Frequent Miler on the Air - Chase Battles for the Middle | Ep119 | 10-9-21

Episode Date: October 9, 2021

1:07 Giant Mailbag 3:56 What crazy thing...did American Express do this week? https://frequentmiler.com/amex-platinum-adds-walmart-and-soulcycle-benefits/ 9:21 Mattress Running the Numbers: The Weak Link in Marriott's Week of Wonders 14:55 Main Event: Chase Battles for the Middle https://frequentmiler.com/new-world-of-hyatt-business-credit-card-launches/ https://frequentmiler.com/manufacturing-hyatt-status-with-the-new-business-card/ 41:30 Post Roast Greg's roast of Nick: https://frequentmiler.com/now-11-capital-one-improves-transfer-ratio-for-almost-all-airline-programs/ Nick's roast of Greg: https://frequentmiler.com/manufacturing-hyatt-status-with-the-new-business-card/ 52:23 Question of the Week: How do you know which transactions are qualifying as a small business? https://frequentmiler.com/yes-your-new-platinum-card-is-earning-10x-where-appropriate/ (note that this is about the previous set of bonus categories, but it shows you where to look) Join our email list: https://frequentmiler.com/subscribe/ Music credit: Annie Yoder

Frequent miler on the air starts now. Today's main event, Chase battles for the middle. Battling for mediocrity just doesn't sound exciting. Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure that Chase would put it that way, that they're battling for mediocrity. But what we're talking about is there are ultra premium credit cards out there that are the very, very expensive, over $400 cards. Then there's the low-end cards that are under $100. And then there's the stuff in the middle.

And Chase seems to be planning their flag and saying, this is where we're going to battle. Which is funny because they're like the last ones to come to that party to begin with, basically. little. And Chase seems to be planning their flag and saying, this is where we're going to battle. Which is funny because they're like the last ones to come to that party to begin with, basically. And maybe not the last. We'll talk more about it. Certainly, Amex has been sitting in the middle for a while now and has, I think, a very strong presence in the middle. So Chase has some fighting to do, but we'll, yeah, we'll discuss that. First, giant mailbag time.

So this is giant mail in every sense of the word. I printed it out in giant font so that I could read it. But it's also giant in that there's a lot of words here. Is it more than one page? But yeah, this came through on our website, our contact us form. This came from Jane. And I wanted to read this here because it's sort of a good commercial for our show and our website. Uh-oh, we're adding commercials? So this is nice.

We're adding commercials just just for today. Giant mailbag time. Our ad for ourselves. Thank you, Jane. Jane says, Hi, Greg and Nick. Just a short note to say that I applied and was approved for the Chase Sapphire preferred 100K offer through your link. I applied through your link partly because of the value I've gotten from your blog and

podcast and partly because you explained how it wasn't the indisputable best credit card offer available. So as an aside, she said she applied because we told her it wasn't the best offer. Interesting choice, Jane. After months of, in parentheses, she says obsessively, question mark, reading about points and miles, one can discern which blogs give the most helpful, least biased information to the readers. When the Amex Resi offer is best, you recommend it. When the highest chase offer is only in branch, you remind us. When the best Delta offer is with a phantom booking, you let us know. After all the years in the space and all those affiliate links and banking arrangements, you somehow remain true to your reader's best interests. That integrity does not

go unnoticed. So I just wanted to thank you for that. And to say that I think you're the indisputable best points and miles blog in the country. Well, you're tied with Dr. Fred, but let's not ruin the hyperbole i look forward to your podcast your posts and your awful dad jokes for many years to come cheers well thank you very much jane that's a very very kind words very kind words except for the part about greg's dad that was really mean uh but greg's dad jokes i You're developing your own. You've got two kids now at home. Oh, I do. I do. I do. And I definitely have some of the dad jokes for sure. So thank you very much though, Jane. I appreciate that. And that's definitely something that I think is important to

us. So obviously I think if you read and listen, you know, that's maintaining that kind of reputation matters more than a couple of credit card signups. For sure. For sure. All right. So what do we have next? What crazy, speaking of the Amex, Rezzy offer and Amex, what crazy thing did American Express do this week, Greg? Yeah. So Amex, you know that their super high-end platinum cards recently became higher end. They raised the annual fee from $5.50 to $6.95. And to make up for it, they added a whole bunch of coupons. They basically said, you'll get rebates for this, that, and the other thing.

And what they did crazy this week is they added two more coupons. And the one that I want to talk about is you now get a rebate for signing up for a monthly subscription to Walmart plus. What? What? Plus does that say ultra premium to you or what? Nothing says ultra premium, like scan and go at Walmart, right? I mean, free shipping, free shipping. For years, Amex has cultivated this impression of being the card that's like the high end, like you step out of a limo and you hand someone your platinum card. But now you're saying hi to the Walmart greeter and whipping out your platinum card. So I don't get it.

Yeah, the marketing angle there is what doesn't make any sense to me either. I totally agree because, listen, I shop at Walmart. So I'm a Walmart shopper. So I'm not anti-Walmart. And actually, I kind of like Walmart Plus. I got it for free because we wrote about deals to stack and actually made a little bit of money on the membership. And I like being able to walk in and scan stuff and then just go to the self-checkout and not scan stuff again. I scan it as I put it in my cart, walk to the self-checkout, scan the barcode, and I walk out and I'm done.

I don't have to put everything back on the, you know, up on the register again. So I kind of like that, but that is not. For those shopping online, it also gives you free shipping. It's a lot like Amazon Prime in that way. It's handy if you shop at Walmart or at walmart.com. It can be, although I don't know if you shop at walmart.com, it's kind of a pain because they have so many third-party sellers that finding something that's actually qualified for the free shipping can be kind of a pain depending on what you're looking for. So I don't find that benefit as good as I would like to, but I'm sure other people find it super easy to use. At any rate, I don't associate my trips to Walmart with the Amex Platinum card. That's the part that totally baffles me. I just don't get it. The people

who are paying $700 a year and value an Equinox credit every month are probably not the average Walmart shopper, right? Right. Right. No, I mean, so, you know, I get Amex's general approach to all this. What they're doing is they're partnering with all these sponsors basically and saying, you know what, we'll market your product to our high-end customers, but you have to pay for it basically. So these other things like SoulCycle and Equinox and all that, I'm sure Equinox is paying for those rebates that Amex is offering because they're getting all kinds of customers. Right. So it just makes sense. But it's just so weird. When Walmart approached Amex about this or God forbid Amex approached Walmart about this.

I mean, somebody should have taken a step back and said, is this the image that we want to convey? I mean, come on. It a step back and said, is this the image that we want to convey? I mean, come on. It's weird. It's weird. Though on the flip side, I say all that. And I don't want somebody from Amex to listen in and be like, okay, you know what, guys? We're only going to offer Equinox and SoulCycle type stuff from here on out. Because that's not what I want either.

Like, this is something I'll actually use. So I'm complaining about it. Not complaining about it. I'm criticizing it because it seems like a really weird marketing decision. If you're going to do that, put it on the everyday preferred or some sort of a card that, I don't know, it makes sense with. But on the flip side, I would rather they continue to add those. If it doesn't cost Amex anything and it gives me a benefit.

Hey, what do I care? I don't care about their brand. It's just crazy from a business point of view, I think. From a business point of view, it is kind of crazy. But from a customer point of view, whatever. I don't care about their brand image. Keep giving me credits, Amex. Keep giving me credits. Right. I mean, if you could use it, why not? And I'm betting that it'll be an opportunity to earn more money because there'll be other like portal deals and things for signing up for Walmart plus where now you could sign up and basically get it for free because of the platinum credits and still get whatever the portal deal is or if Walmart plus

is offering something directly, like some kind of, you know, free device or something. Sam's choice. Free breathing when you come in the door. Right. Maybe. But, but, but I mean, that's a great point. If you don't yet have Walmart Plus, I would totally wait because I bet as we get into the holiday sale season here, just in the next few weeks, there will be a shopping portal promo or something to entice you to sign up for Walmart Plus. So if you're not signed up yet, I'd hold off a few weeks and then use your platinum credit to take care of that. But yeah, I mean, I'm actually happy about it. It just seems nuts. I don't get it, but whatever.

Keep it coming, Amex. Keep it coming. All right. So then we should talk next about mattress running the numbers. And so this week's Mattress Running the Numbers, we have a week link in the Marriott Week of Wonders. What is weekly wonderful? Yeah. So Marriott is advertising for a very short time, 33% off of award redemption. So you use points. That sounds great, Craig. It sounds great. Yeah. Up to 33%. You need to book your hotel in the next three minutes or so. And you have to stay before the end of October. What? Not October next year, October this year, which we're recording this October 7th. So you've got three weeks. Who's going somewhere in October? Before we publish.

It's October. Who's going anywhere in October? I mean, like Columbus Day. Okay, maybe, I guess. People have a long weekend, maybe. But for the most part, who's got the time off to go anywhere in October? I have a bunch of travel planned in January.

And when I saw the headline of this offer, I was like, great, I'm going to, you know, rebook all my plans, maybe even move some of my Hyatt stays to Marriott in order to take advantage of this deal. But no, you know, not so much. I'd have to move my whole trip to October and that's not happening. You know, I have more travel in October than any other month of 2021. And I'm looking like that will be the case for the rest of this year. So it's actually the month where I would be most

likely to use this. And this morning I searched a couple of different cities, places where I need to stay in the coming weeks. And I haven't yet found a hotel that's at off-peak price. So I'm sure they're out there. But those 4,000, I mean, it only represents about half the portfolio. So I mean, it's probably not that surprising because I imagine the half of the portfolio that's on sale in October for 33% off is wherever you don't want to go in October. That's my bet. And let's be clear, the way they're doing the up to 33% off is they're taking properties that are normally peak or standard award priced and making them off peak for the next 10 minutes or three minutes, whatever I said before. And so the only one that's actually 33% off, I think anyway, is category one, the standard price is 7,500. So off-peak would be 5,000. So 2,500 points off. After that,

I think all the rest of them are less than 33%. So when it says up to 33%, it's like 33% if you book one of the nine category one properties in the United States and they happen to be part of the 4,000 that are on sale. So I don't even know if all nine of them are 5,000 points a night right now. So the one mattress running aspect to this that I think is worth mentioning is if you're close to Marriott Platinum status, which a lot of people are because of the way they rolled over nights from the year before in a weird way. If you are close to it and you don't have any Marriott stays planned, you might want to look for those category one Marriott, see if you can book some for 5,000 points a night

for five nights. Hopefully it's exactly five nights away because you'll get the fifth night free. So it'll be 20,000 points for five nights. And that's not a bad deal to get five elite nights credit. You'd have to actually check into the hotel to get that credit, but that might be worth considering. That's a great point. That's a great, that's something I should look to do actually, because I probably,

well, I'm at one, I'm, I'm in the position where I'm going to be close to titanium, but I don't know if I'm going to quite reach titanium re-qualifying. Are they rolling over our status? Well, they probably are, but you get another choice benefit. So you get potentially a 40K night. So if I knew that five nights would make the difference, then it'd be worth paying, to me, it'd be worth paying 20K for a 40K shirt.

You had this exact same situation last year, didn't you? You were trying to decide, should I go the extra night using a deal like this in order to get the choice benefit? And you were going to pick the 40K cert, right? Exactly. Yes. And so the question really came down to, is it worth spending 20,000 points for a 40K cert? And that's actually a tough question because it depends if you know you're going to use it well or not. Right, right. And this year, because so many of us are sitting on so many free night certificates, it feels

like a bad idea. But most of those free night certificates expire in the coming months. And whether or not any of them will get extended, blah, blah, blah, I don't know yet. And there are lots of situations. I mean, we've talked recently about how you found that 40K nights were worth more than the 50K nights, so to speak, in your searches when you figured out what Marriott points are worth and certificates. Now, we valued the 50K starts higher because they can book 40K nights. But what we came to, the conclusion we came to was that a lot of category five, 35,000 point per night properties are peak priced a lot of the time at 40,000 points. And that's when they're particularly good value. So 40K certs are

actually, I think a pretty valuable thing to have. So yeah, the problem is that last year I did that like the last week of December, I literally checked out on New Year's Eve. I think this time I would have to book a five nights day in October and hope that that's like those five nights are what makes the difference to get me to the extra 40 K cert. Right. So that's, that's a little trickier because I don't know for sure how many nights I'm going to stay the rest of the year. Right.

Right. That is tricky. Yeah. Tricky Mariette. Right, right. That is tricky. Yeah. Tricky, Mariette. Nice underhanded stuff. Let us know next week's show what you decided to do. We'll see. All right.

So then that brings us to the main event. Ooh, main event time. Yeah. So here's the thing. Chase has been repeatedly coming out with these mid-market cards in the last few years the most recent ones we just learned about the hyatt business card just came out $199 per year before that though not long before that the united quest card came out and that was uh help me now 250 250 250 um and uh let's see before that the southwest cards they have two mid-market cards right the business card with performance performance

business that's right 199 and the southwest priority card on the consumer side 149 right great value by the way so so we're defining just by the way, we're defining mid-market as like above a hundred bucks, less than 400, that kind of range. That's not a area that Chase previously had a lot of cards in, any cards in that I can remember. They didn't show any interest in it. It didn't seem like an area where they were interested in competing because they just kind of let Amex have that and didn't bother with any of their, even though they came out with new features on Ultimate Rewards cards, they didn't even try to come out with a mid-tier Ultimate Rewards card.

Right, right. Amex, meanwhile, has one of our favorite cards, the Amex Gold card, sitting there at $250 a year. They also have the Delta Platinum cards, which are for Delta flyers, a nice value as a mid-market card between the reserve at the high end and the gold at the low end. They've got their plum card at 250. They've got the business gold at 295. They have quite a large presence in that mid-market. They got the green card that's $150.

Yeah, they have quite a few in that range. Right, right. But now Chase is like, that's the market we want to be in, which is interesting because not long ago, we talked about how Aex was seemed to be clearly like making a play for the upper upper end right with right with with their what they're doing with the platinum cards with what they appear to be on the brink of doing with the with the marriott bonvoy brilliant card uh we've talked about rumors that that's going to go up to like $650 and so on. And we've also

talked about how Citi gone completely the other way. What they said is forget perks. We're not going to supply any perks to anyone for any reason. But what we're going to do is we are going to dominate the low end of the market with the most point earnings per dollar of like any suite of cards ever. I mean, they really hit a, I think, amazing sweet spot for those who are just out for bonus points on spend, right?

They've got their- Oh, for sure. Yeah. They've got their fee-free double cash, two points per dollar everywhere. And those points can be cashed out or turn into thank you rewards points. They've got the city- Custom cash. Oh, before you, I'm sorry.

The custom cash that's got the rotating 5X that rotates based on the category you spend the most in. So $500 a month, you can earn 5X, just kind of dedicate that as the dining card or the grocery card or whatever it might be that works for you and get your 5x on 500 a month super simple exactly exactly no fee on that card of course they they have amazing no fee collection the rewards plus which gives you among other things 10 rebate on points redeemed um and then in in the not free but but low-end market, the Premier card, which they revised. It's a $95 card. They revised to give it 3X for a whole slew of categories, including grocery and gas and more. Dining and yeah. Yeah, a whole slew of things.

And it provides also the ability to transfer points to airline partners. So I think they just made a very intentional play for that bottom market. And we actually, I have this memory of us talking about Chase seemed to be somewhere like not really committed to one way or the other. But now I feel like it's emerging what their, what their intent is. So, I mean, do you think that's the case? Do you think they're going after, you know, it's an interesting question because I was at the event the other day where they, you know, launched the new Hyatt card and somebody did ask them about what their thought process was

with the $199 price point. And basically, to summarize what Chase said between the lines was they said that they think business people are going to be willing to spend $200. Business people that are interested in Hyatt are going to be willing to spend $200. I mean, of course, they ran the, well, it's got the Hyatt credit, it's why it's the $50, whatever. I mean, they tried to make it sound like the card was valuable, but essentially they said they think the business owners will pay for it. And the interesting thing is that I think that when you look at a card like the Amex Gold card, for instance, the $250 fee comes with benefits like, you know, $120 a year potentially in Grubhub credit and $120 a year potentially in Uber Eats credit. And it comes with a grocery bonus. That to me is more like an everyman card, so to speak. That's a card that could appeal to anybody. It doesn't have to

be somebody who's a big spender, low spender, high income, low. It's like a very mid-tier for sure. I mean, it fits the label. The Hyatt business card does not fit the mid-tier label because you got to spend a lot of money on the card to make it worth having. That's true. That's true. Like a lot. You're going to spend like 50,000 or more. And even then it's like, it's a toss up whether it's better than their personal card, which

has only a $95 fee. Yeah. Right. So it's an odd, that to me was an odd choice because if you're going to go after the market that's spending that heavy, then give them an ultra premium of some sort. Or if you just want to pull in the business customers that are going to spend that heavy, why try and juice them for another $100? I mean, the $99 would probably be enough if they're counting on most people who get the card to spend $50,000 or $100,000 or more per year on the card. It was a weird choice to me.

Yeah. I found it weird too, especially because I feel like there are other attempts at mid-market cards have done, provide real value. They're compelling cards, right? Right. You look at the United Quest card, which comes with $125 United credit and two 5K award rebates per year i mean those things like plus you know free bags and various other things and and those things add up to where it's like if you're a united flyer you'll look at that 250 say i'll easily get that much value so why not you know why not get that card and keep it and i think you could make the same argument with the southwest cards it's hard to make that argument with the hyatt card very hard to make that argument with the Hyatt card. Very hard to make that argument with the Hyatt card. It's such a

weird pick. And I see where they were coming from, from a business standpoint. I mean, the card makes sense for Chase in the sense that it's not got very expensive benefits to offer. And it probably does draw in, I think, those people who have a legitimate business that spends a lot of money rather than those people that buy a lot of gift cards at Staples. And I think they're drawing their line in the sand and saying, we want the people who are spending $50,000 or $100,000 a quarter or a month or something like that on a legitimate business. We don't really care if you want to buy a lot of gift cards, but we're not like trying to get you, right? Like that's not who they're after. And so I think that probably that seemed disappointing for a lot of readers. But like I said, I get where Chase is

coming from, from a business standpoint. However, like what a niche within a niche within a niche that they're trying to capture here. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It just doesn't make, it's sort of like the Walmart thing. Like it doesn't seem to make business sense from my perspective. Me either, you know, and I love Hyatt and I know a lot of people who love Hyatt, a lot of business travelers who love Hyatt. But you know, I think ofatt. And I know a lot of people who love Hyatt, a lot of business travelers who love Hyatt. Yeah. But I think of the business owners I know who are spending that kind of money regularly, and most of them are working a lot.

They're not traveling to Hyatt all that often. They're working hard because they have that kind of business. One of the examples that the Chase exec gave me was someone who owns a landscaping business, who maybe spends a lot on gas one quarter and a lot on advertising another quarter. And I happen to have a few friends who own landscaping businesses and they're not going to Hyatt's. They're mowing lawns when it's time to mow lawns. And then they're hanging out and relaxing at home in the wintertime. Hyatt is not their priority. Now, obviously, I don't know every landscaper on earth and maybe some of them love Hyatt, but it just seemed like an odd market to go after.

Yeah. I mean, let's be even more specific. Even if you love Hyatt, there's no place for this card in your wallet, even your business wallet, because there are better Chase Ultimate Rewards cards where you can transfer the points to Hyatt. The only reason it deserves a place in your wallet is if you're committed to spending your way to top tier Hyatt status. That's the only reason. Yeah, really, that is it. And that, to me, seemed, again, just kind of weird that that's what they're going after. Because I feel like, so, I mean, we know that globalist status is the best hotel elite status out there.

And probably a lot of people listening have heard us say that. So if you don't know it for yourself, you know that that's an opinion that's widely held. But you're counting on how many business owners that A, know that high globalist status even exists. Like, let's go back to a time before I started reading blogs about miles and points. I didn't even know there was a club lounge in the hotel. Forget about that. There was a status that would get me free access to it. Oh, yeah. I remember checking into a hotel with

another guy from my company and they handed him like a gift bag full of stuff. And I was like, wait, why did he get that? And I didn't. And so I asked him about it. That's when I first learned about hotel elite status. I was like, wow, there're such a thing. Right. Yeah. Similar situation. I was at a hotel with a friend and he had club lounge access. And so he brought me in and I was like, what's this? I didn't know this floor was here. So, you know, so I have to imagine that we're not, you know, the oddballs there, but there are probably plenty of small business owners out there that have no idea what globalist status is or why it would matter.

And so you're trying to capture those few folks out there who have a business that are spending a lot of money, who know that Hyatt Elite status is worth it, who are going to put enough spend on the card and pay attention to it in order to earn Elite status

because you've got to be tracking and following how much you're spending and how many nights you have and blah, blah, blah. I mean, it seems very niche to me. Yes, I agree. Not terrible. It'll be interesting to see if we're right, it means that this card probably won't do very well. Like probably they'll get a lot of signups for the bonus, but people are going to cancel after a year.

I can imagine a lot will. That's my guess. But so curious here, you pointed out and I didn't, this didn't even dawn on me initially, but you pointed out that obviously chase has a bunch of these now, because I got the Southwest cards like this, the United card,

the Hyatt card, but they're all co-branded. So my first question is, is it chase pushing this middle tier 200 plus dollar card or 200 ish dollar card? Or is it the co-brands? Is it the partners that are pushing for something in that tier? Who do you think is like leading the charge there?

Yeah, it's hard to say. It's possible that what's happening is Chase might be discouraging them from going after the ultra high end because they're protecting their Sapphire Reserve cards market. a co-brand would have to do a tremendous amount. And by do a tremendous, I mean, give the customer a tremendous amount of benefit for the customer to see the Sapphire, see this new card as better than the Sapphire Reserve, right? Right. And so there might be some of that going on is my guess. I'm just kind of stabbing in the dark. You know, that's not a bad guess

because I did talk to both a representative from Chase and one from Hyatt separately and have conversations about, you know, that's, that's not a bad guess because I did talk to both a representative from chase and one from Hyatt separately and have conversations about, you know, are there going to be additional cards in the now world of Hyatt card family? And the responses that I got from both sides, now that you say that feels a little bit more like that. I mean, without getting into all the details, it feels a little bit more, and I didn't get any indication that anything was coming. And in fact, I think I got the opposite. I think I'm more so got the indication that there isn't going to be a luxury card coming at least anytime soon, but, but it would kind of line up with that guess that maybe it was Chase that was less interested in Hyatt, that was more interested in that. Right. That wouldn't surprise me. So let's talk about Chase's future. If this is a trend, right?

You mentioned how like we don't see any, it's all co-branded cards that so far. So a couple of questions. One is, do we expect to see a ultimate rewards card? So not a co-branded card in that middle market. What do you think? You know, do we expect to? No, I don't expect to. We should. Hello, Chase. Come on. Why not? You know, why not throw in a card that has a grocery bonus in that mid-tier category? I mean,

Citi's got the grocery bonus. Amex has a grocery bonus. Where are you at here? I mean, come on. That's a category that matters to people right now, I think. And I think that you could charge more for it. Amex has clearly shown that that will fly. So I would like to see that. I also would like to see some additional benefits on some of these cards. I'm not terribly impressed with the suite of benefits on either the $95 cards or the Sapphire Reserve at this point.

Now that Amex has added so many, even if we're going to joke about Walmart plus being an odd fit for Amex, the truth is that Amex continues to add more and more value and they keep adding more and more things. And while I didn't care about the New York times digital subscription or, you know, I don't know, what is it? Peacock or streaming? I don't know what the is, whatever that stuff is. I, you know, that stuff didn't matter to me, but surely it matters to some cardholders and they keep adding things like that. What is, what has Chase done for you lately? What have you done for me lately, Chase? What have you done for me? Right. Right. I think, I think they gave you, if you're a staffer preferred holder, like 50 bucks towards a prepaid hotel or something. Yeah, yeah. Thanks.

Thanks. Real generously there, Chase. Yeah, they gave that and they added what? Like 10x on Peloton or something, you know, in the temporary Peloton credit. Actually, you can earn 10x booking those prepaid hotels if you're paying if you're paying for them as opposed to redeeming points so there are some things they added but i agree it's not they didn't go as far um nearly as far as uh amex has with those kind of credits uh and they haven't with the co-branded cards apart from i think the southwest priority card is particularly good apart from the southwest priority card though even these mid-tiers i don't know i mean you mentioned the 125 united credit on the quest card but wasn't there a hoop you had to jump through in order to get that that was that automatic i don't know i feel like there was i feel

like there was some sort of a hoop i'll have to check it out now uh but but at any rate i don't feel like they were super compelling it wasn't like a oh, yeah, you're going to pay $250 a year and get $250 back. So maybe the quest is like that. And I feel like the priority, but less than that at all on the Hyatt business and the Southwest business isn't as good either. So I don't know. Is Chase just not really interested? Do they just want the money and they're not interested in actually competing? I don't know. I'm not sure. I'm a little confused. I mean, I think with those mid-tier ones, in my opinion, except for the Hyatt card, they're offering enough back so that if you fly that airline a lot and you value things like the free check bags or whatever the perks are that you normally get with these airline cards, you're getting enough back to say, okay, well, I'm getting basically the value of the

annual feedback, plus I'm getting these standard perks that go along with having the card for the airline that I frequently travel on. So I think that's a good trade-off. And I think that's similar to what Amex and Delta did with their platinum card. They say, okay, for $250, you get all those standard things, the free check bag and the priority boarding and blah, blah, but you also get a companion ticket each year. And so you could easily convince yourself that booking one round trip with a companion is worth, you know, at least the $250. And so that's your, that's your way of saying I get to have my airline card, my free check bags and all that essentially for free because I'm getting a rebate worth the annual fee. And I think, I think Chase has done that for most of those cards except for the Hyatt card.

That said, so if there's a trend here in that way with Chase, the co-branded cards going mid-market, what's next? I have a prediction. I was looking at their portfolio. There's space for more. Like IHG doesn't have a mid-market. I'm forgetting now what the other ones are. The British Airways and I plan card any moment now and look for a mid-market card. Very good. Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree with you. But what about on the ultimate rewards side? Do you see them coming out with a mid-market ultimate rewards card? I don't see it. I think that they had the opportunity many for many years to do it. Instead they've, they've doubled down on the cards they already have by adding new features and things that were actually very positive and surprising, like the freedom cards,

getting three X for dining and drugstore, um, that, you know, in my mind, refreshed that, that freedom brand. And they've continued to push hard to sell the, the ink business cards that exist now. And I, and they're, they're very strong cards in my opinion. So I don't think I would love to see one, but I don't think it's going to happen. Yeah. Yeah. I would love to see one too. I'm, I'm disappointed that they haven't made an effort there. Um, and I find it curious that they haven't made an effort with their own cards, but have with these co-branded cards. But like you said, there's still room for more and maybe that'll be intriguing. I don't know. What about a Marriott mid-tier do you think we'll ever see a marriott mid-tier card because i mean you got amex and chase both i mean amex obviously

is interested in mid-tier cards but do they both get one does one get one or the other is there something to balance it out i mean we talked about recently how um so chase and amex both carry marriott cards, and they had to basically make a deal, a three-way deal between them and Marriott that Amex would have the ultra premium card and Chase, and the ultra premium and the business card, and Chase would have the sort of consumer regular card. And if, as you're sort of suggesting, if there appeared a mid-market one, how would they decide?

Maybe one of them would get a business card and the other one would get a personal card, I guess, is one way they could do it at the mid-market. Unless they introduce both, it seems unlikely that they could come to a deal on that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, That's very, very interesting. And by the way, I, I, I was incorrect before when I said there was a hoop to jump through, I thought for the $125 credit, $125 credit on the United quest card, you absolutely are right about how that works. It's the 5,000 mile rebates that, uh, that I had had

in mind have a hoop in the sense that you only get those credits after anniversary. So you have to pay for another year in order to get the credits, but still between the $125 and those two things, it does, like you said, balance out. And that's been the thing. And I think that's where the disappointment is with the Hyatt card, that most of these other $200, $250 cards, I guess, do kind of give you enough value back that you at least feel like you're paying about the same as a regular credit card or that you're coming out as a wash. And I don't feel that way at all on the new business card. You're just paying to be able to spend to a lease. Yeah. I mean, they have this thing,

the Hyatt business card has this thing where if you spend $50,000 in a calendar year, you get 10% pack on your award stays for the rest of that calendar year, up to $20,000 max. 20,000 points back. 20,000 points back. Thank you. Up to 20,000 points max. Yeah. Up to 200,000 points spent, which equals 20,000 points max. Yeah. Up to 200,000 points spent, which equals 20,000 points back. And that's kind of crazy.

I can't think of any other benefit that's like that where they're encouraging lots of spend fast. Because if you finish that spend end of December, you're out of luck. You can't use it. If you have a stay that spans, goes from December to January 1st, you can't use it. Because it's when you check out that you get the benefit and you haven't earned that benefit for the next calendar year yet that i think that was a big mistake on their part because that 20k a year uh rebate if you could have counted on that um that would have i think that would have more than paid for the card for a lot of people but as it's as it's done right now it just is a nonsensical you know weird thing to try to convince people to spend really fast in the beginning of the year and then stop spending on it at all. Yeah. I mean, I think that their perspective, again, I don't think that they were looking for customers who are going to take 11 months to spend $50,000. They're looking for people who are going to be spending that early in the year, but even still, even if you spend it

in the first few months of the year, you're counting on having to redeem 200,000 points for a stay that's completed within the next eight or nine months. And we all know plans change. I mean, my goodness, if we've learned anything over the last year or two, it's a I don't know if my vacation six months from now is set in stone. So I think it's hard to count on getting those points back because of the way that is. You're totally right. But like I said, Chase is clearly going after people who are going to spend that $50,000 in the first couple of billing cycles or certainly within the first half of the year. And in fact, in both the press release and at the event, they pumped up the fact that you could earn globalist status by spending just $60,000 between now and December 31st. So they're talking about

$60,000 spend in what, like 10-ish weeks or so being just $60,000 in the next 10 weeks. And to be clear, the reason you get globalists is because with that spend is they halved the requirement this year for globalist status. So this year you only need 30 nights. Normally you need 60 to get to their top tier elite status. And the card sort of gives you half. So if you're spending 60,000, you know, you're getting 30 elite nights out of that. So sort of think of it as how many 10,000s did you spend? And anyway, you could do the math, but you get five per 10,000 spent. Right. Right. Exactly. So you could, yes, manufacture global status. But I thought it was interesting that they pumped that. A, the amount of spend in the amount of time between now and the end of the year seemed like an odd thing to pump.

And then the fact that they were advertising it as though, okay, you have zero loyalty to Hyatt so far because you don't have any nights so far. You can get yourself top tier status with $60,000 spend. You would think that the example they would give is somebody who has some nights in Hyatt already because you already like Hyatt if you're going after the Hyatt business card, but I don't know, it was all kind of weird. Right. And if you, if you complete that, that 50 K of that 60 K spend before the end of the year, then you'll get a week of rebate, which you could spend on December 29th. Right. Right. Right. Weird, weird, weird. Yeah. Anyway. And in fact, by the way, they did tell me what, cause I initially, the first question I asked was whether there was

exactly what I asked word for word. First question of the press event was, is there a cap on the 10% rebate and how does it work? If you reach $50,000 spent in November and your award stay isn't until the following March, you get the rebate. And so the cap didn't get mentioned until the next day we found out about the cap. But the, the way that it was explained was no, you would not get the rebate because you only get the rebate on stays completed in the same calendar year that you spend 50,000.

So they said, so make sure you hurry up and spend 50,000 at the beginning of the next year. So you can get your rebate on March day. So they clearly are pushing. There you go. All right. So,

all right. I think to post roast. So I'm sure you don't have anything for post roast. So, oh, he's prepared this week. I'm prepared. I'm prepared.

Sort of, sort of prepared. I have a pre post roast. Pre post roast. You've roasted something something I haven't even posted yet. No, no, that's not what it means. It'll all come clear to you soon. Don't worry. Okay. I'm waiting. So you published a post about Capital One moving their transfers to one-to-one. So previously, they had some transfer partners where you could transfer

capital one miles in quotes to airline miles one-to-one. They had others that were what? One and I don't know. Two to one and a half. And then others that were two to one. Yeah. And so big news this week. They moved almost all of them to one-to-one, which is fantastic.

That's not what I'm roasting you about. Go back in time a little bit. And Capital One reached out to us and said, we have this news for you that will be embargoed until Thursday morning. Do you accept the embargo? And Nick said, yes, send it to us. Send us the information. This is routine. We do this all the time. They sent us information in return for us promising not to publish until the go ahead. And typically that happens just a few days in advance. We don't usually know things like far in advance when it happens. I don't want people to think that we always know that like two months from now, this is going to change. No, it's not. That's actually a really good point.

I think a lot of people sort of assume that we're in the know of things and we're not, it's usually like, okay, tomorrow, this is going to come out. Would you like to find out today? Right, right, right. Okay. So, so, so what Nick should have said instead of yes, is we'll agree to your conditions. If you give Greg his capital one miles back because you closed down his account for no reason whatsoever took all his points away and only gave him half a cent per point value what's with that we're not going to play ball with you until

until you make this right that's what and instead instead And instead, he said, I emailed Greg and I said, they're just trolling you now. You did. And they are. They're like, we're going to keep making the program better and better because Greg cannot play in this game. Rub Greg's nose in it. You know what, Greg? We're going to make it better and we're going to tell you about it before we do. So that's, yeah.

Yeah. I'm glad you brought up capital one though, because I was going, I meant to make this point. I forgot about it. That when we talked about how city has gone after like the low end of the market, so to speak, I feel like capital one is starting to, you know, make some headway there and steal city's low end. And so, you know, because now the only airline that's not one-to-one is EVA. It's two to 1.5 still. And Le Club Accor, the hotel partner is still two capital one miles to one Le Club Accor point. Cause those points are worth like 2.2 cents each or something weird like that. So it's a revenue based program. Gary left made a great point. Actually, I think when he said that

they should probably just get rid of those two partners because nobody really probably cares about them anyway. And it would make it much simpler to just say it's all one-to-one. And I hate to tell them to get rid of partners, but that made sense to me. When I read that sentence, I was like, yeah, that would make it a lot easier because then I could just be like, oh, they're all one-to-one rather than being like, well, most of them are one-to-one except these two that you're probably not going to use. Yeah. well, I will say that a core one is kind of interesting in that it's the one place where for a revenue stay, like a cash rate stay, you can use your capital one points

at slightly better than one cent per point to pay for that stay. And that's if you're staying in a core property, which I think includes Fairmont hotels, then when you're staying in an ECCOR property, which I think includes Fairmont hotels, then when you're checking out, you could use like a, I think it's a, I don't know. You get like a gift card or something to pay with. But the point is it's two euros per point value.

Or because of the transfer ratio, that's like one euro cent, not Euros, Euro cents per capital one mile, it works out to. And because Euro cents are worth more than US cents, you're getting slightly better value. It's more of a wonky, nerdy thing than anything that you're right. I doubt anyone has actually done it. Right. Right. And that's the thing. It's like, who's actually going to use that? I mean, I've looked a couple of times now, but then I've also been kind of like, I don't know. I haven't stayed at these places. Am I going to even like it? And I'm going to transfer these points. I got to figure out this complicated system. So if I feel that way about it,

goodness knows the average Capital One cardholder is not more confident, probably. I'm sure there are exceptions out there. There are several people out there right now saying, oh my goodness, you've been ignoring this program. We got that email just recently where somebody was like, why do you ignore a CoreLib Limitless?

This is such a good program, blah, blah, blah. And I don't have a good answer. Maybe I should dig into it more deeply. But at any rate, all of that said, let me get back to my point. My point was that Capital One now has a $95 card that earns two true airline miles per dollar with a unique set of transfer partners that is better than Citi's transfer partners. And so you have a good set of partners, two miles per dollar with the Venture or the Spark miles, and then the cash back cards that are in 4% in some categories, you can transfer that cash back

to your venture card and use them as miles as four miles per dollar. So really, I mean, for a cheap end card system, capital one would be a great system. If you could apply and know that they're not going to take all your points away and renew them all for half a cent each. That's the problem. Right, right. Yeah. Well, and also that you could get approved. It's not that easy for a lot of us to get approved as well, which at least until recently was different with Citi, but Citi's gotten harder too, so who knows? But yes, you have a good point that they're coming on strong on that low end transferable points market. Absolutely. They are. And there's obviously been rumors that they'd come out with a luxury card and let me be clear, like I said before, we don't know those kinds of things far in advance. So I am not speaking from any kind of inside knowledge here, but it would make sense

to me that if they're going to open these airline lounges or these airport lounges rather, and they've been kind of weird about talking about pricing or access. I kind of feel like there's gotta be a luxury card coming, right? Cause that's gotta be what the difference is going to be in terms of access to the lounge that maybe the ultra premium card holders will get free access or a certain number of times or a certain discount and people with a venture card will get a different deal is my thought. Otherwise they would just have said when it's going to be, I would think so. So I feel like there's a decent chance that a luxury card is coming or maybe it'll be mid-market. We'll see. Yes, we'll see.

All right. All right. So speaking of pre post roast, funny enough, I have a pre post roast too, because this week we got the world of Hyatt business card information, like literally a couple of hours before the media event that I went to. And so I woke up early in the morning to this email, kind of all blurry eyed, you know, kind of shaking out the cobwebs. And I looked at it and I was like, wow, this kind of looks like garbage. And I basically emailed you saying that. And in your email back, you said this could be very nice for big spenders who value globalist

status and redeem lots of Hyatt points. But then a day later, you write a post or two days later saying that this is really disappointing. Which is it, Greg? Is it great for people who want globalist status or is it disappointing? It is mostly disappointing. And the difference is that our early morning information was wrong. We thought the 10% rebate that you could spend your way up to was uncapped. And so I thought, well, for people spending big to earn high elite status anyway, then if they redeem lots of points, which they'll have because they did all that spend, if they redeem lots of points, they could do really well with it. But yeah, was not to be.

So it's still a good card for those who are going to spend that much anyway towards Hyatt status. But if you're not planning to do that, I don't see this for anybody. Yeah, yeah. Only in combo. I think only in combo with the personal card and not in place of the personal card and not instead of having an ink cash or an ink business preferred or whatever. This is like a also have kind of a thing. And the thing that I think-

I'm going to, wait, wait, wait. I'm going to argue a little different. So if you know you want to spend your way to status every year, The every year thing is important because the personal card, if you decide one year not to do it, it still gives you the free night certificate that's worth more than the annual fee. But if you're going to spend your way to status every year and you don't have any Hyatt card yet, then you're trying to decide between the business or the personal. The business has a better welcome bonus and it won't add to your chase 524 count. That is, you won't be able to get it maybe if you already have more than five cards that you've signed up for in the past 24 months, but if you get approved for it, it won't add to that count. So there's a reason why some people might prefer to get the business card. Good point.

Again, if they're going to spend that much every year. Well, you know, and I think that that highlights something that I didn't touch on really in the post at all. And in hindsight, I should have, and I don't think that necessarily you hammered this home either is the fact that this is another 75,000 Hyatt points on the table that weren't on the table a week ago. So if you're somebody who mostly values the chance to redeem your chase ultimate rewards points for Hyatt, well, great. Look at it as another 75 K bonus. Yeah. This one

costs a little bit more, but you know, so it costs a hundred dollars more than what you would have expected it to cost as a co-branded card, but it's another 75,000 Hyatt points well worth the $199 annual fee, even if you don't value much else at all about the card. So I think from that standpoint, it's worth it. It helps you keep 75,000 chase ultimate rewards flexible for a little bit longer because you won't have to transfer them over right away for your next Hyatt stay. So I think from that perspective, the card is like, okay, that's a reasonable bonus. It's much better than this garbage on the personal card of like two points per dollar on the first 15 K spend, you already would have gotten two points per dollar on the first 15k spend

you already would have gotten one point per dollar so it's like one extra point for 15k spend it's like a ridiculous 45 000 point offer on the personal card so it's better from that perspective yes yes oh absolutely good good good addition right right so anyway all right all right so then question of the week this week's question of the week is a question that i know you're going to give me a uh i don't know and i'm going to say be greg the frequent miler for a minute be greg the frequent miler for a minute and try to do better than i would at answering the question and then number two i'm going to tag on to it really this is going to come with a request this is going to be and so the request

is coming in a second. I'm disliking this already. So not only do I have to answer a question that I know I can't answer, but then I have to do some kind of favor or something. I'm just going to leave now. So one person after another has asked some variation on the MX Resi offer sounds great. The 15X small businesses, you guys have talked about it a lot, but how the heck do I know that my purchases are earning 15X at small businesses? How do I know which ones are which? Because it's really hard to tell. Even if you know where to dig into the information,

how do people know whether their purchase at this place or that place coded as a small business purchase, Craig? And when you tell me you don't know, the request is going to be, can you make a frequent miler spreadsheet for this? There must be a spreadsheet, right? That you can make to put your purchases in and figure it out, right?

Right. So the trick is to dig up, the first part of the trick is dig up Nick's post from the previous best platinum offer, which was the 10X offer. And where he talked about how to find that you're earning 9X because you really are, but it's not obvious. So there's a way to see these like 9X bonuses in your account. Which would be 14X bonuses on the Rezzy offer. Which would be 14X with the Rezzy offer. Thank you. Um, but it's, it is hard to tie them to specific purchases. So you have to kind of divide the number by 14 and say, okay, um, do I have any purchases or, or set of purchases that add up to that number divided by 14? Um,

and then you can, you know, if you don't have that many purchases all the time, you might, you probably can work that out. But if you have lots of purchases, it could get pretty complicated. I bet it probably would get pretty complicated, but can't there be a spreadsheet for this? I mean, it wouldn't be perfect because you're right. If you have like a whole bunch of a hundred dollar purchases, you're not going to know which hundred dollar purchase is which one. So that's not going to work. They're going to have to be different amounts in order for it to work. But, or, or you're just going to see, okay, well, one of these, or, you know, six of these eight purchases earned the bonus and you're not going to know which two didn't earn the bonus. I don't think. Right. But there should probably be able to, or be a way to make a spreadsheet to at least narrow it down. Right. But there should probably be able to, or be a way to make a spreadsheet to at least narrow it down. Right. Yeah. I'm probably, although, you know, the way I think I would approach it is,

is on a day when, on a day when I'm not like spending the card a lot on other things, like make a small purchase at whatever the place is that you're wondering about if possible solution. Yeah. And, and then wait and see if it showed up and then say, oh, okay, now I'm going to go back and buy a car from them, you know, instead of just the hubcap that I bought the other day. Exactly. That's the simple solution. I, I, I agree. And I think if I were looking to spend 15,000 or 25,000 all in one shot, that's for sure what I would do. I want to know that that's the one and do it that way. But if you're just looking in general to find out whether this dry cleaner,

you know, coded as small business or that forest or whatever, it might start to get tedious. If you don't want to make a bunch of really big purchases, you just want to know in general, which ones are working, which ones are, that's kind of, there's just not a good way. Yeah. There isn't, unfortunately. So sorry, all the people who've been asking. It seems like the answer is no. And please, people, don't comment that Amex has a website showing you all the small businesses. That website is, I guess it'll confirm.

So if you find a small business on there, I think that'll confirm, make you pretty sure that you will get the 15X. But the lack of it being there means nothing. No, it doesn't mean anything at all. Nothing at all. There are so many purchases that go to small businesses that are not on Amex's small business website. So yeah, the website's not. And it's too bad because I think a lot of people probably think, because from the volume of comments we get about that map, I think there must be a lot of people out there that think that that map is it. And so I bet there are people that have missed the Rezzy offer because they're like, oh, well, these things around me don't code a small business.

And it is, like you said, it's logical, it's reasonable. You would think that that map, oh, look, they've got a tool. I think MX even encourages people to look there for their small businesses. And if that's what you've been focusing on, then you've potentially been missing out because there are lots of other places that'll work. Right, right, right. I mean, I've had big financial transactions code small work. Right, right, right. I mean, I've had financial, big financial transactions code, small business. So you just never know. You just never know. There you go.

All right. Well, unfortunately we are out of time for today. So if you've enjoyed what we've been talking about and you'd like to get posts about all of these things in your inbox each day or each week, you can go to frequentmiler.com slash subscribe to get on our email list.

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Thanks, everybody. Bye now.