The sign-up bonus for both is 5,000 Mileage Bank miles after $5,000 spend in three billing cycles, and the Premium tier has an additional 5,000 miles after another $2,000 spend. For ongoing spend, you’ll earn 0.5x on the Basic or 1x on the Premium. Both cards earn 2x on JAL flights.
The Whale Angle
The Premium tier earns 5 Life Status Points (yes, that’s really what they’re called) for every $1,500 in spend. After 1,500 Life Status Points earned, you get JAL Global Club Three Star status for life, which also gets you JGC Premier status (second to highest JAL frequent flyer tier), which includes at least oneworld Sapphire status, and potentially also includes oneworld Emerald status; the terms are rather-unclear and no-one’s had time to try this yet to be sure. So, just spend $450,000 and get lifetime Sapphire or Emerald status, provided you pay 2,000 miles as a “membership fee” annually. Quirky enough yet?
Oneworld Sapphire is great because it grants you access to:
AA lounges including Flagship even when flying domestically
Alaska lounges, even when flying domestically
If you end up with oneworld Emerald, you’ll also get access to:
Qantas First lounges, even when flying domestically
Cathay Pacific First lounges, even when flying domestically
If $450,000 in spend is just another couple of days for you and you could easily burn 450,000 JAL Mileage Bank miles, then you can have some fun and some weird status if nothing else.
The Other Quirks
There are more quirks to contend with:
Mileage Bank miles expire after three years even if you hold the card, unless you hold JGC Three Star status or higher in which case they don’t expire
Paid tickets earn 10% “sector bonus” miles for every flight for cardholders
You earn 5,000 bonus miles on your first flight paid for with the card
You earn 5,000 bonus miles when booking your first flight with JAL International
There’s a promotion code to use during application, but it’s prefilled and non-editable: AFSPG1024
There’s more too, but the main quirks are covered.
Bonus: JAL MileageBank Sweet Spots
JAL MileageBank is traditionally a great program with a few (surprise) quirks. Sweet spots include:
140,000 miles for JAL first round-trip awards
100,000 miles for Emirates business one-way awards
24,000-30,000 miles for an upgrade from paid economy to business on JAL metal
Distance flown based partner redemptions with three stop-overs, including mixed partners
– Transcons at 9,000 points – Hawaii at 9,000 points – Alaska at 20,000 points – Mexico at 9,000 points
These continue to be the best award sales that no-one talks about, especially since you’re still able to transfer Membership Rewards to Hawaiian, then Hawaiian to Alaska MileagePlan miles.
– Earn elite qualifying miles (EQMs) on award travel redemptions based on distance and ticket class, a minimum of 1 EQM per mile flown including partner redemptions – Earn 1 EQM per $3 spent on a co-brand credit card, up to $90,000 spend – Earn EQMs for mileage partners, especially the MileagePlan shopping portal – Milestone rewards like AA – Multi-partner award redemptions are coming this “winter”
It’ll be relatively easy to earn MileagePlan status via manufactured spend next year, which when coupled with AA status, could make you a double oneworld Sapphire, capable of viewing the Double Rainbow.
If you’re banned from Barlcays, getting a GM card may be a back-door way back in, but historically Barclays is tough on bans so I wouldn’t count on it.
Do this now: Register for your targeted United Mileage Play offer. My offer was “Book and take a trip in a premium seat 2 times to earn 21,000 bonus miles.” My fine print says travel by December 13 and each ticket has to cost $500 before taxes and fees, so best case this is a +2x miles on spend deal.
– $100 back on $300+ at Radisson Blu or Cambria hotels through November 30 – $100 back on $300+ at Small Luxury Hotels through December 31 – $150 back on $650+ at The Hotel Collection properties through December 7
The top two are gameable, the bottom one, probably not so much. How do you game these? As always, buying a gift card is the simplest way, but not the only way.
While Pepper has killed the market for third party gift cards bought at a 10% discount in some brands, others like BestBuy and Lululemon are largely unaffected given the purchase limits on the former with Pepper and the lack of those cards altogether on the latter.
The Chase Sapphire Reserve, United Club card, and Ritz cards no longer offer primary rental car insurance to New York residents, where it now reverts to secondary insurance. They also exclude Israel, Jamaica, the Republic of Ireland, and Northern Island in the benefits guide.
The US Bank Altitude Reserve doesn’t have this restriction and therefore wins New York, but does also restrict coverage in Israel, Jamaica, the Republic of Ireland, and Northern Ireland. The Venture X is similar, but doesn’t win New York because it’s Capital One.
The other semi-official way to win New York: Snap a picture of at least four different varieties of the same, slightly off, character.
You can pair this with the Citi AA Personal card’s 75,000 AAdvantage miles after $3,500 spend in four months which also has the annual fee waived for the first year, just space out the applications by eight days or one will be automatically denied.
– No more reciprocal earning on paid flights or stays – Exchange AA miles for Hyatt certificates after several Loyalty Points thresholds – Choose Hyatt certificates as a Loyalty Point Reward at some thresholds (this is a bad value) – Exchange Hyatt Milestone Rewards for AA seat coupons or status – Hyatt elites can redeem points for “status for a day” with AA (this is also a bad value)
We don’t know what the conversion rates look like yet for exchanging miles, but we do know what the redemptions for threshold rewards and status for a day look like, and they’re terrible. Don’t let the hype machine get you excited over this. UPDATE: Gary at VFTW let me know that we do know that redemptions for Category 1-4 certificates will start at 25,000 AA miles, and redemptions for Category 1-7 certificates will start at 65,000 AA miles.
– 5 carriers: 10,000 bonus miles – 10 carriers: 100,000 bonus miles – 15 carriers: 1,000,000 bonus miles
There are 21 (or 20 minus Aeroflot) SkyTeam carriers. I believe it’s possible to do this at an approximate cost of $75 per ticket if you’re very flexible and able to sandwich it in-between other flights you’ve already got on the books, putting the lower minimum cost at approximately $1,125. If you’re less flexible or don’t have additional travel that you can piggyback on, you’re probably looking at $5,000 in tickets to pull this off. The SAS Eurobonus chart is quite good on SAS metal to Europe at 50,000 miles in business, and it’s reasonable-ish for partner awards. One million miles would be worth 20 business class one-way flights on SAS metal, so there’s utility for gamers.
Alanis Morissette called and told me that one of the most valuable airline currencies, AirCanada Aeroplan, teamed up with one of the least valuable hotel currencies, Marriott Bonvoy. Under the partnership, you can match status between two programs:
– 20,000 Membership Rewards or $200 statement credit after $1,200 spend on Virgin Atlantic through November 30 – 20,000 Membership Rewards or $200 statement credit after $1,000 spend on AirFrance or KLM through December 31
It’s too bad the Virgin Red Synchrony Mastercard isn’t somehow also involved but that’s probably because it hadn’t been invented yet when AmEx cooked up the offer, at least according to what I just made up. (Thanks to FM)
As we all know, what’s even worse than a Frontier flight? More Frontier flights, that is unless you want to fly Des Moines, Iowa direct to Guadalajara Mexico; Frontier is the only airline that has that flight in the bag.
Marriott has a similar deal with AirCanada Aeroplan with a smaller bonus that works out to 28,000 miles, which frankly is worth about the same as 36,000 MileagePlus miles. Frankly I’m impressed at some marketing person’s mileage valuation prowess.
