that's junk. never sign up for anything less than 50k points, except for SPG AMEX

I agree about the 50k, but those two offers that were discussed were promos for current cardholders. They're throwing more at us to keep using our cards. The US Promo is a really nice one, 15k on top of whatever bonus you got for signing up for the card. Wish I had taken the plunge before the GS.

Personally I see this as a being a slower year, there's just too many miles out there, something's got to give. Can't keep offering big points forever. Eventually the "average" users will be saturated and the only people applying will be FT'ers. :P

My gut is for a slow year as well.

Fact remains we know Airlines make bucket loads of cash off of these programs.

These are profitable arms of companies that are in an industry with very low-to-nonexistent profit margins.

Will the offers slow down? possibly. Will the offers increase? eventually. Will they stay the same this year? most likely.

Do not assume that airlines are losing money on their loyalty programs because you would be wrong.

"No less than 50K" isn't always good advice, especially with the US Barclay Card.

1) It pulls Transunion, which is the forgotten middle child of the 3 credit bureaus. It was a gimme approval for me, since my TU had only 1 pull on it in 24 months.

2) It gives 40K on first purchase. I used it for $2 at a fast-food place, and got 40,002 miles. Also, when US runs their GS, it's an easy hit.

3) Annual fee was waived first year; $89/yr after that but you get 10K bonus miles each year (.89 cpm). If you hold the card, US metal redemptions are 5K cheaper.

4) Reports are that it is churnable, so if the offer goes up to 50K or 60K in the future, I'll just sign up for another one!

5) The targeted offer is for current cardholders, and equates to 5mi/$. If you don't have any other spend requirements, that's a great return if you have a lot of 1x purchases.

amen on that.

jpm/citi will probably just hang up on me if i apply again

I agree, especially since I still have a few inquiries.

The Discover offer isn't bad, $250 for $7500 spend (plus the standard up to 1% cash back) is close to 4% return, and as an existing cardholder, there's no credit pull. If you have the spend to spare, that's pretty good. But yeah, if a 50K plus offer presents itself that can't wait until July, and if you can only spend on one or the other, the miles would be better.


I think the cause is different. It's not that spend declined so much as that credit standards increased. Before mid-2008, almost anyone could qualify for almost any card. With the credit crisis, lending standards got much tighter, resulting in a much smaller pool of prospective customers. So competition for those customers increased, thus the more generous signup offers.

just came in:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...-targeted.html

I hope for some great offers. Like BA 100K and Citi 75K X 2.

I think the odds on good promotions will be much higher if people don't haul the whole promotion game onto national TV or the mainstream press.

For right now I am just slowly churning new citi hilton visa's waiting for the next big thing to come along.

AGREED!

Yeah, we certainly don't want anything like Alec Baldwin screaming about 100K CapOne points all over TV.

Oh, that's right, he did. . .

Cards with big bonuses are promotions intended for the general public. Banks want credit card customers. And not just customers off FT. Publicity about big offers is, in fact, what the banks want.

Bumping bonuses and "two browser" tricks, on the other hand, are ways to use promotions in ways the companies may not have intended for the general public. Still, with all the publicity here and in the travel blogs, those loopholes have not been completely closed although bumping has clearly been curtailed.

And, believe me, if somebody hadn't posted about these techniques here on FT or in the travel blogs, 99% of the people who took advantage of them would never have known about them.

High credit score customers are still incredibly valuable spenders to CC companies and you'll still see card issuers competing over them. With debit cards becoming a unprofitable business due to the Durbin amendment, card issuers will push their credit card products even harder.