DansDeals.com

You can now automatically earn triple points with your Chase Sapphire Preferred card on all dining on every first Friday of the month at least through the end of the year.  Together with the 7% annual dividend that means 3.21 points per dollar.  Spend $100 in a restaurant and you’ll get 300 points on your next statement plus 21 points in your annual dividend.

That’s nice, but at least for today and the first Friday in June (the 7th) you’ll be better off using your Chase Freedom card which is offering 5 points per dollar on all dining from now through June 30.  Spend $100 in a restaurant and you’ll get 500 points on your next statement (though sometimes the 5% doesn’t post until the 2nd statement).  Registration is required for the Freedom 5 point categories which include dining, movie theaters, and Lowe’s purchases through June 30. Spending is limited to $1,500 per Freedom card per quarter.

Plus if your card is linked for Chase Exclusives with a Chase checking account you’ll either earn an extra 10 points per transaction plus a 0.1 points per dollar monthly bonus.  Spend $100 in a restaurant with the old Exclusives program and you’ll have 520 points on your next statement.  Or you will get a 0.5 points per dollar annual bonus with the new Exclusives program.  Spend $100 with the new Exclusives program in a restaurant and you’ll get 500 points on your next statement plus 50 points in your annual dividend.

Personally I’m still in the old Exclusives program, but Chase said they will send me a letter when I am transitioned to the new program.

Bear in mind that if you are outside of the US that you would do better with Sapphire Preferred as that has no foreign exchange fees while Freedom will sock you with a 3% fee.  Also you or your wife need a Sapphire Preferred, Ink Bold, or Ink Plus card to transfer points earned on the Freedom card into airlines or hotels.

Related post: Reconsideration For Those Without The Gift Of Gab (Don’t just give up after you are denied!)
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Chase has really stepped up their credit card offers in recent years.  The signup bonuses and credit card spending multiples have really stolen the thunder of one-time wundercards like the Starwood American Express that couldn’t be matched.

Here’s a quick roundup:

-Chase Ink Bold and Chase Ink Plus business cards.
Signup bonus: Both of these cards give a whopping 50,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points each for spending $5,000 within 3 months. You should easily be able to get a value of at least 1.9 cents for your Ultimate Rewards points, making the signup bonus worth $950. Ink Plus is a credit card and Ink Bold is a charge card. I’ve been able to get both approved due to that with one call to Reconsideration.

They both have no annual fees for the first year, no foreign transaction fees, and 2 free lounge visits per year (even for free additional user cards!)

But even more importantly you earn 5 points per dollar at office supply stores, where you can find hundreds of gift cards to other online and retail stores. And that’s besides for 5 points per dollar on telecom, cable, and internet as well as 2 points per dollar on gas and hotels.

50,000 signup points and 5 points per dollar earning makes the Ink cards a must-have for any mileage junkies.  While the $5,000 spend in 3 months may sound daunting for some, between Amazon Payments, Vanilla Reloads, or even buying Visa gift cards (which work on Amazon Payments as well) or store gift cards from office supply stores with 5x points, it’s really not all that difficult.  Even if you pay your federal taxes via a credit card for a 1.88% fee, you’ll be coming out way ahead thanks to the generous signup bonus.

Read more about getting business cards and the credit benefits of using business cards in this post.

Read more about the awesome Chase Ultimate Rewards program in this post. Points transfer to some of the best airlines and hotel programs out there.

-Chase Sapphire Preferred
Signup bonus: 40,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points for spending $3,000 within 3 months. The annual fee is waived for the first year.
You should easily be able to get a value of at least 1.9 cents for your Ultimate Rewards points, making the signup bonus worth $760.

Sapphire Preferred offers a 7% points dividend every February for the previous year’s purchases, effectively making the card earn at least 1.07 points per dollar spent. You will also earn 2.14 points per dollar spent on restaurants, airfare, hotels, car rentals, charges in airports, travel agencies, caterers, timeshares, trains, buses, taxis/limos, ferries, bridges, tolls, and parking. There are no foreign exchange fee.
You can convert the card into a World Mastercard that gives free CDW coverage on rental cars in Israel.

-Chase Southwest Visa Signature
Signup bonus: 50,000 Southwest points for spending $2,000 within 3 months.
There are 4 versions of this card, each giving 50,000 points that are accessible under the “Additional Southwest Airlines Credit Cards.” They include a consumer and business premier card with a $99 annual fee that have higher annual bonuses and no foreign exchange fees and a consumer and business plus card with a $69 annual fee that have lower annual bonuses and charge foreign exchange fees.
When used for flights points are worth roughly 1.9 cents each and when used for gift cards points are worth 1 cent each, making making the signup bonus worth anywhere between $500 and $950.
If you collect 110,000 Southwest points in a year from select sources, including all points from Southwest credit cards, you can to bring along a companion for free on all of your Southwest (and Southwest coded Airtran) flights for the remainder of the year and for the entire following year. That’s good on paid flights and on award flights, so you can effectively get twice the value out of your points earned.  And award changes and cancellations are free, as are your checked luggage.
Read this post for more info on the Southwest program and various options for the points for non-flyers, such as store gift cards.

-Chase British Airways Visa Signature
Signup bonus: 50,000 BA Avios for spending $1,000 within 3 months.
You should easily be able to get a value of at least 1.3 cents for your Avios, making the signup bonus worth $650.
With short-haul flights starting at just 4,500 Avios you can get a lot of free travel from your Avios. Plus BA doesn’t charge any last minute expedite/close-in fees, doesn’t collect massive fuel surcharges for flights on AA within the Western Hemisphere or on Aer Lingus, Alaska, Air Berlin, LAN worldwide, and only charges $2.50-$10 (just the 9/11 fees) to cancel a domestic award.

Other awesome Chase cards with lesser published signup bonuses that you can add onto a “3BM” with just 1 credit pull include the Chase Freedom (which gives 5 points per dollar in rotating categories and 10% bonus points if you have a Chase checking account) and the Chase United Explorer (which gives free luggage, free primary car rental insurance in most countries worldwide besides Israel, expanded saver and standard award ticket availability, priority boarding, and more). There is also a business version of the United Explorer (click on “are you a business owner” on the Explorer application) and a Club version of the United card (click on the Club tab on the Explorer application) that gives 1.5 miles per dollar spent, 2 free checked bags per person, a United Club membership with unlimited free lounge and airport terminal access for you and your family, and waived expedite fees on United awards.

Update: Just a reminder than tomorrow, 12/14, is the final day to register for the Freedom Q4 categories!  You have until 12/31 to finish spending.
Registration for Q1 opens on 12/15 and I don’t know about you but I’m going to blow through $3,000 of “spending” on 2 Freedom cards for 15.5K UR points at CVS on New Year’s day pretty easily

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Originally posted on 11/28:

-Chase Freedom Mastercard-Earn $100 cash back (in the form of 10,000 Ultimate Rewards points) when you spend $500 in 3 months.
-Chase Freedom Visa-Earn $100 cash back (in the form of 10,000 Ultimate Rewards points) when you spend $500 in 3 months.
There is no annual fee for Freedom!
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The 5 point categories for 2013 have been announced and are as follows:

Q1, January – March: Gas stations, Drugstores & Starbucks
Q2, April – June: Restaurants & Movie theaters
Q3, July – September: Gas stations, Theme parks & Kohl’s
Q4, October – December: Select department stores & Amazon.com

Don’t forget that at gas stations and drug stores you can buy gift cards for other stores so that you earn 5 points per dollar there as well.

Plus many drug stores and gas stations carry Vanilla Reload cards, so that means 5 points per dollar and you can cash out the cards with Bluebird!

Of course if you have an Ink Bold, Ink Plus, Ink Cash, or Ink Classic card you will earn 5 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent all year round on telecom, cable, internet, as well as everything from office supply stores, which includes gift cards to other stores and prepaid cash cards.  With the Bold/Plus cards that’s capped at $50,000 per year and with the Classic/Cash cards that’s capped at $25,000 per year.  The cards also earn 2 points per dollar year round at gas stations and either hotels (Bold/Plus/Classic) or dining (Cash)

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Don’t forget to activate your Q4 2012 Chase Freedom 5% categories by 12/14 and finish spending for hotels, airlines, Best Buy, and Kohl’s by 12/31.

You can also buy Amazon Kindle gift cards at Best Buy stores to earn 5 points per dollar.  Kindle gift cards work for everything sold on Amazon.com

Or you can buy gift cards from airlines or hotels that will lock in 5 points per dollar for future travel.

Here is a link that explains where you will and won’t earn the 5 points per dollar this quarter.

You earn 5 points per dollar on up to $1,500 of spending per quarter.

Although they are called “5% categories” you really get 5 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent which can be cashed out for 5% cash. For $1,500 in spending you will earn at least 7,500 Ultimate Rewards points.

However if you have a Sapphire Preferred, Ink Bold, or Ink Plus card then you can transfer the points over to one of those cards and then transfer them at a 1:1 ratio into much more valuable airline miles (United, British Airways, Southwest, Korean, etc) or hotel points (Hyatt, etc)

If you are grandfathered for Freedom Exclusives you also get 10 points per transaction and a 10% bonus on base spend points.

HT: bubbles, via DDF

Related: Loving Chase Right Now…

Not a deal, but I figured that this is worth pointing out.

American Express has long allowed payments made from their site to instantly increase your available credit line.  With Chase it has always taken several days for your credit line to be increased once again.

I just noticed a couple days ago that Chase.com now immediately increases your credit line when you make a payment on Chase.com.  Love it!

Next improvement: Please allow people to make more than 1 payment to the same credit card on Chase.com within 3 days of the last one.

I’ve had 4 positive recent dealings with the Chase secure message team for myself and my family just for asking to be matched to the following better offers “that I had heard about from a colleague.”

You can send a secure message by logging into your Chase.com account and click on the secure message center at the top-right part of the site.

Related links:

United Explorer Visa (You can also use this link to signup for a club card by using the Club card tab or for a business card by clicking on “Are you a business owner” on the top-right of the page)

Ink Plus Mastercard

1. Matched from 30,000 miles to 55,000 miles plus a $50 statement credit on the United Explorer consumer card after spending $1,000 and adding a free additional user.

2. Matched from 30,000 miles to 50,000 miles plus a $50 statement credit on the United Explorer business card after spending $1,000.

United Explorer’s benefits include a free checked bag for you and a companion on United, expended saver award availability, guaranteed standard award availability, primary CDW coverage that almost no other cards besides United has, priority boarding, all United miles will never expire, 2 annual United club passes, and upgrades for elites on award tickets.

3. Matched to a waived annual fee for the first year on the United Club card.

United Club’s benefits include 1.5 miles per dollar spent worldwide, no foreign transaction fees, 2 free checked bags for you and a companion (and for free authorized users and their companion) on United, a full United Club membership with access to Star Alliance lounges worldwide, access to United and USAirways clubs even without a plane ticket, gate passes for you and all companions to the secured section of the airport terminal if it has a United or USAirways club, waived award expedite/close-in fees, primary CDW coverage that almost no other cards besides United has, expended saver award availability, guaranteed standard award availability, premier silver boarding zone, premier baggage handling, premier security line access, all United miles will never expire, 2 annual United club passes, upgrades for elites on award tickets, Avis President’s Club with guaranteed 2 class upgrades often to luxury cars from an intermediate, and Hyatt Platinum status for free internet on ann Hyatt stays and 2 free suite upgrades when you apply for the Hyatt card.

4. Matched from the old $10K spend requirement to a $5K spend requirement on the Ink Plus.

Ink Plus’ benefits include 5 points per dollar on internet, cable, wireless, and telecom. Plus 5 points per dollar at Office Supply stores which sell all kinds of gift cards to hundreds of other stores. Plus 2 points per dollar at gas stations and hotels. And there are no foreign transaction fees. This card also allows you to transfer all Chase points you or your spouse may have to airlines like BA or United or hotels like Hyatt.

With my successful 3BM this month for the Ink Plus, Ink Cash, and United Business cards (even got approved for the 2 Ink cards on the same phone call to Recon) I now have 13 active Chase cards on which I am the primary cardholder, making up about 30% of my currently active credit cards.
Best of all thanks to Staples’ recent promotion and CVS stocking Vanilla reload cards I was able to already meet the spend thresholds buying Vanilla cards, transferring those funds over to Bluebird and paying off my Chase cards electronically via Bluebird. Of course you can also pay off other bills, like your rent or mortgage, via Bluebird as well.

My current lineup is:
Chase Consumer (8):
United Explorer
United Club
Southwest Premier
Hyatt
Freedom Exclusives
Sapphire Preferred Visa
Sapphire Preferred Mastercard
United Awards Visa

Chase Business (5):
Ink Bold Exclusives Mastercard
Ink Plus Mastercard
Ink Classic Mastercard
Ink Cash Mastercard
United Explorer Business Visa

Related posts:
-Want To Boost Your Credit Score? Spend On Business Cards Instead Of Consumer Cards.
-A Rundown Of The Chase Ultimate Rewards Program And Ultimate Rewards Cards
-Chase Ink Offers Being Updated

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It’s Tuesday and as promised here are the new offer links for the Chase Ink cards.  If any of the links below aren’t working you can try opening them in a different browser, or browsing incognito.  This is always a good strategy when a card offer says expired or unavailable as often it’s just a browser cookie issue. In IE and Firefox you can access this mode by holding down Ctrl, Shift, and P buttons on your keyboard. In Chrome you can access this mode by holding down Ctrl, Shift, and N. Then just return to DansDeals.com and click on the card offer you want and it should work for you.

-Chase Ink Bold and Chase Ink Plus now give 50,000 points each for spending just $5,000 in 3 months.  This is down from $10,000.

-Chase Ink Classic and Chase Ink Cash now give 20,000 points each for spending $3,000 in 3 months.

After my most recent business 3BM and I now have all 4 of these cards and they are still fully churnable in my experience.  I was even able to get 2 Ink cards approved on the same reconsideration call by moving credit around from other cards.

You can read more about these cards and their perks (lounge passes, etc) in the related links at the top of this post.  Bonus point categories include 5 points per dollar on telecom/cell phones, cable, internet, and office supply stores and 2 points per dollar on gas and lodging or dining on the Ink Cash card.

Getting a business card is quite simple.  You don’t need to be a traditional “business owner.”

For example if Joe Smith sells items on Ebay or on Amazon, or has any other side business/hobby and wants a credit card to better keep track of business expenditures he can just open a business credit card for “Joe Smith Sole Proprietorship” as the business name.  You don’t need to file any messy government paperwork to be allowed to do that.
Just be sure to select “Sole Proprietorship” as the business type and just use your social security number in the Tax Identification Number field as well as in the social security number field.

I’ve had business cards since I turned 18 as a Sole Proprietor and never had a problem getting approved with reconsideration if needed.
You can reach Chase business reconsideration at 800-453-9719.  You can offer to move over part or all of the credit line from a consumer or business card to get a business card approved.

Need help meeting a spend hurdle? Don’t forget that you send $1,000/month via your credit card to anyone for free via Amazon Payments.  And they can send it back to you via their credit card or via a 3rd party who can put $1,000 on their card and send it back to you.

And of course you can stock up on gift cards to stores like Amazon or just a prepaid credit card (prepaid credit cards carry a fee of about 1%) at office supply stores on Ink cards and earn 5 miles for every dollar you spend.  At a value of about 1.9 cents per Ultimate Rewards point that’s like a 9.5% rebate.  Office supply stores like Office Max, Office Depot, and Staples all have large gift card sections and they even have occasional weekly promotions to buy gift cards, so check your Sunday circulars as they make it a cinch to meet a spending threshold.

When you buy $5,000 worth of gift cards or prepaid credit cards from an office supply store on a new Ink Bold or Ink Plus card you’ll have a whopping 75,00 points (50,000 points from the signup bonus and 25,000 points from the office spending.)  Coupled with bonus rebates on gift cards and finding ways to liquidate them for free like with Amazon or Bluebird it can all get pretty addictive.

Don’t have the money right now to pay off all those gift cards that you’re stocking up on to meet a spending threshold? Obviously don’t spend more than your needs, but all of the Ink cards besides the Bold card have 6 months of 0% interest on purchases (and balance transfers) and as a business card that balance won’t even show up on your credit report, so it won’t hurt you like it would on a consumer card! Just be sure that you’ll have the funds to cover your purchases in 6 months before they start charging interest. And of course you will have to make the minimum payments as well.

Also bear in mind that places like Plastic Jungle and CardPool will buy gift cards off of you.  People also buy and sell gift cards on the DDF Goods For Sale board.

Originally posted on 04/11/12:

Related posts:
-Save $400 On Fuel Surcharges To Israel By Booking Avios Rewards Via Iberia Instead Of British Airways!
-Flying With An Infant With Miles In Business Or First Class? Start Collecting Air Canada Miles Or British Airways Avios…
-Booking With Avios? Check Those Surrounding Airports!
-Using BA Avios To Fly In Business Class For An 80 Minute Flight Can Make Sense.
-Short-Haul Flights: BA Avios Versus LAN Lanpass.
-BA Miles Are Now Avios…For Better Or For Worse.

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Chase British Airways Visa Linky

Offer Details:
-You will get 50,000 bonus Avios after your first purchase
-You can get another 25,000 bonus Avios after you make $10,000 in purchases within the first year of account opening.
-You can get another 25,000 bonus Avios after you make an additional $10,000 in purchases also within the first year of account opening.
-Every year that you spend $30,000 on your British Airways Visa card, you’ll earn a free companion ticket good for travel on British Airways for two years. That means with 80,000 miles you’ll have enough to fly 2 people in British Airway’s award winning lie-flat business class to London or with 120,000 miles you can fly 2 people to London in BA’s top-notch first class, though you do get hit with fuel surcharges. You’ll be able to “pay for those” by eating awesome Hermolis kosher meals in the London lounges (if only Hermolis catered all kosher meals!!!) as well as in the air and by taking advantage of a free massage and great scotch in the lounge as well!

Last year they ran an offer for a month offering 100,000 miles for spending $3,000 in 3 months.

This time they will give you 50,000 miles right off the bat, so for some people this may work out better for them as there’s no need for any major spending to get that. However to get 75,000 bonus miles or 100,000 bonus miles you’ll have to do some serious spending on the card in the first year.

It’s unknown how long this offer will run for.

Even at 50,000 miles though, that’s more than enough for:

-11 one-way short-haul tickets (4,500 x 11 tickets = 49,500 Avios required) between New York and places like Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, Montreal, or Toronto.  It’s also enough between Miami and places like Cancun or Grand Cayman, all on OneWorld partner American.

-6 one-way tickets (7,500 x 6 tickets = 45,000 Avios required) between New York and Chicago or Florida or from LA to Cabo.

-5 one-way tickets (10,000 x 5 tickets = 50,000 Avios required) between Chicago and LA or between New York and Puerto Rico or the US Virgin Islands.

-4 one-way tickets (12,500 x 4 tickets = 50,000 Avios required) between the west coast and Hawaii, New York and the west coast, or New York and Costa Rica.  Hard to beat that value of just 25,000 miles for a round-trip between Los Angeles and any of the Hawaiian Islands with no fuel surcharges!

-2 one-way tickets (20,000 x 2 tickets = 40,000 Avios required) between Dallas and Hawaii or New York and London (though you’ll be hit with fuel surcharges for crossing the Atlantic)

-2 one-way tickets (25,000 x 2 tickets = 50,000 Avios required) between New York and Brazil or Argentina.

If you can spend $10,000 in a year you’ll have at least 87,500 miles (75,000 bonus miles plus 12,500 miles for the spending) and if you can spend $20,000 in a year you’ll have at least 125,000 miles (100,000 bonus miles plus 25,000 miles for the spending).  That’s enough for more than 27 short haul one-way tickets.

Card features:
-Earn 2.5 Avios for every $1 spent on British Airways purchases
-Earn 1.25 Avios for every $1 spent on all other purchases
-Every year you spend $30,000 on your British Airways Visa card, you’ll earn a free companion ticket good for travel on British Airways for two years.
-Smart Chip Technology allows you to use your card for chip based purchases in Europe & beyond, while still giving you the ability to use your card as you do today at home
-Pay no foreign transaction fees when you travel abroad

About BA Avios:

-There are currently no fuel surcharges for flights wholly within the western hemisphere. These include flights on American (AA), Alaska, and LAN.  Fuel surcharges make flights that across the Atlantic Ocean prohibitively expensive.

-There are no expedite or close-in fees for booking last minute award tickets with BA Avios.

-You can book one-way tickets for half of the cost of round-trip tickets.

-British Airways only charges 10% extra miles and no extra money for a lap child flying internationally, even when traveling on AA.  AA and other domestic carriers charge a whopping 10% of the full fare.

-British Airways charges double miles for business class and triple miles for first class. Beware that when flying domestically on AA’s 2 class planes they charge first class rates for what is really just a poor excuse for business class.

-You can search AA and Alaska award availability on AA.com and looking for sAAver awards. BA can’t book AAnytime awards. BA.com does not display all available awards, so you will have to call if you see a sAAver award on AA.com that’s not showing on BA.com.  It can also help to book each segment separately on BA.com

-You can pool together miles from everyone in your household!

Chase Ultimate Rewards has some great transfer partners that they transfer to at a 1:1 ratio:
Airlines: United (Star Alliance), British Airways (Oneworld), Korean (Skyteam), and Southwest (which can in turn transfer to Airtran).
Hotels: Hyatt, Marriott, Priority Club, and Ritz Carlton.
Trains: Amtrak.

The most valuable partners in my opinion are United (which never charges fuel surcharges, allows free date changes, has flexible routing rules, allows one-way awards, and has dozens of partners to fly on) and Hyatt (where you can stay in incredible hotels that charge $1,000 per night with awards as low as 5K and up to a maximum of only 22K points per night).

Most foreign carriers tack on huge fuel surcharges on award tickets, however Korean is worth taking a 2nd look at.  They are partners with some airlines outside of the Skyteam Alliance that they don’t collect a fuel surcharge on.
These include Alaska, Emirates, and Hawaiian. Here is a link to their non-alliance partner award chart.

These are some amazing values here.

Hawaiian Airlines Route Map Linky

Seeing this I looked on AA.com for a first class flight from JFK to Honolulu.  By limiting the search on the calendar page to non-stop flights only I was able to narrow the calendar down to only show dates with Hawaiian availability as they have the only nonstop flight in that market (starting in June).  On AA.com the first class Hawaiian flight can be found by clicking on the business/first option.

I then called up Korean’s Skypass office in Los Angeles at 800-438-5000 (and then prompts 2, 4, and 0) to confirm the rate.  They saw the same availability as I had found on AA.com and confirmed that the round-trip ticket in coach from JFK to Honolulu would be just 30,000 miles and in first would be just 60,000 miles plus $5 tax!  Using AA miles it costs 35K to fly coach on Hawaiian off-peak, 45K to fly coach during peak season (which is 03/09-08/21 and 12/16-01/11 annually), and 75K to fly in first, so it’s quite the bargain using Korean miles!

Note that on Hawaiian you pay per segment, so if you want to add an inter-island round-trip to your mainland trip that will add 10,000 miles.  If you want to fly from the US to Tahiti or Pago Pago it will be 60,000 in coach or 120,000 in first.

Alaska Airlines Route Map Linky

You can also search for Alaska award flights on AA.com using the same method as with Hawaiian.  You can fly anywhere in the US, including to Alaska for just 20,000 Korean miles in coach or 40,000 Korean miles in first with no fuel surcharges!  That’s 5,000 miles less than AA charges in coach and 10,000 less than AA charges in first!

Plus you are allowed a free stopover when using Korean miles for Alaska.  Does this mean you can fly from Los Angeles to Anchorage, stopover there, and then fly to Hawaii?  I didn’t try that kind of extreme routing over the phone yet, but if you do then post a comment!  At any rate you’ll definitely be able to fly from JFK to Anchorage and stopover in Seattle for as long as you want.

For Mexico the rate is 30,000 Korean miles in coach or 60,000 Korean miles in first with no fuel surcharges. That’s 5,000 miles less than AA charges for the coach flight.

For Hawaii, Alaska flies from all over the west coast and Alaska to Hawaii and it costs just 30,000 Korean miles in coach or 60,000 Korean miles in first with no fuel surcharges.   That’s 5,000 miles less than AA charges in coach during off-peak, 15,000 miles less than what AA charges during peak season, and 15,000 less than AA charges in first!

Now it is worth pointing out that for short haul flights like from the west coast to Hawaii or to Mexico on AA or on Alaska you will be better off transferring points to British Airways instead of to Korean. With British Airways there are no fuel surcharges within the western hemisphere and a flight like LAX to Cabo will be just 15,000 miles and a flight from the west coast to any of the Hawaiian islands will be just 25,000 miles. Bear in mind that BA however is not partners with Hawaiian, despite the fact that AA and Korean are partners with them.

Emirates Route Map Linky

Emirates partners with just a small handful of airlines. If you’ve dreamed of flying in an incredible First class suite on the A380 with the ability to even take a shower on the plane than Emirates has the best availability for your dream. You can transfer Starpoints to Emirates, but other than that if you are flush with Ultimate Rewards points you can transfer to Korean to book you on Emirates with no fuel surcharges.  To fly round-trip from Toronto or JFK for example to Dubai in a first class suite on the A380 would be 210,000 miles.

Chase Ultimate Rewards Cards:

Cards that can transfer points into miles:
-Chase Sapphire Preferred World Mastercard
-Chase Sapphire Preferred Visa Signature
-Chase Ink Bold World Mastercard

Cards that earn Ultimate Rewards, but requires one of the 3 previous cards to transfer the points into miles.
-Chase Freedom Mastercard,
-Chase Freedom Visa
-Chase Sapphire Non-Preferred World Mastercard
-Chase Sapphire Non-Preferred Visa Signature
-Chase Ink Classic World Mastercard
-Chase Ink Cash World Mastercard

Chase Sapphire Preferred 50K Signup Bonus Linky

Need To Meet A Spending Threshold Deadline? Get Waived Fees On AMEX Gift Cards!

You get 50,000 points after spending $3,000 on the Chase Sapphire Preferred card! (Actually you’ll have over 53,000 points with the 3K points for spending and the 7% annual bonus on spending)

There is no annual fee for this card for the first year, but it’s $95 after the first year. Chase allows you to downgrade to the “non-preferred” version of the Sapphire card which has no annual fee. However be sure to transfer your points into miles before downgrading as the “non-preferred” version does not allow transfers into miles!

There is no foreign exchange or foreign transaction fee on when you use this card overseas!

You also get a 7% bonus on spending every year, so you actually get 1.07 miles per dollar spent on this card, which is very good if you want Continental miles.  You get this 7% bonus at the end of the year, regardless of whether you have already redeemed the points.

Chase Sapphire points convert into BA miles, Continental miles, or Hyatt points at a 1:1 ratio and they transfer over instantly whenever you want. You can also transfer your Continental miles into United miles. Continental and United do not charge fuel surcharges on award redemptions like British Airways does.

You can transfer the points to anyone’s mileage or hotel account-it does not need to be in your name!

50,000 points is enough points for 2 US48/Canada airline tickets on American via BA miles (OneWorld partners) or on Air Canada, Continental, United, or USAirways via Continental miles (Star Alliance partners).  It’s more than enough points for 2-5 nights at any Hyatt in the world (Hyatt nights with no blackout dates or capacity controls go from 5,000 to 22,000 points per night)  including Park Hyatt properties that can go for $1,000 a night!

Or save up for a bigger trip. Here are the current Continental rates for other destinations from the US:
-Hawaii: 40,000 coach, 80,000 business/businessfirst
-Europe: 60,000 coach, 100,000 business/businessfirst
-Asia: 65,000 coach, 120,000 business/businessfirst
-Israel: 80,000 coach, 120,000 business/businessfirst
-Australia: 80,000 coach, 135,000 business/businessfirst
-Round-the-world: 180,000 coach, 260,000 business/businessfirst

You can also use the points to book paid tickets directly from the airline through the Chase airfare tool. With 50,000 points you can book a ticket worth up to $625 and you’ll even earn miles on the ticket.  Personally I’d still go for the highly valued Continental miles, but if a domestic redemption is what you’re looking for it’s not a bad usage.

Or you can always just use the 50,000 points for a $500 gift card or a $500 account credit for spending on whatever you would like!

Points can also transfer to Amtrak, Priority Club, or Marriott, but those transfer options are less lucrative than the others.

If you have a Chase Freedom card, a Chase Checking account, and a Sapphire Preferred account you can earn 10 points for every transaction (even for transaction of just a penny!) made on the Freedom card and up to 5 points per dollar by spending in rotating categories on the Freedom card. You can then transfer those points to your Sapphire Preferred card and change then into valuable miles from BA, Continental, or Hyatt points at a 1 point:1 mile ratio!

The Chase Sapphire Card also offers return protection of up to $500 per item.  If you buy something you don’t like you can just return it to Chase within 3 months of the purchase and get a full refund!  I wanted to return a $340 item a few months after I bought it and got a refund check in the mail within 2 weeks of returning the item to Chase!  There are also a number of items that you can’t return with the Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express that you can return with the Chase Sapphire (and vice versa).  You can read about them in this post.

Whenever you call Chase Sapphire customer service a real live US-based human being always answers the phone immediately without going through any touch-tone systems or having to push “0″ repeatedly.  If only all companies offered this!

Read all about the OnePass Plus card and the dozens of benefits and ultra-premium protections (free checked luggage, free primary rental car CDW, baggage and trip delay coverage, roadside assistance, price, purchase, and return protection, and much more.) that come with it in this post.

If you recently applied for the Continental OnePass Plus card within the past 60 days to get 30,000 miles and $50 you can get another 25,000 miles!!
That card gave 25,000 miles and $50 cash for signing up and making your first purchase and 5,000 more miles for adding a 2nd cardholder.

Numerous posters on the DansDeals Forums have reported that they have been able to get an extra 25,000 miles added to their accounts by following this method.

Here’s how to do it!

Step 1: Go to chase.com and login to your online account.

Step 2: After logging in look on the left side of the page and locate the “contact us” link and click it.

Step 3: Click on the link “To contact us by e-mail, send us a message.”

Step 4: Click on “Compose Message.”

Step 5: Next to the “Credit Card” tab select “Rewards Inquiry” and click “Go”

Step 6: Select the account number of your Continental OnePass Plus card.

Step 7: Select “Other Rewards Program Inquiry.”

Step 8: Write something to the following effect in a message:
“I recently applied for the Continental OnePass Plus card and received 25,000 miles for making my first purchase. However I just received an offer to signup for the same card and receive 50,000 miles here: http://www.continental.com/web/en-US/content/products/chase/continental.aspx?&offer=OPP50
As a loyal Chase customer who just applied for this card I would appreciate if you would credit the additional 25,000 miles from this offer.”

Step 9: You should get an email when Chase posts a response. Just login to your account again and click on “You have a new message” in the left-hand side of your account center to read the message.

Step 10: Post a comment here letting us know what Chase said!

The 50,000 mile offer doesn’t come with the 5,000 mile offer for adding an additional cardholder or the $50 bonus, so you’ll actually get a total of 55,000 miles and $50 by applying for the 30,000 mile offer and then using this method to write to Chase!

Chase Freedom Visa Linky

If you are looking for cashback instead of a mileage card this one looks pretty good.

You get $100 cash back for opening the card after spending $799 within 3 months.

You also get 1% cash back on all purchases, 2% cash back on airfare booked through the Chase airfare tool, and 5% cash back on rotating categories of purchases.

Here are the categories that earn 5% cash back for the rest of this year:

July-September 2010
Gas
Airlines
Auto Rentals
Hotels

October-December 2010
Grocery Stores
Department Stores
Movies

Hyatt is finally going to be offering a credit card.

It will be issued by Chase bank as a Visa Signature card.

What excites me are the rumored signup bonuses. One possibility is 1,000 points for every time you’ve stayed in a Hyatt over the past 2 years.  With their insanely generous promotions (Last October they gave 14,000 miles+a free night worldwide for $120 worth of stays) I’ve had dozens and dozens of stays that would qualify.  Another rumored signup bonus is a couple of free nights at any Hyatt worldwide.  Plus there will be benefits such as a number of confirmed upgrades to suites even on award nights.

The only problem is I just applied for a United chase card last week (hey 30K miles with no fee seemed worthwhile at the time) and Chase now only permits one card application every 6 months…

I haven’t seen any estimated launch dates for the Hyatt card yet, but stay tuned!

Consumer Offer Linky

Business Offer Linky

With the consumer offer you get 10,000 miles after opening the checking account and making 5 debit card transactions within 60 days of opening the account.

You get another 15,000 miles after your first purchase on a Continental debit card.  The cheapest Continental debit card has a $25 annual fee.

If you have a Continental Airlines debit card, you and all of your traveling companions will get to check a free bag when flying on Continental regardless of which credit card is used to purchase the ticket.

With the business offer you get 10,000 miles after opening the checking account and depositing $500 within 30 days of opening the account, and another 15,000 miles for making a purchase on a Continental debit card.

HT: FT

Update: There’s been some interesting discussion in the comments about whether you will be able cancel the card once you get the miles and have them prorate the annual fee, or if you will be able to switch this card into a no annual fee card and get the miles for free. The bottom line is that YMMV (Your mileage may vary) you might get a great rep who will help you out and you can wind up with this whole deal for free, or you might not.

Is the deal hot? Yes, and it’s simple why. Even if you can’t get Chase to prorate or waive the $85 it is worth it because of the value of a mile.

In essence you are buying 20,000 miles for $85, a cost of about 4/10ths of a penny per mile.

As far as the uses go:

-Coach ticket to Israel on Continental is about $1,000 for 70,000 miles= 1.42 cents per mile value

-BusinessFirst ticket to Israel is about $5,000 for 100,000 miles= 5 cents per mile value.

-3 systemwide RT Tickets on Southwest/ATA is about $1,000 for 20,000 miles=5 cents per mile value.

-12 systemwide RT tickets on Southwest with a companion pass is worth at least $5,000 for 50,000 miles=10 cents per mile value.

-5 nights of $400 hotel rooms is worth $2,000 at a cost of 20,000 miles=10 cents per mile.

As you can see, buying miles for under half a cent each is a hot deal, and can be extremely hot if you make good use of the miles, or if you get the fee prorated or waived and pay nothing!


Related Links:
Transfer Amex/Amtrak/Continental/Starwood Into Choice Points And Southwest Credits Post!

Chase Amtrak Mastercard Post



Continental Business World Mastercard Linky

Continental Consumer World Mastercard Linky

Chase bank offers 2 Continental Mastercards, a consumer and a business version.

They both now offer 20,000 Continental mile upon signup.

They can be applied for at the same time without any problem.

Best of all-both cards are churnable, so even if you’ve gotten a bonus from Continental in the past you can earn it again!

Unfortunately both cards have $85 annual fees, which are not waved for the 1st year. But the value you can now get out of Continental miles far outweighs the fee for a year.

What you can do with just 20,000 Continental miles:

Boring:

-Use all of it for a short-haul domestic flight on Continental.

More interesting uses:

-Transfer it into 100,000 Choice Privileges points, enough for 5 stays at normally $400/night Manhattan hotels.

-Save up for a 70,000 coach(3.5 card churns) /100,000 businessfirst ticket (5 card churns) to Israel.

-Transfer it into 40 Southwest credits. Assuming you took my advice and signed up for the 8 free credits, you now have a couple options:

-3 Sytemwide Round-Trips on Southwest Or 3 Systemwide Round-Trips besides Hawaii on ATA.

-1.5 Round-trips to Hawaii on ATA (32 credits/Hawaii ticket)


Chase has just upgraded the Continental Airlines Business Card to “World For Business” status.

World Mastercards are the only US issued credit cards that offer free CDW insurance when renting a car in Israel.

Both Continental cards have “World” status.

Additionally both cards will let you save 5% on all Continental.com tickets by using the code: ONEPASS
Other benefits for the business card include:
-Earn 5,000 more bonus miles once you spend $25,000 on the card.

-Earn 2 miles per dollar spent on Continental tickets.

-Earn 2 miles per dollar spent at restaurants, gas stations, and at office supplies stores!

-Earn 1 mile per dollar spent elsewhere.

Correction: This article originally indicated that the Amtrak World Mastercard included car rental liability insurance everywhere in the world. It does not have that protection. Generally, anyone who has an auto insurance policy is covered for liability (3rd party injury/death coverage). I could not find any credit card that does have liability protection for car rentals.

The card does have car rental CDW insurance everywhere in the world. This includes coverage in case your rental car is damaged or stolen.

Amtrak Credit Card Linky

This card has no annual fee, and points can be transferred to Continental at a 1:1 basis or to Choice Privileges at a 1:5 basis!

Because this (surprisingly for a no-fee card) is a premium “World Matercard”, it includes car rental CDW (Collision/Damage Waiver) insurance even in places like Israel where no Visa/AMEX/Regular Mastercard covers you!

The signup bonus is 5,000 points, which isn’t bad for a no annual fee card.

Even if you don’t use the card for spending you can transfer those points into 25,000 Choice points.

Once the points are in Choice they can be used for

-Choice hotel stays

-Luxury hotel stays

-Transfered to Southwest credits at 5,000:2

-Transferred at a 5:1 basis to 9 different airlines including every major U.S. based carrier.

Spending on the card earns 1 point per dollar spent.

Remember that you cannot transfer more than 25,000 Amtrak points out of an Amtrak account within a calender year!

Special bonus: The first person to prove whether or not this card is churnable (able to earn the signup bonus more than once) wins a $50 GC to Amazon.com!

Offer Linky 

-10,000 miles for opening up the checking account.

-7,500 miles for opening a Continental/Chase debit card. ($25 annual fee)

-7,500 miles for adding 3 additional cardholders.

When you’re done you’ll have enough miles for either:

-A free domestic ticket.

-36% of a ticket to Israel in coach

-25% of a ticket to Israel in businessfirst