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A high-end card nobody talks about: the UBS Preferred Visa Signature credit card

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While it’s a lot of fun to write about the same product as 30,000 other bloggers, such as the Chase Sapphire Preferred or the Hawaiian Airlines® World Elite MasterCard®, it’s also fun to take a look at stuff off the beaten path. Thus today I bring you news of an obscure card I’ve never seen mentioned: the UBS Preferred Visa Signature card.

There’s no online application for this one; it seems as though you need a UBS financial adviser in order to apply. The card has an annual fee of $495. (There is also an unremarkable fee-free UBS card if that’s more your style.) What do you get for laying out that cash? [Read more…]

If you want to travel, should you go for points and miles or for cashback?

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Yes, yes, I know the answer is “both”. But bear with me for a moment.

Shawn at Miles to Memories has a nice rundown of the new $300 gift cards at Staples. He’s got a section where he lays out how much it will cost for a night at a Hyatt:

  • Category 1 – 5,000 points – $29 in fees with $300 cards.
  • Category 3 – 12,000 points – $69.60 in fees with $300 cards.
  • Category 5 – 20,000 points – $116 in fees with $300 cards.
  • Category 7 – 30,000 points – $174 in fees with $300 cards.

That’s a helpful way of looking at it. It’s easy to engage in mental sleight-of-hand and say to yourself, “The fees are 3% but I’m getting 5 points per dollar, and those points are worth two cents each, so I’m actually making 7%!” Well, you are and you aren’t. [Read more…]

Stash Hotel Rewards rolls out new credit card

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There’s a somewhat obscure hotel rewards program you may not be familiar with (I barely recalled seeing it in the Loyalty Traveler blog) that just introduced a new credit card. The program is Stash Hotel Rewards, and it positions itself as a program for boutique hotels. (I’ve stayed at one of them somewhat recently, the Park South in Manhattan, which was very nice.) You earn five points per dollar spent in the rewards program.

The new credit card is the Stash Hotel Rewards Visa, issued by Synchrony. The essential details:

  • 10,000-point sign-up bonus after $1,500 in purchases
  • 10% point refund when redeeming
  • 3 points per dollar at Stash hotels
  • 2 points per dollar at non-Stash hotels
  • 2 points per dollar for dining and gas
  • $85 annual fee (waived the first year)

So how much are Stash points worth, you ask? Good question. Stash’s website describes it thus: “No annoying blackout dates and no expiration dates. Unlike the chains, our redemption rates are dynamic so you can score great deals.” That sounds promising, so let’s take a look at a few properties. We’ll start with the aforementioned Park South for Saturday, October 10. I get a rate of 31,192 points (plus 3,000 additional points per person) vs. a rate of  $382 if I’m paying the regular way.

Let’s try the Restoration on King, a Charleston hotel I carefully selected at random from Stash’s website. Looking at rates for Monday, October 19, we see rates starting at 29,238 points vs. rates starting at $459 using cash.

So it’s certainly possible to get more than one cent per point of value from Stash points, and with the 10% refund bonus the value goes that much higher. Is this credit card worth a try?

Unless you’re a Stash loyalist, I don’t see much value here. 2-3% back on dining, gas, and hotels plus 1 -1.5% back on everything else isn’t bad, but it doesn’t justify an $85 annual fee. And 10,000 points doesn’t motivate me to try this one out. One notable feature lacking on this card is status, which is understandable given that Stash doesn’t offer Gold, Platinum, etc. as do the big chains. But an $85 annual fee is a lot easier to swallow if there’s a prospect of the occasional room upgrade.

So I won’t be signing up for the Stash card. Would any of you bite on this one?

Wawa credit card launches, causing everybody outside the mid-Atlantic states to ask, “What the heck is Wawa?”

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As if the excitement over yesterday’s Container Store credit card news wasn’t enough, there’s another new credit card to report: Here comes the Wawa credit card!

To those of you who don’t live in its footprint, Wawa is a convenience store / gas station chain in the mid-Atlantic and Florida. If you’re curious about the name: according to their website, “‘Wawa’ is a Native American word for the Canada Goose that was found in the Delaware Valley over 100 years ago.” I grew up near Philadelphia, so Wawa’s “We do it just a little bit better” jingle is indelibly etched into my mind along with the Tastykake song. (Nobody bakes a cake as tasty as a Tastycake.)

The new card is nothing special. It’s a store card, so no purchases outside of Wawa. The card offers 25 cents per gallon rebates for the first two months and 5 cents per gallon thereafter. The maximum rebatable amount of gas is 100 gallons per month, so it’s $50 if you max out the intro promotion. I really can’t see much rationale to anybody having this thing. As always, the baseline is a 2% cashback credit card, and you’d definitely be better off with one of those vs. the Wawa credit card.

What’s interesting is that the card isn’t being issued by Comenity or Synchrony but by Citi Retail Services, the private label credit card arm of Citibank. Everybody’s familiar with Citi’s credit card bounce-back this year, but their private label business is also making moves as they recently acquired the Brooks Brothers portfolio. Citi is building up quite a portfolio of retail credit cards. They now have the Best Buy card and they’re taking over the Costco card as well. If you’re a retailer, it’s a good time to either launch a card or shop for a new issuer for your existing card.

wawa credit card

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Saverocity is Journalistic in Nature, please obtain Professional Representation prior to attempting anything discussed herein. Opinions expressed here are author's alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airlines or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.