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Cardless continues to grow its relationship with American Express and today announces the Simon® American Express® Credit Card. New cardmembers can apply for the Cardless card using their smartphone, receive a virtual card, and begin using it far before receiving the physical card in the mail. Simon is an investor in Cardless alongside Amex Ventures in Cardless’s Series B round which raised $40 million. You can read more about it here
It’s unclear to me at this point if Simon gift cards will be included as an eligible purchase, but that would be a valuable way to get 3% back.
Here are the details of the Simon® American Express® Credit Card.
Welcome offer:
- $150 in statement credits after spending $1,000 in the first 90 days
Earn Rate
- Up to 5% back at participating Simon destination retailers and on select online purchases
- Up to 3% back on all other eligible purchases at Simon Malls, Mills and Premium Outlets
- Up to 1.5% back on all other eligible purchases, worldwide
Overall
Will I be getting this card? Probably not, but I’m more focused on transferrable points. I’m happy to see FinTech companies keep their head above water during an ecomonic drawdown and look forward to the products Cardless continues to develop to push competition in the space.
More competition = more value for customers and innovation in the space.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
The Chase Sapphire Preferred is a great starter card that earns Premium Ultimate Rewards that can be transferred into over a dozen partners many of which are US based.
Welcome Offer
60k Points after $4k spend in 3 months
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
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.
- 3x on dining
- including eligible delivery services for takeout
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Ultimate Rewards – Chase Travel Portal
- $50 Annual Credit on hotel stays purchased via Ultimate Rewards/Chase Travel
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 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 Portal and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including primary rental car insurance, purchase protections, etc.
- Points are transferrable to 13 Ultimate Rewards partners
- Redeem in the Chase Travel center for 1.25 cents per point
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Primary rental car coverage is my favorite
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.
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