How to follow my #milemadness

As I posted last week, for the month of March I'm participating in a good-natured competition with a number of miles and points bloggers to see who can manufacture the most spend. The competition privileges speed, since we’re competing within a specific time limit and with a limited “bankroll" of $5,000: every dollar we manufacture has to be liquidated before it can be spent again. Obviously that’s a slightly different game than the one we normally play, where floating money from month to month is one of the many perks of manufacturing spend. But it creates a level playing field where we can show off all our nimblest tricks for pushing as much money as possible through our most lucrative credit cards.

During the competition I’ll be posting here on the blog as usual, but I’ll post one additional update per week, when the competition's judge, Frequent Miler, has tallied up the previous week’s results, linking to his official tally and giving my commentary on the state of play.

However, if you’re interested in seeing my day-to-day progress, you should follow me on Twitter, where my handle is @FreequentFlyr. Each day on Twitter, in addition to my running commentary, I’ll also post a single tweet summarizing my day’s activities, in the following format:

If it's not obvious, "BOD Bankroll" refers to the amount of money left in my bankroll at the beginning of the day. Today’s was $5,000 since today is the first day of the competition. “Spend” of course refers to the amount of manufactured spend I put on my credit cards, including any fees I incurred. "EOD Bankroll" is the amount left in my bankroll at the end of the day after subtracting the day’s manufactured spend. “Unloaded” is the amount of spend I’ve liquidated, which will be available in my bankroll at the beginning of the next day. And “Tomorrow’s bankroll” is the total amount I’ll have available to spend the next day.

This isn’t an official score, which will be calculated by Frequent Miler at the end of each week and at the end of the competition. Rather, it’s a running, unofficial score so you can follow my progress more closely (if you want). Hopefully some of the other competitors will adopt a similar format so you can easily see the state of play on a daily basis.

Let the games begin!

Developing: Momentum prepaid Visa

I've long been curious about the Momentum Prepaid Visa, one of the many cards issued by The Bancorp Bank. There's virtually no information available about it online, and it has an unusually sparse and confusing Flyertalk thread.

Getting the Card

The first reason there's so little information about the Momentum card is that it has an extremely limited geographic availability. You can only apply for the card at one of a fairly small number of Money Mart and Loan Mart check-cashing locations. You'll need to visit their store locator tool to see if there's a location near you or somewhere you'll be visiting soon.

If you follow me on Twitter, you know that back on February 15 I took an Amtrak Northeast Regional train down to Philadelphia to visit the Money Mart on Market Street there and apply for a card.

It cost $10 to purchase a temporary card, with an additional minimum deposit of $10, so a total of $20 in cash was required to walk away with a temporary card.

The "application form" is a trifold brochure that asks for some basic information, including your Social Security number, and asks you to choose between the "flat fee" and "pay as you go" plan. Here's a picture of a spare application I grabbed from the store:

On the back of the brochure is information about the card's fees and limits:

Selecting a Card

As you may be able to make out above, you can choose between two "plans:"

• the "flat fee" plan has a $10 per month "maintenance fee," but no charge for signature and PIN transactions;
• the "pay as you go" plan has no monthly fee, but charges $1 per signature and PIN transaction.

There are a few other irrelevant fee differences, but that's basically it: if you plan to make more than 10 transactions per month, select the "flat fee" plan, otherwise you're better off with the "pay as you go" plan.

Activating the Card

Once I had my temporary card, I just threw it in a drawer until my permanent card came about a week and a half later. Once that permanent card arrived, I naturally had to activate it.

The first thing to point out is that the application distinguishes between a blue, "flat fee," card and a green, "pay as you go" card. Since I applied for a "pay as you go" card, I was given a green temporary card. But when my permanent card arrived, it was blue!

Additionally, some folks on Flyertalk have reported receiving a permanent card, with their name printed, at the check-cashing store itself. So at the moment it doesn't appear that there's any rhyme or reason to the card's color scheme.

Finally, and this is just embarrassing, but I had completely forgotten that the clerk at Money Mart repeatedly told me that my default pin was the last four digits of my Social Security number.

So don't let this happen to you: your default pin is the last four digits of your Social Security number! You'll need to input that default pin to register your permanent card (you can then easily change it).

Loading Momentum

Momentum prepaid Visa cards are loadable using Vanilla Reload Network reload cards.

If you look at the "card fees and limits" above, you'll see the third line from the top reads:

"Maximum Daily Card Load – All others  $7,500"

I have no idea what that's supposed to refer to. However, in the terms and conditions that were sent along with the permanent card, there's a much clearer limit:

"The maximum number of times you can load your Card per day is five (5), so long as the Card balance does not exceed $10,000."

Once my permanent card had arrived and was activated, I was able to load $2,000 in Vanilla Reload Network reload cards without any issue in a period of about 5 minutes.

Unloading Momentum

Here's the part that I'm particularly excited about. According to the same terms and conditions included with the permanent card:

"The maximum cumulative amount that may be withdrawn through a participating bank (over-the-counter withdrawal) per day is the total available balance on the Card."

After loading my $2,000 to the card, I walked down to my trusty local bank and asked for a "cash advance" of $1,995. A "cash advance," as my readers know, is a very expensive method of taking cash out of a credit card. However, over-the-counter cash disbursements are processed identically by tellers, and I have yet to meet a bank teller who knows the phrase "cash disbursement," which is the term Visa uses for over-the-counter withdrawals from debit cards.

The "cash advance" processed successfully, and when it posted to my Momentum card a few hours later it incurred a fee of just $1.

Remaining Questions

I'm excited about my new toy, but there are a lot of questions I don't have the answers to yet:

• Is the daily load limit really $2,500?
• Is there a monthly load limit and, if so, is it a calendar month or rolling load limit?
• Is there really no limit on over-the-counter withdrawals?
• Does the "flat fee" plan waive the $1 over-the-counter withdrawal fee?

And of course, the biggest question of all: what is the shutdown risk of this card?

Bancorp issues a lot of prepaid debit cards, and they're all vulnerable to shutdown sooner or later. However, there's no question that some cards are more vulnerable than others, so it's not a foregone conclusion that the Momentum card isn't worth your time.

That's going to become clearer in the coming weeks and months. How will you find out? From your humble blogger, of course.

Have a great weekend.

What's up with Alaska Airlines First Class?

Alaska Airlines First Class has a bit of a queer reputation. It may be one of the least aspirational long-haul first class product in the world. For example, in her trip report on her flight to Hawai'i, Mommy Points said of the seats:

"Of course these are not the fancy 'lie flat' type of seats, but they weren’t bad, and were certainly an upgrade over coach."

"An upgrade over coach" may be the best "damning by faint praise" of a first class seat I've ever read. Did they pressurize the cabin, too?

On the other hand, 100% bonus Medallion Qualification Miles and a 50% class of service bonus was enough to convince me to pony up for paid(!) first class tickets for me and my partner to fly to Kaua'i for Christmas with my family. Of course, I redeemed Barclaycard Arrival miles against the upgrade from refundable coach, turning the holiday into a cheap last-minute mileage run for my last year of Platinum Medallion status with Delta.

Four flights; eight options; one vegetarian dish

As we were hanging out in the terminal at Boston's Logan airport, my partner turned to me and asked, "this is a pretty long flight, they're going to feed us, right?"

I answered, "Hey, we're flying in first class – they've got us taken care of."

Then I started thinking, and Googled, "vegetarian food in Alaska first class." The results were not encouraging.

Let's take a look at the dishes offered on the first three legs I flew (the 4th menu didn't make it home with me):

Pretty standard airplane fare: a choice between a slab of meat and a pasta dish with red sauce. We had nothing to worry about after all!

After a night in Portland and a dinner at Pine State Biscuits, we headed to the airport for our flight to Kaua'i. Here's the menu for that flight:

Here Alaska Airlines broke with longstanding airline tradition and replaced the boring pasta dish with...another slab of meat!

After a relaxing week on the Garden Isle, we begrudgingly headed back to the airport and boarded our flight back to Portland, where these dishes were served:

Here Alaska decided to get even more adventurous and replaced the second slab of meat with...shellfish!

On our final return flight after a very relaxing New Year's weekend in Portland, we had two breakfast options. I enjoyed the quiche (with bacon), while my partner picked her way through a plate of scrambled eggs...with a "beef braised hash." I have no idea what a beef braised hash is, since the flight attendant was happy to serve the eggs without it, which brings me to...

Alaska Airlines flight attendants are amazing

All four legs of our trip were made incredible by the great, friendly, attentive flight attendants. They were happy to do anything possible to accommodate our dietary restrictions, happy to keep our glasses full, and even had a pretty good comedy routine congratulating passengers on getting to spend the holidays in Hawai'i. I love having a good rapport with flight attendants; it's part of the charm of flying for me.

But the hard product is pretty bad

Even "bad" might be too strong a word. But it's uncomfortable in a number of nagging ways:

• There are no USB or AC power outlets. That's not the biggest deal in the world, but it does mean on a long flight, especially if you're connecting to another long flight (fortunately, we had an overnight stay in Portland between our transcontinental and Hawai'i legs), you're going to need to manage your battery use aggressively on your electronic devices;
• The personal entertainment players don't fit on the tray tables during meal service. Instead of having a seat-back or fold-out entertainment system, Alaska distributes pretty sizable personal video players. They work great, and have great battery life and video selection, but they take up a lot of space. Once your meal is served, you've got to find a place to stash this unwieldy object, hopefully without losing your place in whatever movie or show you're watching. That's not fun;
• And it's true: the seats don't recline very much.

Conclusion

As Mommy Points remarked so concisely, it's an upgrade over coach, and I wouldn't hesitate to fly Alaska First Class again if the price was right.

In fact, I'm taking Alaska's non-stop service between Boston and Seattle for Frequent Traveler University in late April, and I'm technically eligible for an upgrade on those flights as a Delta Platinum Medallion.

Fingers crossed!

My take on the 2014 Delta Devaluation

I've long argued that Delta is the best legacy US carrier, while having the worst legacy loyalty program.

It's no longer possible to make that argument, since starting January 1, 2015, Delta will no longer have a legacy loyalty program. Instead, they'll be introducing what can for now be called a "hybrid" loyalty program: miles earned for flights will depend completely on the revenue cost of tickets flown and on your elite status, while at the same time you'll — maybe — be able to redeem miles according to a traditional award chart. In other words, you'll earn like in a revenue-based system but redeem like in a traditional legacy program.

As of yet we don't know what that new award chart will look like, so it's still early days to give an overall assessment of the devaluation. Still, we can reach some preliminary conclusions.

Delta loyalty now makes (even) less sense

One long-standing advantage of the Skymiles program over US Airways and United has been that Gold elites, at the 50,000 Medallion Qualifying Miles level, earn 100% bonus redeemable miles on paid flights, while only 100,000 elite qualifying mile elites earn that bonus on the two other carriers. Now that miles are earned on revenue, rather than distance flown, the advantage of being a higher-tier elite is overwhelmed by the disadvantages of booking primarily cheap tickets.

Only Alaska Airlines and American Airlines 50,000-mile elites will now earn 100% bonus redeemable miles.

Mileage running on Delta now makes no sense

Delta has conveniently put a calculator on the website announcing the changes to the program. My mileage run to Lima last November earned me 17,054 redeemable Skymiles. Since it cost just $364, starting January 1 that same trip would earn me just 3,276 Skymiles, assuming I remained a Platinum Medallion — over 80% fewer miles! In other words, valuing Skymiles at just one cent each, I'd be getting $137.78 less in value from the run.

Meanwhile, Frequent Miler says he's relieved because "Miles earned from flying tends to be little more than a rounding error in my account balance." I think that's a minority experience — even among travel hackers, which you can see with the example of a Diamond Medallion with exactly 125,000 Medallion Qualification Miles each year:

• Carrying one American Express Delta Reserve card, on which she puts $60,000 in spend annually, earning 90,000 redeemable Skymiles;
• Selecting the Skymiles Elite Choice Benefit at the Platinum and Diamond level, earning 45,000 redeemable Skymiles;
• And flying 95,000 miles to make up the balance of her 125,000 Medallion Qualification Miles, earning 213,750 redeemable Skymiles.

This hypothetical Diamond medallion is still earning 58% more Skymiles each year through flying than through credit card spend or Elite Choice Benefits. That calculus will vary by hacker, but that's a big initial deficit to make back over the course of a year of portal bonuses.

No one knows what the new award chart will look like

For all the moaning and gnashing of teeth this devaluation will bring on, the single biggest thing to remember for now is that no one knows what the new award chart will look like. The only information Delta has given is that there will be 5 tiers of award availability, and that one-way flights will be allowed at half the cost of round-trips. Beyond that, they are starting from scratch, and anything is possible:

• Delta could adopt a distance-based chart, and that chart could be based on distance between origin and destination, or distance of each leg (like British Airways Avios);
• Delta could adopt a revenue-based chart, and that chart could give a fixed value per Skymile in each redemption tier (like Southwest), or fixed "bands" of value, like US Bank Flexperks and some other award currencies;
• Delta could differentiate between flights to and from hubs, and flights beginning and terminating elsewhere, as they currently do with small-business Skybonus point earning;
• or Delta could do literally anything else.

Until we know what the award charts — and the new award availability — look like, we won't know the value of our Skymiles, and we won't know the final effect of the devaluation on earning using co-branded Delta credit and debit cards and on miles earned through flying.

Will the devaluation change my loyalty strategy?

Not in the slightest.

For months I've been planning on this being a year of mileage redemptions: this will be my last year as a Platinum Medallion, enjoying free award redeposit and reissue, allowing me to maximize the value I get from my Skymiles by locking in "low"-level award space as it becomes available.

Indeed, I have been maximizing them so much I'm down to only about 2,000 redeemable Skymiles in my account. I hope to get off one or two more redemptions this year, before asking Alaska Airlines to match me to MVP Gold 75K and crediting all my Delta and American flights to Alaska's Mileage Plan.

I still love flying Delta, and I'll remain loyal to them as an airline, in the sense that I'll continue to redeem miles and points to fly them whenever possible. But I'll never again direct a paid flight to Delta in order to secure a higher Medallion status.

Meanwhile, I don't think they'll be terribly sorry to see me go.

Manufactured Spending Tournament: introduction

Inspired by Frequent Miler's mapcap quest for 1 million miles and points last March, Matt from Saverocity recently approached me, along with several other bloggers, to propose a little good-natured competition: who can manufacture the most spend within one month, constrained by a $5,000 "bankroll," with none other than Frequent Miler himself judging the results.

Manufactured spend? Cut-throat competition? How could I refuse!

My Advantages

There are a lot of reasons why I think I've got a lock on this contest:

1. I already have the tools. While other competitors start scrambling to apply for prepaid cards that might take weeks to arrive, I've already got plenty of products to start aggressively maximizing come March 1.
2. I'm blessed by geography. Plentiful drug stores, a gas station or 3, and a Walmart where the associates are more than happy to humor my ridiculously spending habits are all advantages the other competitors can't necessarily count on.
3. I've still got my Alaska Airlines debit card, which acts as a force-multiplier on all my manufactured spend. When other competitors get their money out of a product, they're done, but I get to push it through my debit card one last time, which I have every intention of doing.

My Disadvantages

That doesn't mean I won't be overcoming some obstacles along the way, the biggest of which is that since I've already been at this for so long, many products which represent the lowest-hanging fruit have already been closed to me. For example, one of my rivals could apply for a new GoBank account and push $2,500 per day through that card, while my account has already been closed, meaning I'm going to have to be more creative, and incur higher expenses. PayPal and Netspend are two more examples of opportunities closed to me, but perhaps open to my rivals.

Conclusion

What I'm most interested in seeing in this competition is the range of reselling and churning techniques the other players use. Until Evolve Money came along, I did virtually no gift card churning, on the grounds that there was too much room for potentially expensive error. Now I do some light manufactured spend at Staples, but I know there are others who buying thousands of dollars in either products or gift cards and attempt to sell them for a small loss, or even profit. While I don't expect them to share all their secrets with the world, I'm looking forward to picking up a few hints that might help me decide whether to dabble in that field myself.

May the best hacker win!

Weekend roundup from around the web

Here's the stuff that's been cluttering up my RSS reader:

• Chasing the Points says the Chase Amazon Visa has the same 20,000 point, $335 airfare redemption as the Chase Freedom, which makes it a 2.68% cash back card at gas stations;
• View from the Wing wants you to redeem Virgin Australia miles for one-way Delta flights;
• Running with Miles buys and resells electronics for fun and profit;
• The Points Guy wants you to leave points in your flexible accounts as long as possible;
• but that's where the banks can get them. I say transfer as soon as you have a reasonable guess of where you'll need them.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday!

What's in my wallet?

Reader Winston has asked what credit cards I personally carry, which I think is a great way to keep a travel blogger honest. Of course, it's slightly more relevant for bloggers who pepper their posts with affiliate links, but what's good for the goose, etc.

US Bank

US Bank is quietly a powerhouse of lucrative credit cards. I carry three cards they issue, and put spend on all three each month:

• Cash+. 2% cash back at drugstores, with no minimum redemption;
• Flexperks Travel. Double Flexpoints at gas stations, worth up to 4% cash back in redemptions for paid airline travel;
• Club Carlson Business. 5 Gold Points per dollar spent everywhere.

Chase

Lots of old standbys here. The Freedom is actually the result of a product change from Chase's great Slate product, which I got back when I carried balances:

• Freedom. Rotating 5x categories;
• Sapphire Preferred. Transferability of Ultimate Rewards points;
• Marriott Rewards Premier. Signup bonus, annual free night;
• British Airways. Signup bonus.

Bank of America

My oldest credit card, which I put spend on once a year or so:

• Cash Rewards. 3% cash back on up to $1,500 on gas stations quarterly.

American Express

Three great cards:

• Delta Platinum Business. One of the best values in the business;
• Hilton HHonors Surpass. 6 HHonors points per dollar at gas stations and grocery stores;
• "Old" Blue Cash. 5% cash back at drugstores, gas stations, and grocery stores after spending $6,500 on the card per membership year.

Barclaycard

The Arrival has a $89 annual fee, so if I can't have that waived in April I'll be closing it. Lucrative, though:

• Arrival World MasterCard. 2.22% cash back everywhere, when redeemed against travel purchases;
• US Airways. Signup bonus.

Citi

Citi's a slum: you only visit when they have something you need. I'm actually waiting to receive the Dividend Platinum Select, which I product changed my formerly 5% cash back ThankYou Preferred card to a few weeks ago:

• Platinum Select AAdvantage MasterCard. Signup bonus;
• Dividend Platinum Select. Rotating 5% cash back categories.

Discover

• it. Rotating 5% cash back categories and access to the ShopDiscover portal.

Fidelity

• Investment Rewards American Express. 2% cash back everywhere.

And now my cards are on the table.

Club Carlson: Best. Devaluation. Ever.

By now you've probably heard about Club Carlson's March 15, 2014, devaluation. The short version:

• Introduction of a 7th category, which will cost 70,000 Gold Points per award night;
• Changes to the Silver and Gold elite earning bonuses;
• Premium room award nights (suites and such, I gather);
• Elimination of the online-booking bonus, except on a promotional basis;
• and finally, award nights will count towards elite status.

In the travel hacking community we're accustomed to thinking about loyalty programs as a chess match between hotels, who try to squeeze us as much as possible while not scaring off the business travelers who make up the bulk of their revenue, and those of us who seek to stay as many nights as possible while paying as little as possible.

And indeed, that's the approach most bloggers have taken to this devaluation:

• View From the Wing says "On net these changes are not good. You’ll earn fewer points, and it will take more points to redeem for many hotels.. especially their most expensive properties."
• The Points Guy says "All in all, though these changes are mostly disappointing, but not entirely surprising."
• One Mile at a Time says "These changes are no doubt negative on the whole."

I disagree completely. Of course I'm not thrilled that Club Carlson has changed elite earning and made me rework my beloved point density charts.

But allowing award nights to count towards elite status is the single most consumer-friendly thing any chain can do.

And it's good business.

Award stays are so lucrative at Club Carlson that, while everyone with one of their co-branded credit cards has Gold elite status, it has been unthinkable to achieve Concierge status since that has — to date — required 75 paid nights or 30 paid stays.

Now that award nights and stays count towards elite status, it changes the calculus for where to direct paid stays, as well. If you're a business traveler and travel hacker, before this change you might have redeemed Gold Points you earn with a Club Carlson credit card for award stays, but directed your paid stays towards Hyatt or Starwood in order to secure elite status with one of those chains. Now, one or two award stays per month gets you almost all the way to Concierge status, where you earn 75% more Gold Points on your paid stays and free breakfast on all stays. That might convince you to direct additional, paid, stays to Club Carlson properties as well.

That's why I'm inclined to not think of these changes as a devaluation, but as part of a realignment. Club Carlson is eagerly trying to position itself as an appealing brand for business travelers, especially in Europe where their properties are frequently in great downtown locations. Allowing award nights and stays to count towards elite status is going to drive a lot more business towards those properties since it puts Concierge status within reach for more casual travelers. And it's a brilliant move by Club Carlson.

Club Carlson Mega Points Promotion

Hat tip to Mommy Points and her reader who passed along the news that at a few Club Carlson properties, you can earn 10,000 bonus Gold Points per night when you make a reservation using the promo code "MEGAPT." Here's the list of participating properties:

• Radisson Martinique on Broadway
• Radisson JFK Airport
• Radisson Resort Orlando – Celebration
• Radisson Hotel Orlando – Lake Buena Vista
• Radisson Hotel Orlando – UCF Area
• Radisson Hotel Fisherman’s Wharf

Of course, I'm planning a trip to New York in March, and currently have 2 nights booked at the Radisson Martinique for a total of 50,000 Gold Points, but don't have my third night booked yet. This promotion has put me in a tough position. The way I see it, I have three options:

• Option 1: keep the 2 award nights, pay $228.42 after taxes for a "AAA Hot Deal" 20% off rate;
• Option 2: keep the 2 award nights, pay $307.59 after taxes for the "Mega Points Promotion" rate;
• Option 3: rebook all 3 nights, pay $1037.51 after taxes for the "Mega Points Promotion rate.

Deciding between Options 1 and 2 depends on my valuation of Club Carlson Gold Points. Are 10,000 Gold Points worth $79.17? Maybe, sometimes. But it takes more than "sometimes" to get me to spend $79 out of pocket (although I'll naturally redeem Barclaycard Arrival miles against the transaction later).

One of these options is not like the others though: why would I pay $1038 when I could pay $228 instead? Because of the other current Club Carlson promotion, which gives 38,000 Gold Points after 3 paid nights between January 6 and April 13, 2014.

By triggering that second promotion, I'd end up paying $810 for ~144,850 Gold Points (30,000 "Mega Points," 38,000 "Stay 3 Nights," and the 50,000 Gold Points I'm currently paying for the 2 nights, plus 30 Gold Points per dollar on my $895 room rate as a Gold elite), or 0.56 cents each. There's no denying that's a good rate to buy Gold Points at in bulk. It's almost enough for 6 free nights at a Category 6 property, as long as the nights are booked in blocks of 2, so conservatively $1,200 in value.

So, am I gonna do it? Of course not. The least valuable point is the one you don't spend, and I have 50,000 Gold Points burning a hole in my account. They're not going to get any more valuable by sitting on them.

My fellow travel hackers, we are the redemption we've been waiting for.

Check back tomorrow for my take on the Club Carlson "devaluation" (hint: I love it!).

Chase United Business Explorer: pentuple threat?

Chase's co-branded United credit cards don't get the same love Citi's American Airlines and Barclaycard's US Airways cards do. At first blush, the reason for this neglect is obvious: Chase's Ultimate Rewards cards have higher earning rates in more lucrative categories, and those points can be transferred instantly to United. If you're going to carry even one flexible Ultimate Rewards-earning card, why would you also carry a United co-branded card?

As sound as that argument is, I want to take the other side and argue that the Chase MileagePlus Explorer Business card is very much worth considering – and indeed, if it weren't for Chase's Ultimate Rewards cards, might be the second-most-valuable co-branded airline credit card (American Express's Delta Platinum and Reserve cards are in a class of their own, in the opinion of your humble blogger).

Great Signup Bonus

For months and months Chase has been offering 50,000 United miles after spending $2,000 on the Explorer Business card within 3 months. To get the offer to show up, open a private browsing window, log into your United account, and open this link (it may not be available for all users, although I've seen tons of reports of success).

Compare that to the Chase Ink Bold and Plus cards, which offer 50,000 flexible Ultimate Rewards points after spending $10,000 on the cards. We can praise flexibility all we want, but how many people end up transferring all 50,000 Ultimate Rewards points to United anyway?

Great Earning Rate

Unlike the non-business MileagePlus Explorer card, the Explorer Business earns 2 MileagePlus miles per dollar spent at restaurants, gas stations, and office supply stores. That's one card with all three of the most lucrative Chase Sapphire Preferred and Chase Ink bonus categories (although with only 2x at office supply stores rather than the Ink's 5x).

And since the Business Explorer card is a Visa small business credit card, it's eligible for Visa Savings Edge as well.

Great Threshold Spend Bonus

Each calendar year you spend $25,000 or more on the Business Explorer card, you'll earn an additional 10,000 MileagePlus miles.

That means if you spend $25,000 at office supply stores and gas stations in your first year of card membership, you would earn 110,000 United miles, or 4.4 miles per dollar. If you applied mid-year, you could even get in a second $25,000 in your second calendar year of card membership and earn another 60,000 United miles (and a second year of waived PQD – see below).

Great Premier Qualifying Dollar Waiver

If you actually have to fly United (hub captive?), you might be interested in the Premier Qualifying Dollar waiver you get when you spend $25,000 on any co-branded MileagePlus card. Note that the waiver only allows you to reach up to Premier Platinum without meeting the PQD requirement — there's no PQD waiver for Premier 1K status.

Great Last Seat Availability

I have a confession to make: I love last seat availability. With either a personal or Business Explorer card, you're able to redeem your miles at the "standard" level for any seat on any United-operated flight.

Conclusion

Will I apply for this card? Definitely not this year, probably not next year, but someday? Why not: it's a really solid card, and if you're running out of Chase credit cards to apply for, it's well worth your consideration.