Premium rewards cards are all the rage nowadays. Cards like the Chase Sapphire Reserve CardandAmerican Express Platinum Cardoffer perks and bonus categories that more than justify their hefty annual fees, in my opinion.
Continue reading: US Bank & Korean Air Launch The Worst $450 Annual Fee Card I’ve Ever Seen
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
I thought the KAL lounges are included in the priority pass access so wouldn't it be totally stupid to only get 2 passes a year?
Seems more like a $95 yearly fee card if you remove the 200 dollar credit and lower it to 95. Everything else would line up perfectly.
Not necessarily a bad card for those that fly paid Korean Air tickets on a regular basis (which isn't the audience of this blog). The fee, credits, and bonus categories could line up a bit differently.
Delta AMEX cards only give you 1 mile per dollar in general and 2 miles per dollar on Delta flights, but the cards are incredibly popular for daily use, so such cards can be designed.
@Anthony "Not necessarily a bad card for those that fly paid Korean Air tickets on a regular basis (which isn’t the audience of this blog). The fee, credits, and bonus categories could line up a bit differently."
The point that Lucky is trying to make is that even if you spend 100% of the card's spend on paid Korean tickets and want to redeem 100% of the rewards on Korean Air's FF Program, you would be better off getting the Sapphire Reserve, which would give you 3 miles/travel over 2 miles.
Those Korean Air passes are actually more restrictive than you might think.
If it’s anything like the ones issued by the lower fee co-branded card from US Bank, they’re only good if paired with a same day Korean Air boarding pass.
@Jerry D
Priority Pass entry at LAX into the KE lounge is restricted to afternoon hours at least. There are a lot of SkyTeam departures in the morning. That’s the one situation where a specific lounge pass might come in handy.
@ Anthony -- The Delta Cards are popular for other reasons -- they give you perks when flying the airline, and you can earn elite miles towards status by spending on the card. There's simply no advantage to this card over the Sapphire Reserve even if you exclusively fly Korean Air, as aarowa points out.
The funny thing is that this would be a pretty attractive card for us in Europe.
Lucky, you should look and Canadian and European cards.... even the Amex Platinum and SPG cards have much less perks than their US counterparts. Totally agree with @Henrik!
The card will appeal to the clueless people who never heard of CSR. Let's say someone flies Korean often, they have a Korean Sky Pass account, they live under a rock with no internet access or never bother to look online for credit card offers. Since they fly Korean, one day they get a piece of mail with this offer. Since they don't know about other premium cards they get excited about this offer and apply for the card.
I find it funny that this is the only card branded by a travel company where you can earn a bonus amount of miles on its competitors, since you earn 2x miles on any airline. It's still a terrible card, and the fact that they're willing to reward you for flying other airlines is perhaps the worst way it's terrible.
I do hope that Korean partnering with US Bank doesn't mean the days of UR transfers are numbered though.
This card is almost as bad as the grocery store cards that offer a free 12 pack of Pepsi after approval.
I get it. This is a promo for the American Express Platinum Card. If I buy my KL tickets from KL I can get 5X Membership Rewards points (although cannot transfer to KL this way). Still would rather have 5X Membership Rewards points in most cases. If want KL points would use CSR for 3X.
If the travel credit is for calendar year, at least you could get $400 total in year one. I would get this if the bonus went up to 60,000 or so.
@Doug:
And that's a loooot of people. My parents, for instance, are wowed by my and my partner's "luxury" travel as a result of points/miles. Yet every time I try to provide insight and guidance on how they can do it, too, they refuse to give up their Marriott card and their UA Mileage Plus card because "[they] only fly United and only stay at Marriotts. Why would [they] need any other cards?" ::facepalm::
Wow, this is a non-event product and there is so much better in the market, especially if you are willing to be patient and apply only for the best to preserve your credit score. It takes a minimum of 60,000 miles or points convertible 1:1 to airline miles, and usually 80-100,000 miles to get my attention...more for hotel bonuses which are usually worth a bit less. These high value sign-up bonuses are fewer but they do show up regularly.
Also important to get my attention: Wow me with benefits not usually available. The latest card I acquired this year was the new Hilton/Amex: 100,000 intro bonus, $250.00 travel credit et:al and best of all: Hilton Diamond status. I already have Lifetime Platinum with Marriott/SPG but a top tier back up never hurts.
If you have good to great credit and travel enough to use these benefits, be picky. You are the prize!
The new KAL Prestige lounges at ICN Terminal 2 are much nicer than the old ICN T1 and Concourse lounges and the KAL lounges in the US. That won't make the card worth it.
With $450 annual fee, I expected nothing less than 100,000 Skypass bonus miles, and I don't care about that $200 statement credit as the statement credit focus on certain categories.
@Henrik @Frederic
Well, there is actually a reason, at least for Europe, why credit cards cannot be as lucrative for consumers. The reason is: They are also not as lucrative for credit card companies because of the EU payment services directive (PSD), which limits the maximum credit card fees to less than 0.7%.
This is meant to „protect“ or benefit consumers but effectively, it benefits merchants and it means that there are no rewarding credit cards out there for consumers because it is economically not possible for credit card companies.
@Henrik @Frederic
I'm completely with you. From a European perspective this an attractive card ...
@Lars K
While this may be true for the EU, it is definitely not true for non-EU European countries ... and still the credit cards are much less attractive than in the US. So this can't be the reason.
I'd rather explain it by monopolies/oligopolies: In most European countries there are only 2 or 3 issuers of Visa/MasterCard and only 1 issuer of Amex/Diners. With little to no competition, there's simply no need to make attractive proposals.
US Bank value prop, customer service is the absolute worst bar none, so be sure to add that in.
Have never been granted access to their lounges in JFK AND LAX with my Priority Pass. Rude personnel
$450 and you only get two lounge passes? This is card shouldn't even be allowed to be offered at that price point. Might as well light your money on fire every year if you get this card.
with chase UR ending 1:1 transfer of UR to korean air miles, would this be worth it for occasional korean air users? i also heard that they're conducting targeted mail ads. i've received an offer for this card with 50k mile sign up bonus. i prefer to fly korean air when going to korea but i'd say i go once in 2-3 years. i also have CSR so i won't benefit from $100 TSA pre credit. what do you guys think?