Originally Posted by
notquiteaff
Maybe a credit card appealing to elites would be a good start. The club card doesn't appeal to me, and neither does the Explorer card with all its non-elite-targeting benefits.
I still have the old Select card.
I disagree with you on the appeal of the Club card to current elites. If you manage to put $100k+ on the club card per year, the extra .5 miles per dollar on non-bonus category purchases starts to significantly add up (ex. by the amount of an entire business saver award to Europe or more). So much so that up until very recently the .5 mile extra earnings per dollar on basic purchases was probably worth the annual fee even without the club membership.
However, with the new Freedom Unlimited card from Chase, I will agree that much of the Club card's original value proposition has disappeared. When you can couple the Freedom Unlimited and the CSP together to make a minimum of 1.5x UR points per dollar on purchases, and then have the flexibility to transfer those points to more than just MileagePlus, all with a lower annual fee, the Club card has definitely lost its major advantage over other current alternatives.