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I first heard about Cardless from Zach Honig who left The Points Guy to join the FinTech venture. I follow him on Instagram and he’s always posting great travel content. Cardless is digitally a native, in fact, if you get one of their cards it will first populate your smartphone wallet, and once you do receive a physical card it won’t have a number on it. Zach’s been dropping hints at a cool new product they’re working on and now we know what it is – a partnership with LATAM featuring a cobranded credit card for the US market.
Here’s an overview… if you’re interested -> https://www.cardless.com/latam.
| LATAM Airlines Mastercard | LATAM Airlines World Elite Mastercard |
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● Annual Fee: $0 ● Sign-up Bonus: 15,000 miles after $1,000 spent in first three months ● LATAM Purchases: 3x ● Restaurants, Ground Transportation: 2x ● Everything Else: 1x ● Qualifying Points: Issued at a rate of 10% of miles earned from card purchases* ● Foreign Transaction Fee: None
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● Annual Fee: $99 ● Sign-up Bonus: 40,000 miles after $2,500 spent in first three months ● LATAM Purchases: 4x ● Restaurants, Ground Transportation: 3x ● Everything Else: 1x ● Qualifying Points: Issued at a rate of 20% of miles earned from card purchases* ● Upgrade Coupons: 3** ● LATAM Lounge Access: 2 passes per account year ● Foreign Transaction Fee: None |
I’m not going to be adding either of these to my wallet immediately, but I would be most interested in the premium version for these 3 reasons
- Sign up Bonus
- 3 upgrade coupons
- LATAM lounge access 2x a year per account
Those 3 upgrade coupons are enough to upgrade 3 short haul flights, or 1 long haul flight that is booked in Plus or Top Economy. These are based on avail, but if you fly LATAM often, that single perk could be enough to easily justify the annual fee.
The legacy gatekeepers are facing an onslaught of digitally native, tech-savvy, loyalty hungry entrepreneurs looking to shake up the space – Bilt, Brex, Cardless to name a few of the companies built on the rails of traditional finance that are changing the game. It doesn’t stop there. There’s another entire ecosystem of digital assets being developed and run across crypto rails that will bring competition to another entire space as well.
I’m a big believer that over the next 10 years, innovations in the payment ecosystem are going to absolutely blow our minds.
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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