Credit card tips

Following is our regular summary of the latest travel news and best frequent traveler promotions reviewed during the past week.

The Starwood Preferred Guest credit card, issued by American Express, has long been the darling of the miles-and-points set. But with the pending merger of Starwood with Marriott, the card’s future is in doubt.

You may remember the 100,000-mile bonus for new British Airways credit card sign-ups in 2010.

There’s a storm brewing in the rarefied air occupied by the priciest of the travel-rewards cards.

For most of the 35 years since American Airlines’ AAdvantage program made its debut in 1981, U.S. travel-rewards programs have measured loyalty in miles. Fly 1,000 miles, earn 1,000 miles. Earn 25,000 miles and redeem them for a free domestic coach ticket.

As it has been doing with some regularity, Southwest has upped the sign-up bonus for its Rapid Rewards Premier credit card to 50,000 points.

Are you a current or prospective Hilton loyalist? If so, a credit card linked to Hilton’s HHonors program is a no-brainer. And, for a limited time, one of the HHonors no-annual-fee cards comes bundled with a particularly generous sign-up bonus.

It would be an understatement to say that travel to Cuba hasn’t met the airlines’ expectations.

Carlson’s latest promotion may appeal to points-seekers or to those aspiring to elite status. But it’s one or the other, not both.

Visa Checkout allows Visa cardholders to make online purchases at participating retailers with a single sign in—no need to reenter card and personal information for every transaction.

Say your bank sent you a credit or debit card with an embedded RFID chip. The idea sounds appealing: When you make a purchase, instead of slipping your card into a reader and waiting for a response, all you do is tap the card on a pad somewhere near the terminal. It’s the same sort of technology that many transit systems use for fare cards, where you just tap and go through the barrier.

Although Uber has relationships with several airline and hotel loyalty programs, it has so far stopped short of launching its own program. That changes this week, with the announcement of a simple buy-nine-get-one-free offer in conjunction with Capital One.

Got an AAdvantage credit card issued by Citibank or Barclays? Then you may be entitled to book American award flights for fewer miles.

This month saw the launch of what many in the travel blogosphere are calling the best travel-rewards credit card ever: the Sapphire Reserve Visa card from Chase.

The Starwood Preferred Guest credit card, issued by American Express, has long had a prominent place in the wallets of savvy frequent travelers. Here’s why:

When it comes to traveling abroad, there’s a lot more to it than just buying a plane ticket. You need to do your research. This means finding out if you need a visa, what the weather will be like, what kind of currency they use, etc. For more popular abroad destinations, this might mean a series of quick Google searches, but when you’re traveling somewhere off the beaten path, the information you need is not always readily available.

Part of what has made Uber the undisputed leader in ride-share services is its no-tipping policy. As recently as a year ago, the following promise was featured front and center on the company’s website: “No cash, no tip, no hassle … When you arrive at your destination, just hop out—we’ll automatically charge the credit card on file. And there’s no need to tip.”

The Citi AAdvantage Executive World Elite MasterCard is the high-end credit card linked to American’s AAdvantage program. High end as in a $450 annual fee.

On March 1, Hyatt’s Gold Passport program will become World of Hyatt. Whether the change amounts to the introduction of a wholly new program or just a revamp of the existing program is more a matter of semantics than of substance. However how choose to look at it, though, the program is changing. And, according to many Hyatt loyalists, the change is not for the better.

While American’s AAdvantage program and US Airways’ Dividend Miles program were consolidated into a single program more than a year ago, following the American-US Airways merger, the question of which of the two programs’ credit-card partnerships would remain in place was left unresolved. Would it be Citi, which has issued co-branded AAdvantage cards since 1987? Or would it be Barclays, the issuer of Dividend Miles cards?

One of the many irritants of travel-rewards programs is expiring miles. Typically, miles or points expire if there’s no account activity during a two- or three-year period. It’s a policy that’s irrelevant to high-frequency travelers, because they’re constantly on the go, pushing the expiration date forward with every trip. But for the great majority of travelers, who fly infrequently, the danger of allowing hard-earned miles to disappear is clear and present.