In case you didn’t already know, Barclaycard is no longer the card issuer for Best Western credit cards. The new card issuer is First National Bank of Omaha (FNBO) and today they’ve released four new Best Western credit cards: rewards, premium, secured and business. Let’s have a look at each of these cards.
Rewards
- No annual fee
- 10,000 points after $1,000 in spend within three billing cycles
- An additional 10,000 points after $3,000 in spend within the first six billing cycles
- Card earns at the following rates:
- 3x points on all Best Western stays
- 1x points on all other purchases
- Automatic gold elite status
- 0% introductory APR for 6 billing cycles on purchases and balance transfers (fee of 3% or $10 whichever is greater – this increases to 5%/$10 after introductory period ends)
- 10% discount on Flexible Rate Stays at bestwestern.com
Premium
- Annual fee of $59 is waived the first year
- 25,000 points after $2,500 in spend within the first three billing cycles
- An additional 25,000 points after a total of $5,000 in spend within first six billing cycles
- 20,000 points after $10,000 in spend during each 12 billing cycles (this is an annual bonus). This is paid out 4-8 weeks after the end of the twelve billing cycles, meaning you’d need to need to pay the annual fee to get it.
- Card earns at the following rates:
- 10x points on all Best Western purchases
- 1x points on all other purchases
- Automatic Platinum Elite Status
- 0% introductory APR for 6 billing cycles on purchases and balance transfers (fee of 3% or $10 whichever is greater – this increases to 5%/$10 after introductory period ends)
- 10% discount on Flexible Rate Stays at bestwestern.com
Secured
- $40 annual fee
- 5,000 bonus points after your first purchase
- Card earns at the following rates:
- 3x points on all Best Western purchases
- 1x points on all other purchases
- Basic Best Westen Rewards status (e.g none)
- 10% discount on Flexible Rate Stays at bestwestern.com
Business
- No annual fee
- 10,000 points after $1,000 in purchases within first three billing cycles
- An additional 10,000 points after a total of $3,000 in spending within first six billing cycles
- Card earns at the following rates:
- 3x points on all Best Western purchases
- 1x points on all other purchases
- Automatic platinum elite status and gold elite status for employees
- 0% introductory APR for 6 billing cycles on purchases and balance transfers (fee of 3% or $10 whichever is greater – this increases to 5%/$10 after introductory period ends)
- 10% discount on Flexible Rate Stays at bestwestern.com
My Thoughts
These cards are much more appealing than the offers that Barclaycard had, in particular the Premium card looks great value. If you put $10,000 in spend on that card you’d end up with a total of 80,000 points (although you’d need to pay the annual fee of $59 the following year), which would be enough for $300 in gift cards, you can also redeem points for airline miles (although the rates of 5:1 are not very attractive as you’d only earn up with 16,000 airline miles). Obviously you can also redeem your points for free nights at the following rates:
- Category one: 8,000 points
- Category two: 12,000 points
- Category three: 16,000 points
- Category four: 20,000 points
- Category five: 24,000 points
- Category six: 28,000 points
- Category seven: 32,000 points
- Category eight: 36,000 points
I’m going to do some more research on Best Western to find out if there are any good value hotels to be found. What are your thoughts on the new cards issued by FNBO? Let me know in the comments below.
Update: the more I think about it, the more this deal sucks. If you put $10,000 spend on a 2% card you’d earn $200 cash back, by the time you pay the annual fee you’d be left with $241 in gift cards. A sign up bonus of $41 is hardly exciting.
Pass for me, unless I can find some Best Western properties that make sense.
P.S FNBO is known to be inquiry sensitive, so watch out for that. I’ll have more information once I’ve completed my more in depth reviews.
P.P.SÂ Because these cards are issued by FNBO, they also come with a free FICO score.
I applied for the no annual fee card with 40,000 points after spending $1k in 3 months. The application went pending so I decided to apply for the 70,000 points one with 50,000 after $1k and 20,000 after a total of $5k in 12 months. The application also went pending. I decided to apply for the speedway card just because since the pulls would be combined so why not (If I knew which other cards First Bank have I would have applied for more lol). I decided not to call because I heard they are pretty rough. Fast forward, today I got a call from them asking me to confirm some info. She asked me which best rewards card I want. I said I want both lol. Got approved! One hour later the same person called me asking if I also applied for the speedway card. She asked me why I applied for so many cards and I told her I was trying my luck. I told her I would like to keep the speedway card because there is no annual fee and that is the gas station I use. I got approved as well. I am at lol/12. In November alone I got 3 new cards. I was shocked when I got approved for all the 3 cards I applied for. She told me that each card would be a hard pull. Clearly, she doesn’t know a lot about this game since it was just one hard pull. I played dumb and said Oh, no really? Thank you for letting me know lol.
Applied for Best Western credit card. Got approved, Thank G-d!
How quickly did the bonus points post after meeting the spend requirement, waiting for statement and paying?
Does First Bankcard report business account openings to credit bureaus?
To be getting this card when I have so many other cards going for earning points and miles just isn’t worth it. The spending thresholds for the bonuses is just too high.
Agreed, if the spending threshold was lower I probably would’ve got the 50k card.
I’m thinking about getting one of these just for the free FICO score, because AFAIK, FNBO is the only bank that offers an Experian FICO. I have no interest in BW points and will just redeem for merchant gift cards.
I don’t have experience with FNBO; do they allow downgrades to the no-AF version after the first year?
Yes, downgrading shouldn’t be an issue.
We stayed at the Best Western Vienna Harmonnie last month. Absolutely fantastic hotel!! There is a reason Tripadvisor has the hotel as #12 out of 354 hotels in Vienna. Truly incredible value for the points. Far and away the best hotel redemption I had using the (now-closed, for me) Diners Club mastercard.
How many points did it set you back?
This card offers a truly horrible rate of return for ongoing spending—about .5%. Cards like the Arrival+ or Venture card come with bigger signup bonuses, and earn about 4 times as much, and you can use those rewards at any hotel, not just Best Western.
If anyone really wants BW points, they can get an Amex and transfer Membership Rewards points (at this same crummy value).
The only people who should get this card are those who already have a lot of paid stays at BW. Someone who books their own rooms for business and is then reimbursed by their employer can get 10%, plus upgrades with their platinum status.
This is so disappointing. I was actually waiting on these cards and hoping for a good offer.
I just had a few stays at Best Western properties in Europe and they were surprisingly good. The biggest thing I can see being a factor is that each hotel can vary dramatically. The value per point on redemptions doesn’t seem to be jaw-dropping, but it’s nothing to scoff at as well…
There are a lot of pretty decent Best Western hotels outside of the US. I haven’t looked at specific redemption rates, but I image there will be some pretty decent value in getting the Premium card, not to mention, it’s another bank to add to the mix.