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The end of any relationship is tough. I happen to think the divorce between Costco and Amex went something like this:
My guess is Visa makes Costco feel dangerous, but also safe.
I feel like the consumer is saying look, Costco… this is just Semantics, if you wanna throw a couple miles at us – we’ll take a couple miles. The important thing is we’re moving forward 😉
You know who took the miles? CHASE FREEDOM. I wrote last week about how Chase Freedom confirmed that Costco would be a 5x category for the rest of the year. That is BIG BIG BIG. In my opinion it makes the Chase Freedom a far stronger card to carry than the newly released Costco Visa. For the next quarter they go head to head:
| Restaurants | Costco | |
|---|---|---|
| Chase Freedom | 5x | 5x |
| Costco Visa | 3x | 2x |
A little History ICYMI
Costco and Amex ended their 16 year relationship last year. The wholesale club with 81 million members basically walked away. It was a loss in the Billions to Amex. Their shares lost 6.5% that day. In fact, it was such big news that there was a whole write up on Bloomberg about it. It’s definitely worth a read if you get a chance. The article points out all sorts of issues the two companies had with one another, mostly stemming from corporate attitude and hubris. The article essentially makes Costco look like the friendly neighborhood punchbowl crew and frames Amex as a choreographed, stilted and gilded, group of prom kings and queens. Well I’d have to say the punchbowl crew held no punches and have emerged quite victorious. Much of American Express’ recent attractive offers have been aimed to entice those with incomes over $125k away from Chase and Citi, and to also retain current Costco customers with the Blue Cash card. This high income segment used to be Amex bread and butter, but Chase and Citi have enriched their programs and left Amex kind of swaying in the wind. Anyways, I could go on and on and on, but that’s for another article.
The New Citi Costco Visa is pretty.
- It’s a cash back card geared to those who with Costco Memberships
- It’s no fee as long as you maintain your Costco Membership
- 4% back on Gas from Costco – maxed at $7000 for the year
- 3% back on restaurants and travel worldwide – great deal!
- 2% back on all Costco purchases and Costco.com
- 1% back on er-thing else.
Will I get one?
I love the 5x Bonus from the Chase Freedom. I love Ultimate Rewards and I also love Costco. So for the rest of the year I’ll be using my Freedom card whenever I’m at Costco. Maybe next year I’ll look into getting this card, but in all reality I probably won’t. It’s just great to be able to use a Visa at Costco, and I have a hunch that the banks that issue Visa cards will be promoting great deals for using competing products. We’ve seen the first competition with the Freedom 5x category and hopefully many more to come!
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Welcome Offer
60k Points after $4k spend in 3 months
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
- 60k points after $4k spend in 3 months
- Worth $750 in Chase Travel℠ and way more if you maximize transfer partners
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel℠
- 3x on dining, including eligible delivery services for takeout & dining out
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- $50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travel℠
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 2x on all other travel
- 10% Anniversary Bonus
- Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
- Chase Sapphire Preferred continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel℠ and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver ( primary ), purchase protections, etc.
- Points are transferrable to 14 Ultimate Rewards partners
- Redeem in Chase Travel℠ for 1.25 cents per point
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver is my favorite
- Get complimentary access to DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees and lower service fees for a minimum of one year when you activate by December 31, 2024
- $95 Annual Fee
We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.
Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.
Main Cast:
Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.
Supporting Cast:
Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.
If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex℠and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash® , Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners
Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.
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