Chase Sends Out Survey Regarding Possible New Mid Tier United Card ($250 Annual Fee)

Chase has sent out a survey regarding a possible new mid tier United card. Based on the questions asked it looks like they are considering a potential card with an annual fee of $250. Other potential benefits include a 25% redemption bonus on United flights and the ability to redeem miles for any purchase at a rate of 1¢ per point. Often we see these surveys to lead to actual products (e.g they sent out an e-mail about possible new IHG cards before changing the card line up). Recently United has been complaining that the Chase Sapphire Reserve was cutting into the United cobranded card market share, so it’s not surprising to see Chase trying to come up with a new product.

Hat tip to VFTW

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Chong786
Chong786 (@guest_776662)
June 30, 2019 18:51

Just remove 5/24 restrictions on all United cards and you will see a huge spike

Charlie
Charlie (@guest_776794)
July 1, 2019 07:24

No you won’t.

cc_10
cc_10 (@guest_776647)
June 30, 2019 18:00

Card fatigue. I know it’ll take the next recession to get the CC issuers to actually focus on just having a handful of really competitive cards. But man. Enough already with so many card iterations. Chase, Amex, Citi, BoA…figure out 10 cards max that are actually good and ditch the rest.

How is that Starbucks card doing for Chase? Or that “Refreshed” BCP that wowed us with cashback on streaming services over at AmEx? Anybody up for a $495 watered down Prestige from our friends at Citi?

chris
chris (@guest_776581)
June 30, 2019 14:11

stop with “worth 25% more” stuff. Just give more miles per dollar and stop devaluation of miles.

Lrdx
Lrdx (@guest_776534)
June 30, 2019 11:49

Redeeming miles for 1c is already a feature of all United cards.

Mike L
Mike L (@guest_776726)
June 30, 2019 22:17

I assume they meant the 1c valuation for cash or gc redemption.

chaseaholic
chaseaholic (@guest_776529)
June 30, 2019 11:39

UA reverted to the same old methods from before which result in moving the profit needle up slightly now but gutting their long term profitability and pushing away loyal customers. Case and point: removing free checked bags but then adding them as a ‘perk’ to the UA cc.

(As a sidebar, did the marketing analyst or whoever wrote that not see the irony?)

United (and legacy domestic airlines in general) have a big problem on their hands and as best I can tell they haven’t thought of a real way to address any of the issues.

Turning airline miles into rebating instead of actual award/aspirational travel is going to leave both them and the banks hurting because everyday consumers don’t want to deal with that (not us of course).

Let’s do a thought experiment and try earning a “free” flight on the United Card.

Realistically, earning even the “discounted” 24k UA miles would take ~$20k+ in spend on the proposed UA card assuming you have a couple grand in bonused spend. Not including the whopping $250 fee.

So now the opportunity cost is $20k on a 2% cashback card = ~$400+

Now you still have to contend with:
-$75 “close in” award booking fee that UA adds if its within 3 weeks.
-Travel is restricted only to UA so if another carrier is cheaper, has more convenient departure/arrival, could be direct – all of that is forfeited.
-UA has to have award space “available” at that price (or any price).

Heaven forbid you’re actually a loyal UA customer and want to earn status faster, for a sticker price of $60k spent, you can earn a cool $2,500 in PQD’s (not even enough for silver – which does basically nothing the CC doesn’t do in the first place… good lord)

chchch
chchch (@guest_776646)
June 30, 2019 17:55

The phrase is CASE IN POINT, meaning “as an example.” The misuse negates any words that follow…

Debit
Debit (@guest_776511)
June 30, 2019 10:51

Pay 450 for a turd or 250 for a turd you are still buying a turd.

Ann
Ann (@guest_776538)
June 30, 2019 12:00

Yeah, when I saw this headline, I thought “how on earth is a $250 AF ‘mid-tier’?” I guess it kind of is compared to $450 AF, but seems like the vast majority of people would still have a hard time justifying that.

someones1
someones1 (@guest_776510)
June 30, 2019 10:46

ffs, give me a free checked bag regardless if I booked the flight with the card (like AA and Delta), and it’s a keeper for me as I live at a United hub. Otherwise it’s just getting churned.

MPLS
MPLS (@guest_784804)
July 18, 2019 11:20

I live in a delta hub, and have a delta card for this exact reason. Was just looking to add a united card for some miles & some upcoming travel to save on baggage fees – and it blows my mind that I have to book the travel on their card to get the benefit! There’s literally no value to booking travel on an airline card anymore. ludicrous.

Philco
Philco (@guest_776504)
June 30, 2019 10:33

I think the airlines are realizing their cards aren’t competitive with bank issued transferable currency cards. Also they have been devaluing their points programs. Both of these trends have folks moving away from airline cards. The vast majority of my airline cards will end up on the chopping block when the AF next comes due. I have held them for a number of years but it just makes no sense anymore for me at least.

Frank
Frank (@guest_776513)
June 30, 2019 10:52

It’s not like this one is any better. CSP is $95 fee, redeemable for 1 cpp on all purchases and has a 25% bonus towards ALL flights. I still don’t see the math on this one unless it earns at a stupid high rate

David
David (@guest_776502)
June 30, 2019 10:24

UP TO 25% discount, not 25%. Huge difference imo. Knowing United you can expect a paltry 5% discount here and there. It’s an improvement but there’s nothing here that makes me want to put spend on a United cc.

Grant
Grant (@guest_776499)
June 30, 2019 10:13

I believe I heard that there are already 5 different United CCs currently available. Do we really need 6 different cards? Just make your existing CCs better.

Lc
Lc (@guest_776500)
June 30, 2019 10:15

And allow people over 5/24 to get some of the scummier cards..

Eric
Eric (@guest_776564)
June 30, 2019 13:09
  Lc

I see comments blaming 5/24. It would be great if chase loosened the rule but the reality is not that people dont have UA cards. The issue is that the program is weak, the miles don’t have enough value to make any UA card compete with CSR.

If UA wants me to transfer more points from chase, they should look at SW’s program and get an idea why people value RR higher.

1. 100% award availability at SW. UA basic economy seats are mostly unavailable for me.

2. Fixed 1.5 CCP value. (This still won’t make any card better than CSR. But will equalize the value of UA to UR.

Matt
Matt (@guest_776583)
June 30, 2019 14:19

If UA wants *me* to transfer more points from Chase, then they should do the complete opposite of what you said. Your suggestion will kill premium-cabin redemptions, which is what many of us care about. We don’t need yet another SW…

Eric
Eric (@guest_776586)
June 30, 2019 14:38

I would love to see a survey result or real redemption data showing percentages of economy cabin/ premium cabin redemptions.

It is true that you are likely to get higher CPP when redeeming for premium seats, but IMO, UA cannot have a daily driver CC with this availability and point values.

Matt
Matt (@guest_776652)
June 30, 2019 18:12

What “availability and point values” are you referring to here? What they had before the Nov change, or after?

I 100% agree that United miles will be basically useless after the Nov changes (no point in earning miles that are basically stuck at 1 CPP when you can get 1.5 CPP with Chase URs). I think it was a lot better *before*, when they had the award charts which allowed for outsized redemptions (premium cabin of course, but also even last-minute economy). Your post above seems to be advocating the opposite, pushing it further away from what I view as the better system.

Lamar
Lamar (@guest_776594)
June 30, 2019 14:58

*You* are probably in the very minority. Most credit card holders aren’t churners looking to burn hard earned miles on first class seats. Most people just want to stretch their dollar. Catering to churners can’t possibly result in sustainability of any program.

Matt
Matt (@guest_776649)
June 30, 2019 18:08

I never claimed to be the majority. That doesn’t mean that United becoming a new SW is good for us. The simpler it is to use airline miles the worse value you’ll get out of them. I’d rather have a program with an award chart and annoying award availability b/c it means people like myself who are smart+dedicated enough to use them will get much higher values out of the miles. United’s change in Nov means that you can get economy awards on almost any flight but at an abysmal 1 CPP. The old award chart based program seemed to be working perfectly fine to me (transferring Chase URs to United was often a good option, which according to the WSJ article is a big thing United cares about). After Nov it no longer will ever be.

Eric
Eric (@guest_776777)
July 1, 2019 03:45

Matt, IME, Recently UA basic economy seat availability dropped. Their website mostly directs me to use higher classes which I am not willing to do. I agree with you that award charts are meant to help us get better value out of the UA points, but again although every time I need a the cheapest seat I end up getting it somewhere else than UA.

I am not going to transfer my UR to UA when I get more from other programs. SW was just an example. Most of my UR go to SW (having a CP helps too) and hyatt. (Lately I started moving towards hilton, but that’s another day’s discussion.)

Charlie
Charlie (@guest_776796)
July 1, 2019 07:32

Matt: You are definitely *not* the majority. I prefer we get a points redemption system that benefits the majority of us who just want to stretch our dollars rather than a system that caters to the “smart+dedicated” who are looking for those rare outsized redemptions.

rick b
rick b (@guest_776588)
June 30, 2019 14:40

Umm…how does this make sense? We can already redeem UR at 1.5 CCP for any paid flight.

Maybe United should stop ripping us off on premium cabin awards. At the very least lower rates on their own biz cabin. The seats are pretty good, I would pay 60k one way to Asia for united biz.

Also, allow anyone on a biz ticket to use lounges. Not ONLY during departure at international gateway. That’s the lamest rule I’ve ever heard.

aubergine
aubergine (@guest_776550)
June 30, 2019 12:38

More cards that feed into a weak & devaluating program don’t solve the core issue….