(Update: card is now live)
A source (seems reliable) reports that United Airlines will soon launch a debit card — the United MileagePlus® Debit Rewards — issued by Sunrise Bank, similar to the recently launched Southwest and Wyndham debit cards.
- Signup bonus: Unknown, but likely the same 2,500 points as with Southwest and Wyndham.
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Points earning rate: 1 mile per $2 spent on regular purchases; 1 mile per $1 spent on United purchases. (Same as Southwest and Wyndham.)
- Annual spend bonus: Earn 2,500 bonus miles each year after you spend $10,000. (The Southwest and Wyndham cards have better spend tiers.)
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Account balance bonus: Earn up to 70,000 miles each year based on your account balance; we don’t have the details/tiers on this. (The Southwest or Wyndham cards don’t have a comparable bonus to this.)
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Monthly fee: $4 monthly fee; no monthly fee with an average monthly balance of $2,000. (This is lower than the $6/$6.99 charged by Wyndham/Southwest. Also slightly lower balance to waive the fee as the others have it at $2,500.)
- Other Benefits: Unknown. (Southwest and Wyndham both offered other benefits/credits and it’s likely there’s some more with the United debit card as well.)
- FDIC-insured up to $250,000.
Image shared by the source (@SoFi_Insider):
Our Verdict
At $48/yr it’s more affordable than the Southwest or Wyndham cards. We need to wait and find out full debit card account details to properly analyze if it’s worth the fee. An important, outstanding question is whether you can hold both the upcoming United debit card and the Southwest and Wyndham debit cards or if there’s some sort of limit. There are likely to be use cases for these cards either for the various benefits or for certain types of purchases/merchants which don’t accept credit cards.
Hat tip to MEAB
