We now have two benefits on Amex cards that are being discontinued. Well, it’s kind of three benefits but there are two main ones:
- ShopRunner is ending,
- Auto Purchasing Program is ending.
These are smaller niche benefits, it’s not to say Amex is shutting down all their Centurion lounges but still.
Amex Benefit: ShopRunner
Let’s look at the small print; this is from the Platinum Card which has both of these benefits:
Effective March 31st 2025 ShopRunner membership will no longer be a card benefit. Meaning, if you apply for the card after March 31st, you can no longer get ShopRunner, which, if you don’t know is a program where you can get 2-day free shipping at many of your favourite stores. There are some discounts, etc and it’s mostly department stores or clothing stores that are on there.
Yet according to ShopRunner themselves, if you currently have a membership through Amex once the benefit ends on March 31st you will “continue to receive their complimentary ShopRunner membership for the remainder of their ShopRunner membership year and two years thereafter.”
That is a very friendly discontinuation policy. Suppose your membership ends at the end of February you get the rest of the membership year plus two more years after that for almost 3 years of membership for a benefit that your car doesn’t even have anymore!
Amex Benefit: Auto Purchasing Program
Now, the Amex Auto purchasing program will also be ending. Here are those terms:
Effective April 28th, 2025, the American Express Auto purchasing program will be discontinued and no longer available as a benefit for Card Members.
This isn’t a program that I have ever used and you need to be looking for a new car or selling your old car to even consider using it. And even then there are a lot of other options competing for your business.
Amex Benefit: Newegg.com and Staples.com
The other thing that’s ending, the third thing–remember I said there was a small third thing that was ending–Amex will no longer allow you to redeem points at Newegg.com and Staples.com. Normally these are a low redemption value anyway so I don’t think anyone’s going to miss it.
In total, I would say these are fringe benefits that not many people used. Personally, I remember signing up for Shoprunner at the beginning when I first got the Platinum card but I don’t think I’ve ever used it. There are loads of other ways to get discounts and deals especially, if you’re shopping around Black Friday or any other holiday like President’s Day, etc. You can earn extra Amex points with Rakuten and get some huge earning rates. For example, 15 Amex points per dollar or 15% cash back, whatever you choose on holidays at loads of your favorite stores.
There is now a new tier 4 or premium travel card in town. It’s called the Jet Blue Premiere Card and it is issued by Barklays. They are offering:
- a 70,000 Jet Blue Point welcome bonus for spending $5,000 in 90 days,
- 6X points per dollar on JetBlue purchases,
- 2X points per dollar at restaurants and grocery stores,
- Group A boarding,
- a free first check bag,
- priority pass lounges,
- the usual credit for Global Entry or TSA PreCheck,
- 10% of your points back when you redeem for Jet Blue.
That’s all for an annual fee of $499 offset by a $300 Paisley travel portal credit.
However check out what Frequent Miler says about this card:
Barclays has introduced a new JetBlue Premiere credit card today, and, in its current state this may be the worst new rewards credit card launch since the Barclays Arrival Premiere card (which lasted for about 6 months before they pulled the card.
And he is alluding to the fact that in the press release under “Jet Blue Lounge Access” they state:
Premier Cardmembers and one guest will enjoy complimentary access to JetBlue’s recently announced lounges arriving at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport Terminal 5 in late 20125 and Boston Logan Airport Terminal C soon after.
But like you just saw those lounges are not open yet. JetBlue does have the Jet Blue Rooftop at JFK, which I experienced a couple of years ago, but it’s open to anyone and it’s just a rooftop. It doesn’t really count.
I would still say JetBlue Premiere credit card is a reasonably standard offering for a high tier airline card. The welcome offer is a little bit weak especially since Jet Blue points aren’t worth that much, the Points Guy gives them just 1.3 cents in value so that’s $910 in value for the whole bonus. It’s not amazing but it’s certainly not terrible and if you’re a JetBlue loyalist it might actually be a good card to look into and a good investment for when those lounges do open.
The thing that really gets me annoyed though is that they say Cardmembers who currently have or previously had a JetBlue Plus Card are not eligible for this offer but then if you go down and read the small print they do say this:
There may be upgrade options for qualifying Plus Cardmembers check your account for offer availability (BarclayUs.com).
So maybe there will be upgrade bonuses probably a little smaller than the welcome bonus for new cardmembers but I could imagine maybe 50,000 points or 30,000 points for an upgrade or something along these lines. Anyway if you’re interested the card is open for application now but those new lounges don’t open until late 2025.
Built Rent Day Benefits
Built, if you don’t know, is a credit card that allows you to earn points on rent paid to any landlord with no transaction fee. You can transfer those points to a load of popular airline and hotel partners. They also offer bonuses in these categories:
- 1X points dollar on rent,
- 5X+ points per dollar on dining (if the restaurant is part of their dining program),
- 5X points per dollar on Lyft,
- 2X points per dollar on travel.
Just FYI you do have to make at least five purchases every month to earn points.
Every month on the 1 Built has something called Rent Day where you can earn some additional bonuses. Now, they normally do double points on everything except for rent. The most useful I find is often going to be bonuses that are offered as transfer bonuses when you transfer points out to a certain airlines. They don’t always have these every Rent Day but often they do.
J Balvin, the company’s CEO, always likes to make videos and introduce the rewards personally. It’s kind of a cool, personal touch and I like it, you can’t see Jamie Dimon of Chase doing that for Sapphire cardholders, can you? Anyway, Built offers their usual bonuses like there’s a month of free rent that you can win and something to do with coffee, etc but the one we’re really interested in is the transfer bonus and this is to Avianca which is the national airline of Columbia. It’s in Star Alliance and in theory you can book any Star Alliance airline with the points and there are some quite good redemption rates.
These are credit bard benefits updates today. Let me know in the comments what you think about all of these stories.
