I wonder if Citi is aware of this and will bring back the $400 award ticket for 20K TYP (Premier Pass) they discontinued in March '09 to compete with this card.

I doubt Citi will be making any improvements in the Thank you network in the near future, the way they've been getting hammered by the economic crisis. Either way, the Travelocity card is not a big enough program to threaten Citi's cards at all. Barely anyone know or have this card outside of Flyertalk.

Click on the "career site" tab next to the "corporate site" tab. You will see the Travelocity card there.


Even inside Flyertalk.

This card seems good for flight ticket but not sure about hotel booking.

Anyone had research if Travelocity purchase earn qualify stays/nights in each hotel chain?

Hilton:
Marriott:
IHG: seems no?
SPG:
Hyatt: seems no?

This card is also great for the Mint coin deal. I have used it multiple times. I order $2500 in coins and make $100 in credit over and over. I love the card!

JudyJFLA

They all should work, you are buying a regular room with real dollars through a travel agency and then getting a 4% per dollar spent credit fro Barclays. You can pick from a multiple of discounted rates and standard rates.
This actually seems perfect for Hyatt, because they don't have a credit card program. SPG hotels don't count reward stays toward status, so the travelocity card will help there as well.

For me the best is I have "points or dollars" at a better rate, for any hotel or airline.

How much do they charge as FOREX fee?

I think it is 3%. Barclays Airtran is. I know this not an option for some, but when traveling overseas, I use my ATM card at the airport and get cash.

Ouch, 3% is really hefty. But, who's not in these days.

Bank of America issues the Charles Schwab VISA with no foreign transaction fees:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/other...verything.html

Just signed up for this card and got approved for 18K credit line today. Now debating whether I should cancel my SPG card. MIght just keep my spg card since the annual fee is only $45/year and I only have to spend about $2000 per year to make up for the annual fee. spg card still good for topping off frequent flyer miles accounts though.

Sustainable?
 

I just got the Travelocity MC and everything looks like it is working as advertised (although, I did initially get the same confusing material describing the other rewards program). It appears that I am accruing at a 4% points rate.

My question is: how can they keep this up? The 4% rate is significantly higher than the interchange fees they are getting from merchants (say 2% - 2.5%). And, if it's true that the travel agent commission is very small then aren't they losing money on all of these transactions? The $69 annual fee isn't enough to make up for the losses. If they're losing at approximately a 1.5% rate (2.5% interchange - 4% points) then they fall under breakeven once there are $4,600 in purchases. That's without accounting for the value of the 5,000 signup bonus, either. I've got to believe some FTers are putting up $4,600 in purchases in a single month.

The question isn't totally irrelevant. I'm concerned they'll wake up one day, realize how much they are losing on the program, and then notify cardmembers that Travelocity points will be revalued to 1 pt = $0.01. At some point, their money has to run out, right?

I know that they must have some card holders that carry balances and they must make some interest income off of them but I wonder if that can be enough. Those balance holders come with bad debt expense (and credit card companies are incurring very high levels of bad debt expense in this environment) and even those balances are being originated at a 1.5-2% initial loss. Meanwhile, the horde of responsible FTers are costing 1.5-2% per transaction without corresponding interest charges (I hope).

Referral?
 

If there is any kind of referral program for this card, could one of you nice folks send me a PM?

No referral program
 

There is no referral program (that I know of). There is no mention of a referral program on the account management site, nor was there any mention of a referral program in the membership materials that were mailed. The best bet might be to apply through the link: http://www.mytravelocitycard.com/.

I'm relatively sure you will NOT receive hotel points/qualifying nights for stays booked on Travelocity. Most hotel chains don't like you booking anywhere except their own site. I would love to be proven wrong though.

For airfare, it will likely be treated just as any other purchased airfare, so I plan on concentrating my redemption on air travel awards.

Thanks for pointing that out themicah!

Dumb question... but does anyone know how the BT is treated if you also make purchases? I know in the old days making purchases on a card u did a BT on is a big no no (the payments will only be applied to the BT, and your purchases will accrue interest ) but I'm wondering if some of the new laws changed that.

Does anyone who did the BT know? If not I will just pay off the BT before I use the card.

I think it largely depends on the type of booking. If you merely make a reservation through Travelocity, points will often still be awarded because they are functioning as a travel agent. However, if you purchase a prepaid stay Travelocity is functioning as a consolidator and points typically are not awarded.

According to the statement I got from them, payments go to pay off higher APR charges first.

Have you had pts awarded on hotel stays booked thru Travelocity / Expedia / Orbitz via the type of "agency bookings" as you described?

The few bookings I made in this fashion have not earned points with various hotel chains.

My understanding is that from and after February 22 payments are supposed to be applied to the highest rate balance first (whereas before payments were applied to the lowest rate balance first, so you had to pay off the whole 0% APR BT before you could pay off your 20% APR purchases). How that will work in practice, however, I'm not sure. It's not clear to me how grace periods will be affected, for example.


This is correct in theory. But I don't think you can use points from this card to pay for a non-prepaid hotel res on Travelocity. So doctor15 is probably right that if you use points to pay for hotel rooms, you're unlikely to get hotel points.

For me, true for Hyatt stays. But, as Rick (Frugal Travel Guy) and gleff have mentioned on their blogs, they've successfully received points and night stay credit with Marriott for bookings through other sites (Travelocity, Priceline, Expedia). YMMV

Not recently enough to be relevant. On further reflection, it doesn't matter. If you book through Travelocity but pay at the hotel the credit card transaction will only earn 2 points per dollar, and if you book and pay Travelocity online it is a prepaid consolidator transaction which is unlikely to earn hotel points.

I share your concern. Consider this...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=a5VIUqAWd7ik

[American Express] dominates the market for affluent users, with individual card purchases averaging $9,342 in 2008 compared with $2,672 for San Francisco-based Visa Inc. and $2,300 for Purchase, New York-based MasterCard Inc., AmEx said in a Feb. 3 presentation for analysts, citing company reports.

It seems likely that Barclay's designed this program based on their cardholders' average charge volume. I don't know how their experience varies from the Mastercard norm, but $69 is exactly 3% of $2,300. Barclay's could afford to rebate 4% at that volume because they are essentially returning the annual fee plus a share of the transaction fees.

The problem I see is that Travelocity is not promoting this card. In fact, they mention that American Express is Travelocity's Official Card. I think this means that the card will attract a disproportionate number of high spenders with a low breakage rate (unredeemed points), because it will be discovered on sites like Flyertalk. Barclay's will soon see that the cost of the rewards program is outstripping the revenue, and act to restrict redemptions.

The easiest course would be to enforce the card Terms & Conditions as written. The terms cap redemptions at 20,000 points, $400. There's no provision for stacking multiples of 20,000 to buy more expensive trips. Stacking seems to be a remnant of an older Travelocity program.

Beyond that Barclay's could impose an annual point earning cap, reduce the number of points per dollar, or simply devalue the points as you suggested. We've seen this before, most recently with Citi's ThankYou Network.

Well at this time, they're not advertising it or anything. so I doubt many people know about it outside of flyertalk. If they devalue the program like Citi did with Thank you network, then people will just leave. I think you can say the same thing about other CC programs too, because we've seen devaluation in all rewards programs (hotels, airlines, credit card rewards, etc). Also this card has an annual fee, so it must be worth it for people to pay the annual fee to keep this card.

So have people generally been happy with this card? I have been considering it as a backup card to my SPG Amex. Just to confirm, $20,000 in spend on the Travelocity MC earns 40,000 points which can be redeemed for an $800 credit towards ANY purchase at Travelocity?

Balance Transfer Question
 

I am considering applying for this card and have a question regarding balance transfers. I would like to take advantage of the opportunity to receive bonus points for $5,000 in balance transfers. My specific question is this: Am I able to transfer the balances of ONLY the other credit cards I have? Or, is it possible to transfer the balances off my sister's credit cards as well? I ask b/c I only have ~$1,000 currently on one of other cards and according to the terms & conditions, you only have 30 days to take advantage of this bonus.

1. I don't think you can balance transfer to your sister's card.
2. Even you only have $1,000 balance, I beleive you can overpay and transfer $5,000.

Yes that is correct, but to get a full 4%, you need to cash in at $400 increments.
If you have a 1000 flight, you should only use $800 (40,000 points) and pay the remaining $200, because the last $200 would cost you 15,000 points a 2.66% return on the last $200 and 3.64% overall. Still not bad.

Gotcha. So there's definitely no limit to the number of 20k point/$400 credits you can stack? The T&C I read didn't seem to reference that. And a flight doesn't have to be involved, right? Can you just redeem for hotel stays if you want? Thanks.

Correct.

If they did this you could split up your trip one night at a time etc...

I hope not but I would think they would do this first.

I don't remember but if mia says it's there, I would think there. They are currently letting us to stack them.

Hotels, car rentals, cruises and even activities.

You can select a rack rate room on travelocity and the hotel knows your room is a rack rate. This is why I think you can get hotel points.

Thanks again. I think I'll give the Travelocity Visa a shot. I'll continue to use my SPG Amex for premium cabin international rewards, but the Visa looks like a great option for hotels and domestic airfare. I just hope they don't change the terms shortly after I sign up. lol

do you mean that hotel reservations booked through Travelocity earns hotel points but hotel stays paid for by Travelocity rewards points doesn't?

If you can get frequent flyer miles/hotel loyalty points for flights/hotels that you booked with your Travelocity rewards points as well, that would make this card sick!

If you buy through Travelocity, Priceline, Hotels.com etc, you usually CANNOT get hotel rewards points. You may put down your rewards number but you will only get points for things you buy while you're there and not for the actual room.

You are YMMV on hotels, but you will definitely get airline miles for flights.

even for travelocity reward redemptions?


btw I got approved but I'm still waiting for my card to come. Can't wait to go to town with this card

Anybody thought of paying their taxes with this card? You pay a convenience fee of 1.95%, but with rewards of 4% you still come out 2% ahead.

"Simply use your MasterCard® card to pay your taxes at payUSAtax and you’ll enjoy a reduced convenience fee of 1.95%."


http://www.mastercard.com/us/persona...nts/index.html

I am going with mia on this one. For the most part Travelocity is nothing like Priceline and Hotels.com. It is a travel agency. Book a rack rate and I feel sure you will get your upgrades and points. I never had a problem getting points when I booked through Centurion travel. Don't you get points when booking through your corporate travel agency?

I think people are getting really confused about whether this conversation is about earning Travelocity rewards, using Travelocity rewards or booking through Travelocity in general, so let's break it down.

Will this earn 4% or 8% rewards if booked through Travelocity using the card:

• Prepaid "Goodbuy" hotels and flight+hotel packages: 8% (because Travelocity charges your card)
• Postpaid hotel reservations: 4% (because the hotel--not Travelocity--charges your card)
• Plane tickets: 8% (because Travelocity charges your card)

Can I use points from this card to pay for:

• Prepaid "Goodbuy" hotels and flight+hotel packages: yes (because Travelocity charges your card)
• Postpaid hotel reservations: no (because the hotel--not Travelocity--charges your card, so there are no Travelocity charges to offset with points)
• Plane tickets: yes (because Travelocity charges your card)

Will I get other frequent traveler benefits (points, upgrades, etc.) for travel booked through Travelocity (whether or not points were used to offset the charges):

• Hotel points and upgrades for prepaid "Goodbuy" hotels and the hotel portion of flight+hotel packages: probably not (because it's considered a special voucher rate
• Hotel points and upgrades for postpaid hotel reservations: probably yes (I would think it would be considered like any other travel agency booking)
• Airline miles for regular plane tickets: almost certainly yes (just like any other regularly priced ticket)
• Airline miles for flight portion of flight+hotel packages: maybe (I think these are sometimes booked in classes that don't earn miles, but they probably usually end up earning miles in practice)

All of this is based on how I generally understand things to work. I don't have the card, however, and have never tried to collect hotel points for any hotel reservation (prepaid or postpaid) made on Travelocity, so I have no personal experience. If I'm wrong about any of the above, I'm sure someone will correct me.

I'm not an expert, but I agree with this statement that payments are applied to the highest interest balance (so the 0% balance transfer will get paid last), but I think the key is that interest on other purchases will accrue immediately since there is a balance carried on the card (no grace period for purchases).