Credit card issuer Chase recently launched the “British Airways Visa Signature® Card,” a fairly aggressive airline rewards credit card that comes with an astonishing 50,000 mile bonus upon your first purchase.
On top of that, it offers an additional 50,000 bonus miles if you spend $2,500 on the credit card during the first three months.
100,000 Mile Bonus
With the 100,000 miles in hand, you’ve got enough for two (2) transatlantic flights.
In other words, you can fly to Europe and back twice if you live in the United States, free of charge, less taxes, fees, and surcharges, which I suppose can add up.
You also earn 1.25 British Airways miles per $1 spent on standard purchases and 2.5 British Airways miles for each $1 in British Airways purchases.
Travel Together Ticket
Additionally, if you spend $30,000 in any single calendar year, you can earn a “Travel Together Ticket,” which is a companion airline ticket used in conjunction with the card member’s award flight.
The British Airways Visa Signature® Card also waives all foreign transaction fees, being one of the few credit cards to do so (Discover and Capital One offer similar credit cards).
And when you apply for the British Airways Visa Signature® Card, you are automatically enrolled in the British Airways Executive Club.
Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Iberia, Japan Airlines, LAN, Malev, Qantas and Royal Jordanian are partner airlines.
Annual Fee and Charges
The downsides to this card, aside from a lack of introductory 0% APR, are the annual membership fee of $95 and any fees and taxes that must be paid on flights, as they’re now fairly hefty.
Beware: A flight to Europe may have fees of a few hundred dollars…
But if you don’t carry balances and love to travel, this card does have the potential to save you quite a bit of money.
With new rules making a major change in the whole credit market, there is some good news for consumers as a whole. The secret behind credit scores and how the decision making goes on will be revealed. However, not much good is going to come out if it if customers don’t take some time out to read their credit notices. There will be extra notices and paperwork, but for a change, they will be worth reading. Federal rules that have come into effect since the beginning of this year have mandated lenders to provide more details about the credit record of the consumers, so that the customers understand the reasoning behind them getting less attractive features compared to some of the other customers in the credit market. I