The TravElite Credit Card from FNBO now comes with a 25,000 point after $2,500 in spend within the first three months sign up bonus. The card is also now publicly available. In addition they have also dropped the annual fee Continue reading for our full review.
Contents
Card Basics
- No annual fee
- Sign up bonus of 25,000 points after $2,500 in spend within the first three monthsÂ
- $100 in statement credits for airline incidentals
- $100 global entry reimbursement
- Earns at the following rates:
- 3x points per dollar spent on all airline and hotel purchases
- 1.5x points on all other purchases
- Access to Premium Concierge
- No foreign transaction fees
- This card does come with a free FICO8 score
How Much Are Points Worth?
Whenever a company starts talking about points my first thought is “how much are points actually worth? and what can they be redeemed for?”. Here’s what we know:
- Points can not be transferred into other loyalty programs, this means they have no hotel or airline partners
- Points can be used for travel, gift cards, merchandise or cash back as a credit to your account
Points are worth $0.01 a point (1¢ a point). So a $25 gift card will set you back 2,500 points. When booking a flight a fee of $15 is added. If you’re purchasing merchandise then shipping and handling are also added. There are currently 81 merchants listed that you can get gift cards for and as we mentioned previously you can redeem for cash back. There are over 200 airline and 50,000 hotels that you can redeem for worldwide (but keep in mind the $15 booking fees).
Obviously the best option will be to just redeem for cash back and then purchase gift cards/travel as you see fit.
$100Â Travel Discretionary Fund
Officially this fund can be used for incidental air travel fees that are separate from airline ticket charges. You must also enroll in this benefit. The following are examples of what do not count:
- Airline tickets, upgrades, mileage points purchases, mileage points transfer fees, gift cards, duty-free purchases and award tickets
Examples of what does count is as follows:
- Baggage, fees, airport lounge access, on-board food and beverage
Allow 2-4 weeks for the credit to post and contact them if it doesn’t post after that four week period. Please share your own datapoints on what did/didn’t trigger this credit in the comments below.
Eligible airlines:
- Alaska Airlines
- American Airlines
- Allegiant Airlines
- Delta Airlines
- Frontier Airlines
- Hawaiian Airlines
- JetBlue Airways
- Southwest Airlines
- Southwest & AirTran Airlines
- Spirit Airlines
- United & Continental Airlines
- Virgin Airlines
- Air New Zealand
- Scandinavian
- Emirates
- Alitalia
- Iceland Air
- Norwegian Air
- Aer Lingus
- British Airways
- Cathay Pacific Airways
- Qantas
- Iberia
- Air Canada
- KLM
- Qatar
- Virgin Atlantic
- LATAM Airlines
- Lufthansa
- Swiss Airlines
- Singapore Airlines
Data Points From Readers
The following do trigger the credit:
- Alaska:
- Giftcards: 1
- American Airlines:
- Taxes
- Delta:
- eGiftcard: 1,
- Â JetBlue:
- Â Southwest:
- United:
- Gift registry: 1
- Delta:
The following might not work:
Our Verdict
This card is now significantly better than it once was, it comes with a sign up bonus worth $250, no annual fee and $100 in travel incidentals. Getting $100 in travel incidentals without any annual fee means keeping this card long term makes sense. I suspect a lot of readers will be interested in this card and also not that familiar with FNBO. I’d recommend reading this post explaining more about this card issuer. Biggest thing for most people is that they are inquiry sensitive, so keep that in mind.
