Hey Credit Warriors! In this article, we take a deep dive into the U.S. credit card world to help you get a load of extra value out of spending you are already doing anyway.
Great Chase Sapphire Preferred Welcome Bonus
Now you can take advantage of the 80,000 Point Welcome Bonus on The Chase Sapphire Preferred.
Chase Sapphire Preferred is one of the classic credit cards out there for travel enthusiasts. Although there are new options on the market these days, it remains a strong competitor, particularly for the fact that Chase has some great Transfer Partners and the fact that you can book travel through Chase’s travel portal at 1.25 cents per point. That’s a major selling point.
The public bonus on this card is currently 60,000 points but there is a way to get 80,000 points according to a post on one of the subreddits.
“Looks like more 8o,000 Point mailers for the CSP are going out. P2 received one today.”
By P2 he means “player two” so the person he is playing the credit card game with, is probably his wife. When we see mailers go out then we often later see secret direct links go out and then finally a public link a few weeks later. So Chase could be gearing up for a big push with the Sapphire Preferred with an 80,000 Point bonus maybe towards the end of the year. Look out in your mailbox to see if you get one of those mailers and keep an eye on our channel because we’ll be the first to tell you when that offer actually comes back publicly.
Meanwhile, if you really want the card, the current welcome bonus is 60,000 points. It’s still a good bonus
Very Rare and Generous Transfer Bonus to a Top Airline
BILT Rewards is the only credit card that lets you pay rent to any landlord; up to $100,000 in rent payments per year. Rent for many people is their single biggest expense per month that you normally can’t pay with a credit card and can’t earn any points. It is a fantastic card with no annual fee and a load of good Transfer Partners, including AA and Hyatt hotels.
Now, let’s talk about the BILT Rewards Rent Day which is the 1st of every month so that will be next Wed, Nov 1st. On this Rent Day, you earn double points:
- 6X per dollar on dining
- 4X per dollar on travel
- 2X on everything else.
BILT Rewards typically does a special promotion on the first. This year is no different. BILT for one day and one day only it’s offering some generous transfer bonuses to Emirates. How much of a bonus you get depends on what level of BILT status you have.
- BILT Blue members get a 75% bonus. That’s 1,000 BILT Points transfers = 1,750 Emirates Skywards Miles.
- BILT Silver members get a 100% bonus. That’s 1,000 BILT Points = 2,000 Emirates Skywards Miles.
- BILT Gold members get a 125% bonus. That’s 1,000 BILTPoints = 2,250 Emirates Skywards Miles.
- BILT Platinum members get a 150% bonus. That’s 1,000 BILT points = 2,500 Emirates Skywards Miles.
Blue members are just regular members of the BILT program. Basically, anyone can get this 75% bonus and that’s huge! Normally, bonuses from other issuers are 25% – 30%, up to the maximum I’ve seen is probably 40%. This is a minimum (!) of 75% even for the lowest status level in the program and 150% for the highest.
How to Move Up Through BILT Status
The way you move up through BILT status is by simply earning points from either using the BILT system to pay rent or using the BILT card on regular spending. You only have to earn 25,000 points in a calendar year to get Silver for instance.
There’s a little bit of a weird rule about how long status lasts though. here’s what they say:
“Status earned between Jan 1st and Jun 30th each year will expire Jan 31st the following year. Status earned between Jul 1st and Dec 31st will remain active the rest of the year in which it was earned and the entire following year.”
In other words, if you earn your status in the second half of the year it lasts longer. That’s a pro tip for you.
Going back to this particular promotion, Emirates first class is amazing, has awesome seats, and even a shower suite. It’s really cool that you’ll be able to get it for around half price or even less than half price in points depending on your status level.
Normally we say don’t transfer over points to an airline until you have found award availability and you want to book now. Obviously, that isn’t going to be possible in this case unless you coincidentally were planning a trip to Dubai or somewhere else via Dubai at that exact time. But actually, there’s more to it than that since you can also use Emirates miles on a load of other airlines, even including JetBlue in the U.S. domestic flights so it might make sense to transfer on Wednesday just since it is such a good deal.
New Welcome Bonus: the Southwest Companion Pass
The new welcome bonus on The Chase Southwest Airline credit cards could potentially help you get the Southwest Companion Pass. The companion pass is a buy one get one free deal where you get to pick one companion who always gets to fly with you for free apart from taxes and fees. The Pass could potentially save you hundreds or even thousands of dollars depending on how often you fly.
You need to accumulate 135,000 Southwest Miles in your account in a calendar year and you will get the pass for the whole of the following year and whatever remains of the year you are in.
The points earned on the Southwest credit cards do count for the Companion Pass. So if I earned 135,000 points in the first month of 2024 I would get the pass for pretty much 2 years!
Recently the bonus on the Southwest credit cards from Chase has been 50,000 points. But they today just raised the bonus to 75,000 points for spending $3,000 on purchases in your first 3 months. This bonus gets you 55.56% of the way to getting the Companion Pass. If you have some other spending or qualifying activities you may be able to earn enough points to get the pass.
Important note: If you transfer say Chase point over to Southwest that does not count.
I would recommend a strategy of holding off on too much spending on the card now just so that you get that welcome bonus of 75,000 points in Jan 2024 rather than Nov or Dec of 2023 since you probably won’t have enough time to accumulate the rest of the points needed for the Companion Pass. Remember all points have to be accumulated in the same calendar year but if you get 75,000 points in January 2024 then you have 12 months to accumulate the remaining 60,000 points needed to hit 135,000 points and get the pass for the rest of that year and the whole of 2025.
There are three different Southwest personal cards to choose from with varying levels of benefits and different Annual fees:
There’s also a Southwest business card that is offering 80,000 points for spending $5,000 in your first 3 months so that gets you a little bit closer to your Target.
In addition, all these credit cards give between 3,000 and 9,000 points as a bonus on your card member anniversary which would fall in 2024 if you get the card now so that gets you a little bit closer as well.
As always, the above credit card links are all affiliate links and they do help us out, so we do thank you very much if you use them! However, do not feel obliged to.
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