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In Part 1 of this post, we talked about one of the fee-based credit cards we carry: the United Club Mileage Plus Infinite card. In that post (for more details, see Part 1) we noted that our annual fee for this card is $525 and talked about two of the card’s benefits: baggage fees and United Club lounge access. Using just those two benefits, on just one return trip back from Europe, we showed how the effective annual fee dropped from $525 to $71. Neat, right? We think so, too. But there’s more to this card than the two benefits we talked about, way more. So, let’s talk about those other benefits.
As noted on Chase’s website, the United Club Mileage Plus Infinite card has a whopping 43 unique benefits. Crazy, right? Chase breaks these benefits into the following categories: travel, rewards, dining, account protection, service, and shopping. Just like everything else, some of these benefits are more important to us than others, and it probably isn’t surprising that, because we got this card to travel, that the travel perks are the ones we really value. Still, let’s talk about a few of the others, just to give you an idea of what our annual fee is getting us.
Shopping
Our card has three different shopping-related perks: purchase protection, return protection, and extended warranty protection. To be honest, we haven’t used any of these, but knowing they’re there is nice. As you might expect, there are conditions and only certain kinds of purchases and products are eligible, so you’d want to read the details there if those perks are important to you. There is also the United Mileage PlusX shopping app that gives a list of deals you can opt in to if you use your card at specific stores or shop from the app portal. This is a super easy way to earn more points/miles on your regular shopping needs. A couple examples: Sam’s Club is currently offering 7 points per dollar spent on online orders and Old Navy is offering 3 miles per dollar spent plus 50% off your purchase from their website. You just have to opt in via the app and it will push you to their website to order. Easy peasy.
Service
There are seven different service perks on our card. We won’t go into details about all of them, but there are a few that we like. The first is the Visa Signature Concierge Service, which is available 24 hours per day and can help with things like dinner reservations, concert tickets, and the like. We haven’t used this yet, but it’s still a pretty cool benefit. The thing we do use is what Chase calls the Credit Journey benefit. As you might expect, this gives us our all-important credit score, but it also sends us weekly e-mails so we can monitor our credit score. It also includes a simulator, so we can see what effect certain things (like paying off our house, ha!) might have on our credit score.
Account protection
We have four different benefits here, and, if we’re being honest, these are fairly standard across most of our credit cards. Things like fraud protection and zero liability for unauthorized charges. Fancy? No. Still valuable? Absolutely. These services are some of the reasons we feel much safer using a credit card for charges over a debit card that has access to ALL our money. What a headache that would be to have a hacked or lost debit card.
Dining
If you live in or travel to places where food delivery is a thing (alas, living in the country means we have to get our own food…yes, it’s as lame as it sounds), this card will give you a complimentary membership to DashPass, which covers orders on DoorDash and Caviar. We haven’t used this service on this particular card, but we’ve used it in the past with another card to get food delivered to our hotel room after a particularly busy day at Dallas World Market Center sourcing inventory for DeNeu Boutique. Food delivery is magical, we were able to keep working into the night and not starve while doing so. Is this what the rest of the non-rural world normally does? Like I said – magical.
One of our product sourcing locations for DeNeu Boutique
Rewards
There are eight rewards-based benefits and, as before, we won’t go into all of them. One thing we will mention though is getting status with hotels. Different banks and the cards they offer have relationships with various hotel chains, and it’s common for a fee-based card to offer you status with one or more hotel chains. That can be helpful if you’re planning to stay at a hotel while traveling but aren’t currently part of their rewards program or hold status with them. Sometimes the status you get is one step up from the lowest tier, but other times you can go straight to elite status. This card gets us Platinum Elite status with IHG hotels, one step down from their highest tier (Diamond Elite, in case you were wondering), which includes Holiday Inns, Candlewood Suites, and Crown Plaza, among others. Having top-tier status with a hotel can get you complimentary upgrades (which are heaven), free Wi-Fi, extended check-out times, early check-in times, complimentary breakfast, access to an executive lounge with free food/drinks and more. This card also reimburses us for up to $75 in statement charges each year. For example, if we went to the hotel restaurant (or bar, no judgment) and charged our meal (liquid or otherwise) to our room and paid for the room and incidental charges using this card, we’d get reimbursed for up to $75 in those charges. Handy dandy.
Remember in Part 1 where we said the baggage fees and lounge access dropped our annual fee from $525 to an effective annual fee of $71? Had we stayed at an IHG hotel and charged dinner and drinks to our room the night before we left, we could have easily dropped that effective annual fee to $0. Oversight on our part. Next time.
Travel
It’s probably not surprising that a fee-based card designed for travelers would have more travel-related benefits than others, right? In fact, this card has an impressive 20 travel-related benefits, nearly half the total benefits (remember, there are 43). There are lots of things we value in this category, including the ones we’ve mentioned before (waived baggage fees and United Club lounge access). Others include status with Avis rental cars, auto rental collision damage waiver (so we can decline some or even all of the insurance offered by the rental car company – this alone can save you hundreds of dollars each time you rent a car), 25% back on in-flight purchases when flying United (remember, it is a United card), point multipliers on certain expenses, lost or delayed baggage insurance, trip delay insurance, and on, and on, and on. Some of these are standard, particularly when it comes to travel credit cards, but not all of them are. One of the benefits we like most is a $100 statement credit for your Global Entry or TSA Pre-check application fee. Not familiar with these benefits? Too bad, they are worth every penny you pay (or get reimbursed for!) for them. They let you breeze past the long lines in the airport at security and customs. Glorious. We’ve also recently discovered we can earn miles with cruise bookings – definitely taking a look at that!
The Caveat
The main thing to keep in mind is that you can only claim the above benefits when you make purchases with this card. In other words, you couldn’t charge your hotel room to a different card and get the $75 statement credit mentioned above (unless that card has the same benefit). This card happens to be a Visa, so it’s accepted almost everywhere. One of our other cards that also has awesome benefits (and, yes, an eye-watering annual fee) is our Platinum Card from American Express. However, there are still parts of the world that are hesitant to accept AMEX cards, so keep that in mind when deciding to get a fee-based travel-focused card. It’s definitely helpful to always have a Visa in your arsenal.
The Verdict
Maybe you’re reading this and thinking to yourself that none of these benefits are attractive because you can’t remember the last time you traveled somewhere. If that’s you, then we’d agree: a card like the United Club Mileage Plus Infinite card doesn’t make sense for your usual needs and spending habits. But, if you do travel and enjoy the experience, then perhaps a card like this makes perfect sense for you. There are plenty to pick from, so do your homework! More than anything, make sure the perks and benefits have value for you and ideally, at least offset the annual fee to help dry those watery eyes. Also keep in mind that the lower the annual fee, the fewer perks you’re likely to get; the reverse is also usually true.
Caveat Emptor
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: we’re not suggesting fee-based cards are right for everyone. We pick cards that fit into our lifestyle and normal spending habits and give us perks that make traveling more enjoyable for us. Regardless of what kind of credit card you decide to use, we always encourage you to use them responsibly and not overextend yourself. Paying ALL your cards off every month is how you stay ahead in this game.
Happy traveling!
