Data point:

Applied for Visa personal from the link # 2 ($2,500 spend in 4 months, 50k miles) today and had to call in to get it approved. They didn't ask me a thing, put me on hold twice, then approved it. I then called in later today and confirmed all of the above, plus, they stated that its 2 miles per dollar for every purchase for the first year. I don't recall anyone providing that datapoint before. To me, that might be worth more than $150 credit and two passes, but we shall see.