This is another post in our series “Ask A Blogger” where we’ve asked some of the best miles & points bloggers what their favorite credit card benefit is and why. You can view more posts in this series by clicking here.
Below is the question that I asked verbatim:
What is your favorite credit card benefit? (this can be any benefit a credit card offers, try to make this personal. E.g, I used this benefit when I was…)
Keep in mind, this question was asked before Club Carlson decided to remove the last night free benefit.Â
Contents
- 1 Responses
- 1.1 AmEx Offers
- 1.2 American Express Platinum Lounge Access
- 1.3 American Express Platinum Car Breakdown Service
- 1.4 Barclaycard Arrival Redemption Bonus
- 1.5 Chase Ritz Carlton Lounge Access
- 1.6 Citi Prestige Priority Pass Select
- 1.7 Club Carlson Buy One Get One Free
- 1.8 Emergency Medical Evacuation
- 1.9 IHG Platinum Status
- 1.10 Lounge Access
- 1.11 National Car Rental Executive Status
- 1.12 No Foreign Transaction Fees
- 1.13 Phone Insurance
- 1.14 Purchase Protection
- 1.15 SCRA
- 1.16 Sign Up Bonuses
- 1.17 Southwest Companion Pass
- 1.18 Trip Protection
- 1.19 U.S Bank Flexperks $25 Inflight Credit
- 2 Final Thoughts
Responses
AmEx Offers
I love Amex Offers. They’re so easy to load to my Amex cards and result in straightforward savings. I probably saved more than my annual fees last year using Amex Offers alone, before taking into account any of the other benefits my Amex cards offer. A prime example was an offer for $150 off with AT&T on my American Express Business Platinum Card that I used to cover several months of cell phone service. Earning $150 in less than 5 minutes is tough to beat, especially when you’re earning points along the way.
American Express Platinum Lounge Access
I don’t have the card anymore, but Centurion Lounge access with Amex Platinum is an amazing benefit. Compared to other domestic lounges…well, there’s no comparison. It’s the one thing that still makes me wish I held that card. Very clever, Amex. Very clever…
My favorite card benefit is American Express Centurion lounge access from the Platinum card. The lounges can be a bit overhyped, although I really do love the wine wall at the San Francisco club — there’s some really good wines stocked there, much better than even most good international lounges. And I transit DFW enough that the card is worth keeping. I must visit the DFW lounge along better than 40 times a year.
I think that I’ve been enamored by the suite of benefits offered by the American Express Platinum Card. At $450 per year, it’s not a perfect card for everybody – but it does come with a number of great benefits, including the $200 airline credit, access to the credits that come with the Fine Hotels & Resorts collection, and other incentives. With a little creativity, it’s easy to actualize the $400 in value from the card.
American Express Platinum Car Breakdown Service
Free car breakdown service from AMEX platinum. I had a stretch last year where every other week I had car trouble! They fixed a flat, started a battery, and towed us in, all in less than 30 minutes and no questions asked.
Barclaycard Arrival Redemption Bonus
It’s hard to pick just one favorite credit card benefit because there are so many: from the Club Carlson 2ndnight free on award redemptions, $100 voucher when you spend $30,000 a year on the Citi AAdvantage card, to the Barclay Arrival Plus 2.2% cash back on travel redemptions, along with the many others.
I’ll go with the Barclay Arrival Plus travel redemption benefit. I’m doing an experiment this year. Although I haven’t mentioned it on my blog, but now that the cat is out of the bag…
I’m putting all my travel expenses for this year on that card. I travel two weeks of every month so I have a lot of expenses (and no, no one is bankrolling my travel). I’m interested to see how it all shakes out in the long run and what my actual cost turns out to be.
Chase Ritz Carlton Lounge Access
One of my favorite card benefits is the Lounge Club access that the Chase Ritz Carlton card gives me. Me and one other person can get into these lounges for free. There are some airport terminals that don’t offer the common airport lounges and it is nice to escape the crowds. I recently used it in Cancun at the Mera Business Lounge. It was an ok place to get some refreshments and they had massage chairs to use for free to relieve the airport stress.
Citi Prestige Priority Pass Select
The Citi Prestige Priority Pass Select free family or 2 guests. No longer does my wife get in the lounge and I sit outside.
Club Carlson Buy One Get One Free
I’ve only done this a few times, but I love the Club Carlson BOGO deal on 2 night stays. Super easy to MS free nights and redeeming points is very simple.
Last time I said the Club Carlson card. But since I right now am sitting on 2 mil in CC points… it really is my favorite card as it doubles my value.
I’ve really capitalized on using the Club Carlson Visa’s last night free on stays of two nights or more. This is a super easy way to double the value of Club Carlson points. With both the personal and business version of the card you are required to have two accounts which make it possible to book back-to-back stays.
Last-night-free with Club Carlson (and annual bonus points) make it a must-have. Every time you use the benefit you save multiple times the annual fee. The card’s indispensable.
Emergency Medical Evacuation
This benefit is probably too well known to qualify but certain premium cards (Amex Platinum, Citi Prestige) have emergency medical evacuation services included. I sincerely hope to never use these services but it is reassuring that they will cover the cost of a medical evacuation if deemed necessary which an easily be $20,000 or more. It’s a nice piece of mind though one many people do not think about.
IHG Platinum Status
IHG Platinum status that comes free from just having their co-branded credit card. It’s not mentioned very often, but is incredibly useful when you travel as a family. There is nothing better than getting a suite, while staying in a PointBreaks hotel on the beach. That’s what happened when we booked Crowne Plaza Oceanfront Melbourne (Fl) for only 5,000 IHG points per night. It’s not a guaranteed benefit, but we probably get it 80% of the time. Good enough for me!
Lounge Access
I think my favorite credit card benefit is lounge access. When it was just me, it was a nice perk, as a father, it’s become a major stress reliever. Especially if it means avoiding the terminal bathrooms!
National Car Rental Executive Status
My second favorite benefit (although you can get this elsewhere) is National Car Rental Executive status from Amex Platinum — I’ve long been a big fan of the pick your own vehicle ‘Emerald Aisle’ when renting for work and it’s nice to be able to pick from their selection of (moderately) better and lower mileage cars.
No Foreign Transaction Fees
This isn’t terribly unique, but my favorite credit card benefit is no foreign transaction fees – its my number one rule for International Travel. I travel a lot overseas. Of last year’s ~150k miles flown  I flew around the world twice, to Asia 7 times alone. Not having to worry about foreign transaction fees is huge. I use this benefit on my Barclay Arrival Plus, Marriott Rewards card, American Express Platinum, and Citi AAdvantage Executive. I’d say it saves me a ton of money, but the fact of the matter is, I just wouldn’t pay the fee, but having the benefit allows me to earn miles on what ends up being a area that I spend significantly through the year.
Phone Insurance
I hate to steal your example, but it really is a great benefit, and one that I *just* took advantage of. I used and abused the Wells fargo 5% cash back card for the first 6 months, but I kept the card open because it offers amazing cell phone insurance. Simply pay your bill on the card and you’ll have coverage starting the next month against accidental damage or theft. Two weeks ago I dropped a heavy paperweight on my phone, cracking the screen. One phone call, a few emails and I have a new phone on the way. The deductable is an unheard of $25. (More on Wells’ Cell protection here: https://www.wellsfargo.com/credit-cards/features/cell-phone-protection/) –
Purchase Protection
Believe it or not, it’s been the purchase protection benefit. A few years ago, I shattered the screen on my iPhone not only once, but TWICE, just weeks after purchasing it with my Ink Bold. The credit card company sent me a check for the repairs.
Amex purchase protection and customer service. Beside the inability to match the best offer available, Amex customer service has always gone above and beyond to fix or make a situation right, whether it be via chat (crediting amex offers that didn’t process) or adding some targeted offers at times. I borrowed a luggage from a friend one time and paid for my taxes on a rewards ticket with an Amex card. The wheels on the luggage broke making it useless, they refunded me for a luggage that was no longer being made and just asked me to send them an ad for a similar luggage type and size. I received a credit for it (plus tax) within a couple days so I could gift my friend a new luggage. This makes Amex my favorite card company and backdating their personal cards is a great plus too (wish they did it for their business cards too).
SCRA
This is not a card benefit per se, but a federal benefit that companies variably apply – the Servicemember’s Civil Relief Act (SCRA). This act protects against credit card debt such as late fees for active duty; however some companies also waive card’s annual fees for active duty military members, even the high-end luxury cards. Amex and Barclaycard readily do it, Chase is variable in how they apply it, and Citi and US Bank are sticklers about it.
Sign Up Bonuses
I have built my travel “habit” around sign up bonuses. There is nothing else that I value as much as that. My Chase Continental 25,000-mile bonus paid for my first free international flight to Brazil.
Southwest Companion Pass
The Southwest Companion Pass is hardly a secret in this community but we’ve gotten it twice; once in 2011 and now again. Further more, our family is all over the place, so we’ve been able to get super cheap flights for two. We got flight from Cleveland to Little Rock, and then Little Rock to Houston, both for less than 4,000. And we recently flew to Cancun for 3,600 points.
Trip Protection
My favorite little known card benefit is that a number of co-branded airline cards offer trip protection in the form of some sort of compensation when you have to cancel a trip for an unforeseen reason (for example, one of your kids is sick).
U.S Bank Flexperks $25 Inflight Credit
The $25 incidental found on US Bank’s Flexperks card when you redeem for a flight. I recently flew on Virgin America and didn’t want to buy any more jerky and saw this:
I thought it was funny “Someone to tuck you in sold separately” so I bought it.
Final Thoughts
Again, a big thanks to all of the other bloggers that took the time to get back to me with their responses, I enjoyed reading all of them and even found/was reminded about a few benefits that I wasn’t familiar with. Hopefully other readers are the same, if you enjoyed somebodies response then I’d strongly recommend clicking the URL and checking out more of their website as well.
My favorite benefit is probably the Club Carlson BOGO free benefit as it effectively doubles the value of your points. I like the Club Carlson properties in Europe, I just wish they had the same inventory here as well. I’m also a big fan of all the protection American Express cards provide as well.
As always you can view more posts in the series by clicking here.
