We have three new reviews up this weekend.  The first one is American Express EveryDay & EveryDay Preferred.  We wanted to write about them when they came out in March but there were some uncertainty about whether the monthly bonus applies to bonus categories, which prevented us from presenting the most accurate information.  Now the uncertainty has been cleared and we think the dual EveryDay is the most important and exciting product Amex has brought to us in the past few years.  We especially love EveryDay Preferred, which has the potential of beating some of our absolute favorite - Amex SPG, Chase Sapphire Preferred, and Amex Premier Rewards Gold, and we gladly have it replace Amex PR Gold on our Top List.  We have also updated our featured review on the best two-card combos and recommend the "Preferred Combo", EveryDay Preferred + Sapphire Preferred, which covers five most important bonus categories and 30 transfer partners all together.

Barclays has just made a great card Barclays Arrival, which has been on our Top List, even better with several enhancements and a new name Arrival Plus World Elite MasterCard.

We never reviewed Wells Fargo credit cards before since we thought they were not as competitive or interesting as other products we review.  However, in our first Wells Fargo review ever, we praised Wells Fargo for its great work for bringing us these two new cards - Propel 365 and Propel World Amex.  Note that Propel World Amex also comes with an excellent 40,000 points offer when you open a new account and spend $3,000 within 3 months.  The $175 annual fee is waived for the first year and you may also take advantage of the $100 airline incidental credit.  Since it has been reported that you can redeem Wells Fargo Rewards points for airfare at 1.5 cents per point, the total signup bonus for the new Propel World is up to $700 ($600 for airfare plus $100 airline incidental)!

Landing Page for Propel World 40K offer

Chase has just brought back the 50K offers for all four versions of Southwest Airlines RR Visa credit cards.  This time, looks like Chase uses new links and obviously all previous links have expired.  You need to spend $2,000 within 3 months to get 50,000 points for each card.  Now it is harder to get approved for two personal or two business cards on the same day, but you should still be able to apply one personal card and one business card and receive 100K points that way.

Southwest Visa Plus Personal ($69/year): landing page
Southwest Visa Plus Business ($69/year): landing page
Southwest Visa Premier Personal ($99/year): landing page
Southwest Visa Premier Business ($99/year): landing page

Since Chase is changing IHG Rewards Club credit card from Visa to MasterCard, we have been having difficulty in getting the 80K offer links work.  The old Visa link expired for obvious reasons and there has been a limited time when a MasterCard link was working before it expired.  Now per this flyertalk thread, there is another link which is reported to give you 80,000 IHG points after you spend $1,000 within first 3 months even though the application page itself does not indicate so.  Based on our past experience, this type of links will work as long as Chase keeps the page active.

Application Page for the alleged 80K offer

We have realized that we spend more time covering the devaluation in the airline/hotel industry.  As stated before, the devaluation is inevitable and out of consumers' control and you have to use your judgement when coming down to which credit cards to sign up and spend money on.  In this article we will cover four programs that announced devaluation in early 2014.  Note there are several other programs whose devaluation took effect in 2014 and were covered in our November post.

• American Airlines AAdvantage: on April 8, 2014, American suddenly made some changes to AAdvantage program: they discontinued oneworld Explorer awards (distance based) and stopped allowing stopovers in the North American gateway cities on international awards.  These two changes were bad for AAdvantage member for sure, but they didn't really change our value of their miles - we still value an AAdvantage mile at 1.8 cents.  However, the worst thing is that American did not give any advanced notice and the changes were immediately effective.  Looking back several years, Delta was probably the only major airline that did this type of changes without advanced notice and we are very sad to see American has joined the dark side.  We all know the risk when collecting miles and that devaluation can happen any time, but normally when airlines announce changes they at least give us advanced notice and we have an opportunity to burn miles at the current rate before the devaluation kicks in.  We think American's move is extremely consumer unfriendly and even our value did not change we will have to put an alert next to it since we expect next time American makes changes we probably won't have any opportunity to save our miles.
  
• US Airways Dividend Miles: Even though the merger between American and US Airways completed last December, it will take quite some time before the two airlines as well as their loyalty programs fully integrate. US Airways has joined oneworld on March 31, 2014 and you can start redeeming Dividend Miles on oneworld members and surprisingly at the same time US Airways still allows you to redeem miles on some Star Alliance partners.  We think this temporarily increases the value of this program.  On the same day when AAdvantage announced the two changes, Dividend Miles also made a change without advanced notice to its award chart by increasing the redemption rate for business class between U.S. and North Asia from 90K to 110K miles, immediately effective.  With these changes, we are not changing the numerical value of 1.8 cents per mile; however, like in the American case, we will have to put an alert next to it since you never know when they are going to do this again.
• Club Carlson: in February 2014, Club Carlson announced some dramatic changes to its program that would take effect on May 1, 2014.  A new top category (7) is introduced that requires 70,000 points per night.  The old top category (6) requires 50,000 points per night.  And as you can imagine many hotels move up in categories.  Our value of Club Carlson points will be decreased from 0.5 to 0.35 cent a piece.
• Marriott Rewards and Ritz-Carlton Rewards: on March 18, 2014, Marriott announced hotel category changes to both Marriott and Ritz-Carlton Rewards, which would take effect on April 8, 2014.  In early 2013, they created a new Category 9 hotels and we decreased the value of their points from 0.8 to 0.7 cent.  Now while there is no new category, the 2014 changes also represented devaluation - 21% of the hotels going up in category and only 6% going down.  We are adjusting our value of Marriott points from 0.7 to 0.65 cent a piece.

New Values
American: remains 1.8* 
US Airways: remains 1.8*
Club Carlson: decreased to 0.35
Marriott: decreased to 0.65

* can changed at any time in the future without advanced notice

We have three new reviews this week.  Barclays replaced BofA as the new issuer of Hawaiian Airlines MasterCard, which has some improvements over the old product.  BofA Spirit MasterCard returns 2-2.5 miles per dollar spent and looks great on paper, but we suggest you do your homework before jumping in.  BofA's old Asiana Amex was very competitive with 2 miles per dollar spent earning rate and the new Asiana Amex after 2013 has been an disappointment due to the fact that BofA changed the earning rate on general spending to be 1 mile per dollar spent.

We also updated reviews on Amex Gold Delta and Platinum Delta cards due to the increased annual fee on Platinum Delta (from $150 to $195) and the added waived foreign transaction fees and EVM chip.

[Update 7/21/14] Chase has changed the signup bonus to one free night at Cat 1-4 Ritz-Carlton hotels.    For your information, a night at Cat 4 hotel requires 60,000 points while a top-tier Cat 5 hotel requires 70,000 points.  Also the new offer is in the form of an E-certificate which expires after 12 months, so it is not as attractive as the old one.  However, the old 70K link (see the bottom of the original post) still works so we assume that you will still receive 70,000 points if applying through that link before it is taken off.

[Original Post] Chase has just enhanced the J.P. Morgan Ritz-Carlton Visa by increasing the annual airline incidental credit from $200 to $300.  See our updated review for details.  We now highly recommend this card to travelers since if you take full advantage of the $300 credit, the effective annual fee becomes $95 and you receive Lounge Club, three annual upgrade certificates, Ritz-Carlton & Marriott Gold (complimentary for 1st year and maintained with $10,000 annual spending), primary rental car insurance, and other perks.

Chase has also increased the signup bonus on the card from 50K to 70K some time ago, which makes opening the card an easier decision!  You need to spend $2,000 within 3 months after opening a new card to get the 70K bonus.

Landing page (redirected to new one Cat 1-4 night offer)
Application page (still working as of 7/21/14)
Please note that since this enhancement has just been announced, the application page still shows $200 airline credit.  For now the only page that you can find the $300 credit is here.  We expect Chase to update all landing and application pages in the near future.

Barclays ran limited time offers of 50,000 miles on the Lufthansa Premier Miles & More World MasterCard twice last year, up from the regular 20,000 miles.  Now through June 30, 2014, Barclays is offering 50,000 miles again when you open a new Lufthansa MasterCard: 20,000 miles after the first purchase and an additional 30,000 miles when you spend $2,000 within 90 days.  Note the $79 is not waived for the 1st year; however it is waived for Lufthansa Senator and HON Circle members.  You also receive a companion pass after the first use and upon each anniversary; the companion pass is good for coach class on Lufthansa flights from U.S. to Europe/Africa/Middle East/Far East on H fare or above (H fare is between the most discounted fare and full fare) and you still have to pay the taxes and fees for the companion (the fuel surcharge can be pretty high); the details of the companion pass can be found here.

Landing page for the 50K offer

[All links expired] Chase has just brought back the 60K offers, temporarily increased from the regular 50K, for two Ink Business Cards - Ink Bold and Ink Plus.  This is the best offer we have ever seen on these cards - a similar deal was offered last year in June for about a week so hurry up if you want one this time.  You need to spend $5,000 within 3 months to get the 60,000 points.  As always the $95 annual fee is waived for the first year.  Note that it has been getting more difficult to get approved for two Chase cards on the same day and our suggestion is that if you never had Ink before just apply for either one.  Ink Bold and Ink Plus share the same features except that the former is a charge card (you need to pay full after each statement) while the latter is a credit card.  If you have one of them now, you can still apply for the other without closing the current card since they are considered two different products.

The non-fee Ink Cash Business Card also has an increased signup bonus of 30,000 points, up from the regular 20,000.  You need to spend $3,000 within 3 months to get 30,000 points.

Application page for Ink Bold 60K
Application page for Ink Plus 60K
Application page for Ink Cash 30K