Frequent Miler: "American Express completely revamped its cobranded Delta credit cards yesterday, adding benefits while increasing both the welcome offers and annual fees. However, on at least two of those cards (the consumer Gold and Platinum) it’s possible to get a better offer when making a dummy booking on Delta’s website. These modified offers each include a $400 statement credit, but with 20K less SkyMiles."
Points Wire Note:
What's a dummy booking?
Sometimes, you can find better welcome bonus offers on co-branded airline and hotel credit cards on the checkout page of a booking. Whether you book or not, these offers can be displayed. Going through the booking process to find a card offer is often referred to as "dummy booking" since you're not actually planning to book a flight or hotel stay.
Award Wallet: "IHG Business Rewards just brought back a promotion offering members double points on stays, meeting rooms, and events booked before June 30, 2024 and completed before November 30, 2024."
"Any IHG One Rewards member can add an IHG Business Rewards account to their personal account. Thereafter, they will receive 3 points for every dollar spent by travelers connected to their IHG Business Rewards account. However, no points will be earned on their own travel. IHG Business Rewards points will be added to the IHG One Rewards account connected to the business account."
Direct link to register
Create an IHG Business Rewards account
Admittedly, the Delta Amex cards haven't played a big role in my points strategy over the years as SkyMiles are some of the least valuable points or miles on the market. Since there are still niche uses for these cards, let's take a quick look at the changes.
Fun fact: My first travel rewards credit card was a Delta Amex Gold just because I flew Delta quite a bit. Live and learn.
Annual Fee Increases
The following annual fee increases apply to both the personal and business versions of these cards. The increased annual fees apply to new applicants immediately. Current cardholders will see the new annual fee on their first annual fee due date on/after May 1, 2024.
Statement Credits
Amex has turned these cards into small coupon books by adding a bunch of statement credits. You will see Delta Stays credits (stays booked via Delta's hotel portal), Resy credits for Resy restaurants, and rideshare credits.
Companion Certificate Changes
The Delta Amex Platinum and Delta Amex Reserve (personal and business) companion certificates can now be used for flights to/from Alaska, Hawaii, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America.
New Business Card Bonus Categories
Delta Amex Gold Flight Credit
With both the personal and business versions, you'll now receive a $200 Delta flight credit if you spend $10,000 on either card in a year.
Points Wire Note:
If you will naturally utilize the new statement credits, you might find it easy to come out ahead even with the increased annual fees. If you won't use these credits, the fee increase will be tough to stomach.
In my opinion, the real value in these changes are the new companion certificate destination options. Those plus the credits could make the cards worth it for a Delta flyer.
If you've only been using a Delta Amex Gold card for the free checked bag benefit, that alone might not be enough justify the annual fee.
In short, these cards are useful in only a few select circumstances.
File this one under transfer bonuses you can ignore. While a 60% transfer bonus is nice, in theory, IHG One Rewards points just aren't worth enough to make this a good idea. You can get much more value out of Chase Ultimate Rewards points by transferring them to airline partners or World of Hyatt. You can even get more out of them by booking via the Chase travel portal.
Frequent Miler: "IHG has opened registration for a new promo which is extremely rewarding if you have any interest in staying at their new (to them) Iberostar all-inclusive brand. They’re giving 40,000 bonus points for every 4 nights you stay which is on top of your standard earnings and will stack with any other promotions you’ve been targeted for."
One Mile At A Time: "Between February 1 and February 29, 2024, Alaska Mileage Plan will be offering bonus elite qualifying miles (EQMs)."
"In order to take advantage of this, you must be flying on Alaska Airlines or Horizon Air, so travel on partner airlines doesn’t qualify. Furthermore, Saver Fares aren’t eligible for the bonus elite qualifying miles."
Corporate rates will actually earn 3x EQMs rather than the 2x EQMs that all Alaska Mileage Plan members can earn.
View From The Wing: "One of those is changes is redemption price changes for partner awards. American eliminated their ‘saver’ and ‘anytime’ award charts last year for flights on their own aircraft. Basically that means all of their awards for travel solely on American are now dynamically priced (what used to be called web specials). They did publish an award chart showing ‘starting at’ pricing but actual prices don’t seem to be reflected by that chart at all."
Points Wire Note:
The big question is how badly American Airlines devalues its award rates on partner airlines. I have a hard time believing it won't be a rough devaluation, unfortunately. I'd love to be surprised.
Miles Earn And Burn: "Alaska awards are only getting more expensive if the miles are earned from flying/organic credit card spend. But, the inflation in Alaska credit card bonuses since 2020 means most of these routes increased less than 10%. In fact many have become cheaper if you’ve earned your miles from well-timed sign up bonuses."
Points Wire Note:
Devaluations are never fun, but your ability to earn points also plays a role. For now, it seems you can come out ahead if you get an Alaska card (personal or business) when the sign-up bonus is at its peak.
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Bilt started the year off strong with a few mega transfer bonuses for the first Rent Day of the year. Now, they're back with one of their most exciting transfer bonuses to date.
On February 1 (Rent Day), you can transfer Bilt Rewards points to Air Canada Aeroplan and get up to a 75-150% bonus. Your Bilt status on February 1 will determine your transfer bonus.
If you have Blue status (just for being a member), the minimum transfer is 2,000 points.
To take advantage of this transfer bonus, you must transfer points between 12:00am ET on February 1 and 2:59am ET on February 2.
Double Points On Rent Day
Don't forget, you can earn double Bilt points on all purchases (not including rent) on the first of each month. This includes include the Bilt Card's bonus categories.
You can earn up to 10,000 bonus points on Rent Day. You must use your card 5 times per statement period to earn points.
Points Wire Note:
With Bilt expected to add the ability to earn points on mortgage payments in the future, I think it's going to earn a place in more and more wallets.
Executive Traveller: "Using Qantas Points to unlock an unlock an upgrade on Cathay Pacific, or tapping your Avios account for a bump to business or first class on Japan Airlines, should soon be possible as Oneworld finally launches alliance-wide upgrades later this year."
"However, Girkinger revealed the Oneworld-wide points upgrade program will launch with 'only a handful (of airlines) to begin with' rather than kicking off with coverage of all 13 Oneworld airlines (or 14, when Oman Air takes a seat at the table)."
Points Wire Note:
If oneworld rolls out alliance-wide upgrades similar to Star Alliance, expect only the more expensive fare classes to be eligible for upgrades. Maybe, they'll surprise us, but I wouldn't be surprised if the upgrade rules and rate aren't particularly compelling for most people.
Don't forget, booking the class of service you want outright is often a much better value proposition than upgrading. There exceptions, but they are not the rule.
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