Credit Cards

Out of all the hotel chains Hilton definitely features the most when it comes to the Amex offers I see in my accounts and there have been a number of offers running since the beginning of March. Now there's a new rebate appearing in targeted Amex accounts which offers up to 20% back on bookings made at Hilton properties in Europe.

Last week Amex announced a significant improvement to one of the benefits that come with its $250/year Gold Card when it confirmed that the 4 points/dollar that the card earns on restaurant purchases in the US will be extended to restaurants worldwide. Alongside that announcement Amex quietly made a couple of other changes that some readers may find interesting.

Most readers with Priority Pass membership will probably have that membership courtesy of a premium credit card which offers membership as one of its benefits and, for the past 12 - 18 months, there has been little to distinguish the Priority Pass memberships the various credit cards offer. That’s about to change.

American Express is launching a new offering for US Consumer, Business and Corporate Card Members enrolled in the Membership Rewards program today which will give them the option to use Membership Rewards points, or a combination of points and dollars, to place offers on airline seat upgrades in First Class, Business Class, or Premium Economy Class on over 20 participating airlines.

Apple held a one of its much heralded events in Cupertino yesterday in which it announced a number of new ventures for the corporation. Amongst the announcements came the news that Apple was launching its own credit card - Apple Card.

The Green Card was once (a log time ago) one of the iconic symbols of American Express but, as time has gone by, new cards have been brought to market which offer better benefits, better welcome bonuses and better earning rates so the Green Card has largely been forgotten.

The Citi Prestige Card has been closed to new applicants for quite some time and, while the card has remained unavailable, Citi has been making some serious changes to the Prestige's offering so this isn't the Citi Prestige Card of old. On 31 January 2019 (yesterday) Citi reopened the Prestige card to new applicants and, at the same time, launched a 50,000 point sign-up bonus to attract new customers.....but what exactly does the revamped Citi Prestige Card offer?

Friends of ours will be visiting Los Angeles in December and they asked if I would give them some advice on booking their trip and help them out with their accommodation. Naturally I said yes and I started exploring a few options on their behalf....but things didn't quite turn out as I expected them to turn out.

Last week I wrote a note to remind myself to write a post about why I genuinely don't like the new American Express Gold card and, at the same time, I bookmarked the Gold Card webpage to make sure I had quick access to the card's details should I need them. I've just attempted to access that bookmarked webpage and all I now see is this error message

As you have probably noticed, I write about miles & points quite a bit and, despite the fact that I have a large number of credit cards and loyalty program accounts (31 at the last count), I like to think that I'm good at keeping on top of my accounts, tracking spending and earnings and generally knowing where I stand at any given moment in time.

Here we go again! What is it with big corporations and their inability to keep our information safe?! We're only just getting over the Cathay Pacific hack and the debacle that was the British Airways hack and now we're being told that Marriott's Starwood database (containing the information of 500 million customers) has been compromised by an "unauthorised party".

I value Chase Ultimate Rewards points, Citi ThankYou points and Amex Membership Rewards points all at 1.5 cents each so it may seem strange that, at times, I choose to earn the equivalent of a 4.5% rebate through Chase or Citi rather than an effective 7.5% rebate through American Express...but there's a very good reason for this.

During the first week of November LifeMiles (Avianca's loyalty program) was rolled out as the latest American Express transfer partner and I've just realised that I never wrote a blog post about it. It wasn't a conscious decision not to write about the Amex/LifeMiles news at the time so the omission is almost certainly a result of the fact that the announcement wasn't actually something I cared about....and there's a very good reason why I didn't (and still don't) care.

The IHG Rewards credit card has long been one of the very best deals you can get in the miles & points world. As a card that offers a free night at any IHG hotel in the world in exchange for an annual fee of just $49 it has been selling itself for years. But the card looks to be on its way out and the opportunities to sign up for it as fast disappearing.

From 13 January 2018 an EU regulation comes in to force which makes it illegal for entities to charge fees for processing payments from Visa or Mastercard credit cards. On top of this, the UK government has brought in extra legislation to ensure that all other forms of payment are covered by the no-fee rule too so that covers Amex cards as well.

I recently wrote a post discussing annual fees and explaining how I go about deciding if I should keep a credit or charge card when the annual fee becomes due and, just recently, it was decision time on the Citi Prestige card. I’ve been a fan of the Citi Prestige card since it was first launched and, even after the devaluation back in July this year, I still thought the card was worth keeping. But things change and my recent review of what exactly I’m getting for my $450 annual fee didn’t come out looking too positive.

Marriott's takeover of Starwood threw into question the future of the hotel chain's credit card contract. Marriott has traditionally had its co-branded cards issued by Chase while Starwood has had a long association with Amex and we've been waiting to hear what the outcome of recent negotiations would be. Now we know.

As of January 2018 Citi will lode the right to issue Hilton co-branded credit cards as the hotel chain gives American Express exclusivity over its credit cards. With that in mind it's not all that big of a surprise that Citi has announced that it will be dropping Hilton as a transfer partner for its ThankYou points program.

HSBC UK has been sending out letters to holders of the HSBC Premier Credit Card informing them of an upcoming devaluation in their rewards system. HSBC is citing the recent changes in EU legislation as the reason why it is halving the redemption value of rewards point earned on purchases.