Propeller Powered Card
Written: Dec 30 '05 (Updated Dec 24 '06)
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Pros: Free, 20,000+ Miles, Best Mileage Program
Cons: Lots of Hoops to Jump Through, TERRIBLE WEBSITE
The Bottom Line: If you carry a revolving balance, this card will give you a whacking. If you are willing use a second-rate web interface, it’s a great opportunity to earn free miles.
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| Madrabbit3's Full Review: United Airlines Mileage Plus Visa(First USA) |
If you carry a revolving balance, this card will surely give you a whacking. If you manage the card dexterously and are willing to accept a second-rate web account interface, this is a great opportunity to earn miles at no cost:
Why I applied for the United Mileage Plus Signature Visa:
I had a summer internship in Brazil, where my employer paid for my airfare. This trip allowed me to accrue over 9,500 miles, so I thought I might as well get the credit card to get my miles up to around 30,000. Using two other benefits of the United Mileage Plus Program and two other flights I took, I will be able to reach 50,000 miles so that I can fly to Europe or South America for free.
While you can just go to the United.com website and sign up for the card, I wouldn’t recommend it. The offer on the website gives you only 17,500 miles AND it does NOT waive the $60 annual fee for the first year.
Be patient and you will be rewarded! If you wait for an offer in the mail that should arrive within 3 to 4 months of joining the free United Mileage Plus Program (they will mail you worse offers first that get progressively better): 20,000 miles and no fee first year.
NOTE: The 20,000 miles were credited promptly, as soon as my first statement closed. *Airline reward miles are generally valued at one cent per mile in terms of their purchasing power, so it is like a $200 reward just for signing up for the card.*
Other Signup Bonus (largely worthless): $25 off certificate (good on domestic only, $200 plus ticket) and a 1000 mile upgrade (which is basically worthless because it requires you to buy a full fare ticket. It is cheaper to buy a discounted ticket one class up).
Costs of the Card
Interest Rate – 16.99% Variable, 22.24% cash advance. Like all rewards cards, especially mileage cards, the interest rate is outrageous!
Fees –
-Unavoidable*: $60 annual fee. This fee is waived for the first year when you are mailed a special offer (normally received within 3 months of joining the Mileage Plus program). I will try next year to ask them to waive the annual fee again and see what happens.
-Avoidable: NSF, Late Payment: around $35. Cash advance or cash-like advance (like gambling chips or money orders): 3%. International Transaction Charge (even if charged in dollars): 3%.
NOTE: There is no Over-the-Limit fee as this is a Signature Visa. That means that you are given a credit access limit (say $10,000) up to which your purchases are guaranteed to go through. Above that limit, the bank may accept or reject your purchases on a case by case basis. Never, however, will you be charged a fee for this.
Benefits:
Main Benefits: 1 mile per dollar of spending. This earnings is credited to your account at the close of the statement (they reserve the right to take longer but so far, so good).
Fringe Benefits: Luggage insurance, Zero Liability, Warranty Extender, Purchase Return Protection(100 miles), No Over the Limit Fee, Generous Credit Limit, Bonus Miles Opportunities.
Specific Information on the Fringe Benefits (Read your card agreement for specifics):
*Luggage Insurance - Covers up to $500 in replacement if your luggage is lost or delayed.
*Zero Liability – You pay nothing for unauthorized purchases when you report them promptly. (By law the maximum you would have to pay is $50 anyways.)
*Warranty Extender - You can easily register your new purchases over $50 online at Visa’s website for Signature card holders. You get up to a one year extension of the manufacturer’s warranty (provided the warranty is less than one year). This is a great way to avoid extra warranty fees. Note: You must keep all of the purchase and warranty documentation.
*Purchase Return Protection – If you have a problem with a product, or even accidentally break it or have it stolen (must file a police report) and the retailer will not take it back, the card will refund your money and take the product back. You must purchase the item with 100 miles of your home and other restrictions apply.
* Generous Credit Limit (See the “My Info” section for more.)
*Bonus Miles Opportunities – In the United Mileage Plus Mall, they give you the opportunity to earn 2,000 miles after you pay for your first month of Netflix. If you use your United Mileage Plus Signature Visa to purchase, you get an extra 2,000 miles. So if you pay $9.95 for one month of Netflix (and then cancel) you get $40 worth of airline miles and a month free of Netflix. Awesome . . .
Tip: IF YOU MUST CARRY A BALANCE . . . use Etrade’s “Mileage Maximizer Account.” This account will automatically transfer your balances on your United Mileage Plus Signature Visa, or any other card, to an Etrade revolving, variable interest rate, unsecured loan (much like credit card debt). The loan currently carries a 9.15% interest rate (as of 12/30/05). Transferring the balance from your credit card to the Etrade loan account incurs NO balance transfer fees.
NOTE: Your savings will be greater than just the interest rate difference, since from the creditor's perspective you are paying off your balance in full. Therefore, you will get the float of the grace period.
https://us.etrade.com/e/t/jumppage/viewjumppage?PageName=mileagemax
The Website of Doom!
The web interface to my account: This is, without a doubt, the clumsiest financial web site I have ever seen in my life.
*The BAD
-First off, even though FirstUSA, the issuer of the card, was acquired by Chase, you can’t log into your account at Chase.com. Chase has not finished the integration process (Chase’s site is much better than the old FirstUSA site). You have to go to the unwieldy named www.cardmemberservices.com to access your account. That’s a keyboard full!
-Second, Chase sends me emails every now and again with offers (such as balance transfers) that link me to login at chase.com. This doesn’t work of course; and, it gives me the impression that the Chase web services are run by second-rate monkeys.
-Third – The drop down menus that you have to use to see your specific account activity are terribly unwieldy. Once again, Citi and Amex are worlds better.
-Fourth - The outstanding but yet to be itemized purchases + the credit card holds RARELY EQUALS the total amount missing out of your credit access line. They update all three of these parts of your account balance at different times! Why oh why?
-Five – Erroneously sent out an error via their Email alert system that said that I had spent over $9k! Scared me and lowered my confidence in their ability to provide accurate alerts.
*The GOOD
-It is easy to link your bank account to pay online. You receive credit for payments rapidly.
-Lists unbilled but posted activity between statements
The Mysterious Application Process
After receiving the mailed application, I went to SendMeTheCard.com and filled out my offer code number and my relevant data. The website did not list the terms of the offer that I had received in the mail; so, I wasn’t sure that it had been correctly entered etc. Once I submitted the data, there was no instant response as to approval (Unlike Amex or Citi). I had to wait about 10 days to get the card in the mail.
Customer Service
I haven’t had any occasion to use it so I don’t know. The old FirstUSA had a bad reputation for customer service but hopefully customer service has migrated over to Chase by now!
About United Mileage Plus Program:
-Recently ranked as the top airline loyalty programs in terms of being able to book a rewards travel ticket on the day you want (Consumers Reports: January 2006).
-Doesn’t require payment of many of the taxes involved in air travel on rewards tickets (Whereas American Airlines DOES).
-College Plus (free add on the United Mileage Plus) gives you 10,000 free miles just for mailing them a photocopy.
-Miles expire if you have no earning/rewards/redemption activity on your account for the past 36 months. Using the United Mileage Plus Signature Visa or the United Mileage Plus Mall are a great way to keep your miles active. The United Mileage Plus Mall is the easiest way because it gives you miles back for purchasing online through their link at major online retailers, without even requiring that you use the United Mileage Plus Signature Visa. So you could but a $5 trinket from OverStock.com and earn a few miles to keep your account active.
-Lowest cost US travel is 15,000 miles, Mexico 25,000, Central America 35,000, Hawaii 35,000 miles, Europe/South America 50,000, Africa/Middle East/Asia/Oceana 70,000 to 80,000. Guaranteed availability seats are about twice the price in terms of miles. South America is one of the best deals with the reduced mileage rewards. The minimum a flight to GRU/GIG/EZE costs is about $800, which would value your miles at about 1.6 cents a mile, or 60% higher than the standard award value.
-Star Alliance – You can earn and redeem Mileage Plus Miles on US Airways, Lufthansa, Varig, BMI, and more . . .
-Caution: Many of the low-cost miles upgrades on United Mileage Plus require full fare tickets. Buying full fare tickets is silly, as you can buy restricted tickets a class higher for less!
Note: Many people are scared about the rewards programs of airlines that are in bankruptcy (like UAL). This scenario would be highly unlikely. These programs are huge money makers, because the airlines sell the miles to banks and others and the marginal cost of actually serving you on the free flight is $25-$50 (the plan is going to take off whether you are on it or not!).
My Info:
(Why do I provide this information? Whenever applying for credit, it is a good idea to see if you are likely to be accepted or rejected before applying. While successfully applying for credit temporarily lowers your credit score, you will be able to build up a good history with your creditor that in the long-run will be worth more than the slight short term negative. However, if you are rejected, you will suffer a greater short term impact and have no long-term gain).
I would estimate I have a FICO of around 730 (I used bankrate.com’s estimator to get that), which would put me somewhere between very good and excellent credit. This card generally tailors towards that credit audience.
I earned just about $35k this year and pay about $0 for rent (I am a college student that took off a semester to work). I had about $10k in credit card credit lines before applying. I was given a $10k limit and a $2k cash advance limit. Note: If you are given under a 5k limit you will not get the signature card.
***** For More Info: If you like my approach to financial services, wringing out every last cent, check out my review of my favorite bank, HSBC, http://www.epinions.com/content_210282253956 ******
UPDATE - Absolute incompetence
I was in London and I left my card in the cab by accident. They would not allow me to cancel the card online (even though I did not have a local phone and couldn't find an international toll free number online). I finally did call them and asked that a replacement be sent to my temporary address in England.
Despite taking my address in England down and assuring me they would send it there, they instead chose to send it to my US address.
I called them and they tried to send it to the UK again. They failed again. I canceled the card after hearing about their repeated failures. I explicitly told them not to accept any further charges on the card, and of course they did accept various sundry charges on the card even though I reported in missing.
Absolutely unacceptable performance for a so called "premium" card. If you can't ship a card to the UK, while charging 3% currency conversion charges, then you can look for another customer. I quit.
Now I use Capital One http://www.epinions.com/content_296731577988 .
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
Madrabbit3
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Location: Durham, NC
Reviews written: 29
Trusted by: 68 members
About Me:
It is better to be melancholy but interesting than cheerful but dumb - Roger Scruton
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