Synchrony Financial & Cathay Pacific have announced that they will be launching a co-branded credit card in the first quarter of 2017. Apart from the launch date, not much information was given apart from the following:
- Cathay Pacific Airways Visa® credit card will offer rewards and exclusive benefits for U.S. travelers
- Qualifying cardholders will also have access to special travel packages, multi-destination fares, purchases and services
Synchrony mostly issue store credit cards, (the following information is wrong, Comenity Bank issue the Virgin America card). they do have one airline co-branded credit card partner currently with Virgin America but that deal will likely end when the Alaska acquisition of Virgin America has been completed. If that card is anything to go by, I wouldn’t expect a very high sign up bonus on this new Cathay Pacific card. Those cards usually have a sign up bonus of 10,000 points ($49 annual fee, not waived first year) or 15,000 points ($149 annual fee, not waived first year), although these offers are sometimes doubled for targeted consumers.
It is possible that the Cathay Pacific card will offer a bigger sign up bonus and better benefits than the Virgin America cards, that will be dependent on the deal Cathay Pacific has struck and how much market share they hope to capture – but I wouldn’t expect a big 50,000 mile bonus. Their co-branded card in Hong Kong isn’t exactly generous either, although that is par for the course.
