(expires November 30)
There's new
British Airways credit card from Chase that gives you a whopping 100,000 British Airways miles in just 3 months. That's the biggest payout I've ever seen for doing practically nothing. Well, almost nothing. You have to spend $75 on the annual fee for the card.
This offer is not available to current or past BA credit card holders. Even former BA/Chase cardholders are eligible. Here's the run down:
- 50,000 miles for opening the account
- 50,000 miles for spending $2,000 in the first 3 months
- 1.25 miles per dollar spent
- 2.5 miles per dollar spent on British Airways
- If you spend $30,000 in a year, you get a free companion ticket for any class of service, redeemable through a convenient booking site
The 100,000 miles is good for 2 tickets to London (50,000 per ticket) or 1 ticket to South Africa (90,000 per ticket). But before you're frightened off by the prospect of transiting in Heathrow and paying BA's hefty award surcharges, know that you can use your miles on any
oneworld carrier, like American Airlines. The 100,000 miles will take you to Hawaii almost 3 times (35,000 per ticket):
Don't worry if you don't have a British Airways Executive Club account (the name of their frequent flier program), which you can usually only get after you fly on BA once. Now you can get an account when you sign up for the card, but according to the
Flyertalk thread, non-members will need to wait 2 weeks before this card is opened up to them. And BA has
family accounts, so you can your pool miles easily and redeem for travel sooner.
HELL OF A DEAL ROB! I DID IT AND WHEN I'M IN LONDON I'll THINK OF YOU! AND FISH AND CHIPS!
Cool...now just open a $30,000 CD with Citibank with this card and you can fly 1st class for 2!
Hey Rob,
You can't open CDs with Credit Cards.
Or can you?
-A
@Ashwini
This is somewhat of a backdoor. If you call the 800 number, you can kindly ask the CSR if you can fund it with a credit card, and they will more often than not let you do that (if not, try calling again). There's no way to do it online, except if you apply online and not fund and then call to send a fax authorizing a charge to your credit card. Check out the Flyertalk thread for the latest info (linked in the article above). In some instances people have done it up to 5 accounts, in other instances they got shut down after 1 or 2 fundings (by Amex, not by Citibank).
I've funded a CD myself with my Schwab card (pays 2% back) and it's quite easy!
@Rob,
That'd be pretty cool if it'd work. I have a few CDs maturing in 2010, some which I will renew.
AFAIK, if you fund a CD with your CC, it's like a cash advance transaction. And as you know:
a. Cash advance limits are a fraction of your total credit line and not adequate to fund a CD usually and
b. Not eligible for reward points from the CC company.
Does Citi open the CD as a retail purchase transaction? That's the only way it wouldn't show up as cash advance. Thanks!
@Ashwini
Yes, it should post as a purchase. Before going through with mine, I asked the CSR, and he confirmed it would post as a purchase!
arrrrrrgghhhhh!!!! i'd have scored some major points if I had known!
But all institutions I called said it'd be a cash advance type of transaction.
Ok, well, 2010 then.
Thanks for this post!
This offer is now reduced to 30,000miles for opening an account, instead of 50,000 as you initially mentioned.
The 50,000 mile deal from United is still active.