Frequent Miler on the Air - Wells Fargo One Key+™ Mastercard | Card Talk Ep2 | 8-8-24

Episode Date: August 8, 2024

There's a rewards program that's in common between Expedia, Hotels.com and VRBO. As a rewards program, it was fairly disappointing, but does that mean Wells Fargo's new One Key+ card is also going to be disappointing? We'll talk about it in today's Card Talk episode... (01:50) - Noteworthy perks of the Wells Fargo One Key+ card... (04:02) - Is the Wells Fargo One Key+ a good card? Read more about the Wells Fargo One Key+ card here (08:42) - Good alternatives to the Wells Fargo One Key+ card Find our Best Category Bonuses resource here (09:30) - Read more about the Citi Strata Premier card here (10:25) - Read more about the Citi Double Cash card here (11:44) - You could get other Wells Fargo cards as well... Learn more about Wells Fargo cards here Visit frequentmiler.com/subscribe to get updated on in-depth points and miles content like this, and don’t forget to like and follow us on social media. Music Credit – Beach Walk by Unicorn Heads

Welcome to Card Talk, the show where we help you decide if this credit card belongs in your collection. Today's Card Talk, Wells Fargo One Key Plus MasterCard. Now, before we dive into this card, I want to remind people what One Key is. So there's a rewards program that's in common between Expedia, Hotels.com, and VRBO. And we all kind of were pretty disappointed by it because it replaced a good rewards program that Hotels.com offered before that. And now, I guess it's good that you have one program across all three, but it's not nearly as rewarding as the old one. However, we're not talking just about that rewards program now.

We're talking about the credit card that was launched by Wells Fargo called the OneKey Plus. Because it's not just about OneKey. It's OneKey Plus some other things, I guess. We'll talk about what those things are in a second. But for starters, it's a card with a $99 annual fee. some other things, I guess. We'll talk about what those things are in a second. But for starters, it's a card with a $99 annual fee, no foreign transaction fees. So that's always nice. The earning rate, 3% at Expedia and Hotels.com and VRBO. Also 3% at gas stations, grocery stores, restaurants, and food delivery, and 2% everywhere else. Now, when I say the 3%, you might say, oh, well, I went to the landing page and it said 9% at Expedia or whatever it's saying there for the

percentages that they advertise. They're including the percentage that you'll get, like if you have elite status with one key from Expedia, no matter what credit card you use. So it really earns 3% is what it is on Expedia and hotels.com and VRBO. And again, gas stations, grocery stores, restaurants. But that's not all. What's the plus, Greg? All right. So it does have a number of perks.

First up, automatic gold status with OneKey. So that's part of where you're getting extra rewards because you get that gold status. And so you're going to earn more rewards when you pay for stays and flights and things on one key. The gold status gives you 4% back at hotels.com and Expedia. And they advertise with savings of 20% or more on over 10,000 hotels worldwide. I have no idea how accurate that is in that statement, but theoretically you'd save at some set of hotels. And you supposedly also get upgrades and VIP access

at certain properties. And there is free one key price drop protection on flights. So I could see that being pretty valuable. Sure. Yeah. I mean, if that works as well as it sounds like it could, that could be a great perk. Yep. But that's not all. That's not all. There's more plus. Give us the rest of the plus. There are other perks. You get $100 of one key cash as an anniversary bonus. So each year that you renew, basically you're paying $99, getting $100 back in one key cash.

So you could use that for hotels and things. Which is not to be confused with cash. Don't confuse it with cash because it's definitely limited. But still, if you spend a decent amount on these things, if you're not spending a decent amount on Hotels.com and Expedia, VRBO, you shouldn't even be listening to this show. Right. Right. We'll get a different card. If not true. So you also get a hundred dollar global entry or pre TSA pre-check credit. It has, it offers trip insurance, primary rental car insurance and and cell phone protection,

up to $1,000 per claim and only a $25 deductible, which is pretty darn good. Yeah, I think that's about the best you'll do in terms of a deductible on cell phone insurance. Most card issuers have a deductible of either 50 or $100. So 25 is pretty notable for Wells Fargo on that. All right, so all that out of the way, all of the various one key benefits and one key plus sort of a thing what do you think is this a good card it's it's sort of you know um tim wrote a review on our blog about this card and i didn't even read it at first because i have such a negative opinion about one key as a rewards program mainly because of how much more I like the hotels.com rewards. But I was surprised that he, it was kind of a positive review. And his conclusion is basically

one that I totally agree with, which is that if, and only if, you are really into these, you know, websites, if you, if you'd like to book travel through Expedia, hotels.com, VRBO, then yeah, it's a pretty solid card, especially as a single solution. And what I mean by that is you can definitely do better by getting cards that, you know, one card that, that is very rewarding at gas stations, another card that's very rewarding at grocery stores and so on. But if you just want one, the nice thing here is you get three percent back gas grocery restaurants and two percent back everywhere else. So it has a nice like default amount, but you have to value those rewards. And that's where my hesitation comes because I wouldn't personally want this as my one card because I just don't book through

those sites often enough to make it worth it. Well, and so I don't know if maybe it's worth talking about why you don't, but before we even get into that, I think it's important to note that if you're looking at this and you say, well, you guys like the Citi Double Cash and that earns 2% everywhere, right? So what's the difference? This earns 2% everywhere and 3% in some places that the Double Cash doesn't. And the difference is, of course, that this is in one key cash. So the return you're getting is quote-unquote cash, like monopoly money that you can only use at Expedia and hotels.com and VRBO. So if you find a great hotel and the best prices on Marriott.com, well, you can't book that. You got to book

whatever the Expedia rate is. And so that's part number one, why we don't value that as like it's two or 3% cash back. And so then I say, okay, well, you get the Robinhood gold card and get 3% back everywhere in cash. And of course, then you got to pay for Robinhood Gold. So there's a discussion as to whether that's worth it or not, I guess, in terms of that versus paying $99 for this and getting $100 in one key cash. But that's, I think, problem number one that both of us would have in terms of us getting invested in it. But then, you know, like Greg's talking about the rewards program not being super appealing. And it's because you are pigeonholed in paying whatever the price is on Expedia and Hotels.com and VRBO, which isn't always going to be the best. Sometimes it will be, but it won't always be the best. And

in fact, in many cases, it isn't the best price. And so, you know, then you're not really getting the full value out of those rewards. And so, yeah, I'm not particularly excited about this. Like you said, if you do spend your money most of the time booking through those platforms, maybe you book a lot of boutique hotels, then, you know, okay, great. But if you're going to have any loyalty to a chain, then you obviously wouldn't want to be booking through those third party OTAs anyway, and then this card really wouldn't be for you. Yeah. And, you know, one area where I can see it being worth it, even for someone who doesn't shop through those sites that often, would be if these gold status benefits were really good. I'm very, very skeptical about that. But if you really were getting 20% of a discount on hotels compared to the best you could find

elsewhere, which is, that's the main asterisk there, right? Because when I say 20% off, I mean, like 20% off some, you know, advertised rate, but the, but, you know, and any kind of club thing might have a better rate. And so anyway, so if it's really 20 percent better than you could easily, you know, this card could easily be worth it if you just stay at a hotel, you know, even once a year, probably it would be it could be worth it. But again, I'm skeptical about that. It is nice, though, to see it have trip insurance and the global entry or TSA pre-check credit. I mean, it's got some decent benefits for what is a relatively cheap card,

even if you don't value one key cash at a hundred percent, which you shouldn't, as we're saying, it's still pretty cheap to get some decent benefits and good cell phone insurance. So it's not necessarily a terrible card, but what would you recommend somebody use instead? If somebody was like, okay, well, I hear you're not too hot on this card. So what would I consider instead of it? If you really want to maximize all your bonus categories, then you can kind of pick and choose across a whole set of cards. We have a post on, you know, what's the best card to use where, and we'll have a link to it in the, in the show notes. But the idea is you, you could put together a wallet of like a bunch of different cards, a lot of them with no annual fee that would get better than, you know, two or 3% rewards that we're talking about mostly with this card. But what if you just want like a really simple

solution? And, and that's really what's kind of nice here is you're getting a lot of good rewards without any fuss. A good easy option, it's still going to be two cards, but it starts with a City Strata Premier card because it closely mirrors the category bonuses of this one-key card. I was going to say one key plus for some reason. In that it also gives three points per dollar at grocery and dining and gas stations. But it also does three points per dollar for flights, hotels and travel agencies in general. It's not limited to like Expedia, for example. And if you book through Citi's travel right, if you like the City Strata Premier solution, add on a Citi double cash because it earns the same kind of points. They both earn Citi thank you rewards points. And if you like cash back, you could just cash them out as cash back. The double cash is no annual fee and gives you 2% everywhere. But if you like the fact that they're

transferable points, that's where this solution far exceeds the one key one, because now you can transfer your city points to various airline and hotel partners and book awards that would give you potentially much, much higher value for your rewards. Yeah, that could be a great combination. So that would give you very similar 2% and 3% back. If you want to keep it as cash, you can take it as cash or you could transfer it on a partner. So I would certainly be more excited about that combination. Although you would be missing out on some of the side perk, you know, sort of plus benefits of the Expedia card. The cell phone protection, for instance, is much better on the Wells Fargo cards. I don't even know if the Strata Premier has cell phone protection. I don't think the Double Cash does. So if they do, they

certainly aren't going to be a $25 deductible. I think Wells Fargo is the only of the major credit card issuers that I know of that has that low of a deductible. So there are some reasons, I guess, you might be interested in that. So the Citi Solution B1, there's also, you could combine a couple of other Wells Fargo cards. If you really like Wells Fargo, you can get yourself an Autograph Journey, an Autograph, an Active Cash, and a Tune. If you want to get really crazy there,

you can have a few different Wells Fargo cards. If you like the Wells Fargo ecosystem or website, or you have some sort of affinity for Wells Fargo, you could also meet or exceed the return with a Wells Fargo centric wallet also. Yeah. And then I guess you would get the Wells Fargo cell phone protection,

which I don't know if these cards have as good of a coverage. I think they do. I think they do. Yeah, I think they do. Wells Fargo's for years had $25 deductibles on their cell phone insurance. And then they're like no annual fee cards. If I remember correctly, the insurance has usually been up to about $600,ibles on their cell phone insurance. And on there, like no annual fee cards.

If I remember correctly, the insurance has usually been up to about $600, but on their cards with an annual fee, it's been up to a thousand. So I think that's pretty standard. If I remember correctly, I don't have it in front of me, but it would be worth looking into if that's a benefit that matters. All right. I think that wraps this up for today, right? Yep.

Sure does. If you want more information about this card, don't forget you can find a direct link to our site in the show notes. Just expand the description box to find a link to our site. That's frequentmiler.com. You can join our email list at frequentmiler.com slash subscribe, and we'll see you next time.