by-side comparison of the old (left) and new (right) lists of Top 10 Best Credit Cards by Dr. Credit Card: There are several changes: (1) Chase Sapphire Preferred uncrowns Citi Prestige, while Barclays Arrival Plus WEMC falls off the Top 10 list; (2) Citi ThankYou Premier falls from #2 to #6 due to its disappearing signup bonus; (3) there are some minor adjustments due to some changes in signup bonus and perks.
The last thing to know before applying Sapphire Reserve is that the so-called Chase 5/24 rule seems to be strictly enforced for online applications: if you have 5 or more new accounts opened and shown on your credit report in the past 24 months, including credit cards from all banks, possibly mortgages, loans, lines of credit, and even accounts as authorized users, you will get denied automatically by Chase. There are reports which indicated (1) applying in Chase branch when you pre-qualifies for the card or (2) applying as a Chase Private Client may bypass the 5/24 rule. © 2016 DrCreditCard.net All rights reserved. Hello, this is Sean aka Dr. Credit Card. This is probably the most interesting post I have written since I started this website and blog in 2011. Most previous posts were about credit card offers, and a few were my analysis of value (and changes) of miles/points. I never really talked about how to use miles/points, since I figure that is really up to each individual to decide. What works for me might not work for you. However, I have been debating about that approach a lot. I was already touching on the value of miles/points quite a few times as it is inevitable, and each time I tried to make it clear that it was our valuation and “your mileage may vary”. Basically the value comes down to how much I would pay for an airline ticket or a hotel night if I don’t have miles/points, rather than how much the airline/hotel charges. For example, if a round trip long haul business class ticket retails at $6,000 but will cost 120,000 miles to redeem, my miles value is not 5 cents per mile ($6,000/120,000 miles), but rather 1.8 cents per miles since I am willing to pay ~$2,200 for that ticket. I have realized many of you got confused about that part, and I think sharing some personal experience may help you understand it better and also showcase how credit card offers could be extremely lucrative. Note that many of the programs I used in the examples have devaluated or were even discontinued after our trips, but I think the moral of the story is how credit cards enabled me and my family to have some amazing experience that we wouldn’t have afforded otherwise. Earning: 38 cards, 2.5M miles/points, and 12 free night certificates in five years In the past five years, between my wife and I we opened 38 new credit card accounts, and earned about 2,500,000 miles/points in 18 different programs, plus 12 free night certificates. These miles/points were all from signup bonuses and did not include the miles/points we earned through spending or other program promotions. Since 4 of the cards offered free nights in lieu of miles/points as signup bonus, we earned an average of ~74K miles/points per card for the remaining 34 cards. All these may seem a lot, we are not considered aggressive at all - we each opened about 2 cards every 6 months to ensure our credit scores stayed excellent - in fact our credit scores gradually improved over these years. There are many people out there, including some of our readers, opened much more cards per year. If you visit our Deals page, you will see that all offers we recommended have at least 40K miles/points bonus, and over the years there have been quite a few offers in the 75K-100K range. What I am trying to say here is that if we could do it, you can do it. Experience: long haul first class/business class flights, luxury hotel rooms/suites, and many amazing memories I will use some of our most amazing miles/points redemptions as case studies. They are not in order of time/card/program, but rather random.
© 2016 DrCreditCard.net All rights reserved.
Since early 2012 the best offer for Chase Sapphire Preferred, one of our favorite cards, has been 40K points, until recently Chase finally brought back the 50K offer. You will receive 50,000 Ultimate Rewards points after you spend $4,000 within 3 months of account opening. You will also receive an additional 5,000 points for adding the first authorized user and making the first purchase within 3 months of account opening. 55K points are worth $550 in your checking account or $687.50 when you redeem for travel rewards, or can be transferred to 55K miles/points in frequent traveler programs such as United, Southwest, British, Korean, Singapore, Hyatt, etc. Note that the spending requirement of the new offer does increase from $3,000 to $4,000. The $95 annual fee is waived for the frist year.
Landing page Application page © 2015 DrCreditCard.net All rights reserved. The public link for Chase United MP Explorer Card 55K offer has expired. However, you may still use the old trick to see if you qualify for this widely targeted 55K if you follow these steps.
1. Open a private browsing window in your browser (Incognito in Chrome, Private in Firefox or Safari, InPrivate in IE). 2. Visit UnitedExplorerCard.com/50bonus (an alternative link is UnitedExplorerCard.com/A83). 3. On the page, log in into your United MP account and if your page is redirected to https://www.theexplorercard.com/50kAFW then you qualify for the 55K offer. You will need to spend $2,000 within 3 months to get 50,000 miles. And if you add an authorized user and s/he uses the card for the first time, you will receive an additional 5,000 miles. Like always, the $95 annual fee is waived for the first year. Chase has brought back limited time offers for its two Ink Business Cards.
Landing page for Ink Plus 60,000 points offer (working as of March 2016) Application page for Ink Plus 60,000 points offer (expired) Landing page for Ink Cash 30,000 points offer (back to 20K now) Application page for Ink Cash 30,000 points offer (expired) © 2015 DrCreditCard.net All rights reserved. Chase has had 60,000 points bonus offer for Ink Plus in branch. Late last month, it made a similar offer online and now we are in the last week of this limited time offer which ends June 25, 2015. You need to spend $5,000 within 3 months to get the signup bonus and the first year annual fee is waived (saving $95). Chase Ultimate Rewards points can be redeemed for travel at 1.25 cents per point and the signup bonus could be worth $750. Ultimate Rewards points can also be transferred to 10 airline/hotel partners' miles/points and your value may be even higher.
Landing page Application page While there has always been a widely targeted 55K offer for Chase MP Explorer, now Chase again brings back a public link for a limited-time offer through 6/2/2015. You will receive 50,000 miles after spending $3,000 within 3 months and an additional 5,000 miles if you add an authorized user and make a purchase within 3 months.
Landing Page Application Page Chase has been keeping a secret/targeted 50K offer for its United Business MP Explorer for a while. Now there is a public link to the same offer - spend $2,000 within 3 months and receive 50,000 miles & your $95 annual fee is waived for the first year. You will need to log into your United account to proceed with application. Please note that this offer is for the business version of the MP Explorer and there is currently no 50K offer for the personal MP Explorer.
Landing Page for 50K Business Card offer |
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