Sacrilegious attitude here I know, but I don't churn credit cards because it seems too much trouble and usually don't have a problem running out of miles anyway. And since I found out about the 1 lifetime bonus rule on this, I definitely did not want to apply until I saw something really special. Well, after it seems like about 1 or 2 mailings a week over the last year, I finally got this offer (selected sections from the mailing and terms and conditions):
Claim up to 40,000 miles for award travel!
Earn 20,000 bonus miles after you make $750 in purchases.
As a special bonus, you will receive an additional 20,000
miles after your first anniversary. That's 40,000 miles,
more than enough for a roundtrip award ticket anywhere
within the 48 contiguous United States and Canada!
Earn 1 mile for every eligible $1 in purchases
Use your card as often as possible to add thousands of miles
to the ones you already earn by flying, so you can enjoy
award travel that much sooner.
You will also enjoy these Mileage Plus Visa benefits:
- Exclusive cardmember redemption opportunities
- No pre-set spending limit
Grace period for repayment of purchase balances - At least 20 days.
Method of computing the balance for purchases - Average daily balance method (including new purchases).
Annual fee - $60.00
They are not upfront at all about the annual fee, it is buried in the Terms and Conditions. I don't see anything about the 1st year fee being waived, so seems one in effect pays $120 for the 40,000 United Mileage Plus miles.
I assume this is targetted, and it is a time-limited offer (which I wouldn't count on being extended since it is more than the standard offer level).
While I did see someone post here that they got a 50k bonus offer, I'm not counting on getting that any time soon since it seems these offers only come along rarely, unlike the normal SPAM mailings.
What do others think? Is this an offer I should jump on? Are there any drawbacks to this offer that I am missing?