Details: Breeze Airways & Barclays Credit Card

In June 2023, low cost carrier Breeze Airways announced plans to launch a co-branded credit card, in partnership with Barclays. The details of the card have now been unveiled, and applications have opened, so let’s go over all the details. This is in addition to other news about how Breeze has partnered with Priceline, and Breeze has introduced No Flex Fares.

Breeze Easy Visa Signature Card basics

Breeze Airways and Barclays have just launched a co-branded credit card. For context, Breeze launched roughly three years ago, and is one of America’s newest point-to-point airlines. While the airline is a low cost carrier, it has an untraditional business model. For example, it has a great passenger experience, including first class seating (known as “Nicest”) on its Airbus A220s.

Meanwhile Barclays issues co-branded credit cards with a variety of travel partners, including American, Carnival, Emirates, Frontier, Hawaiian, Holland America, JetBlue, Lufthansa, Princess, Wyndham, and more.

The new credit card from Barclays and Breeze is the Breeze Easy Visa Signature Credit Card. What’s the value proposition of this personal credit card like? The card has an $89 annual fee, and is currently offering a welcome bonus of 50,000 BreezePoints after spending $2,000 within the first 90 days.

Here’s the rewards structure of the Breeze Card (the card earns BreezePoints, and each point is worth one cent that you can spend with Breeze):

• The card offers bonus rewards for Breeze spending — you earn 5x points on Nicer and Nicest fare bundles, plus on trip add-ons, 2x points on Nice fare bundles, and 1x points on No Flex fares (this is in addition to the points you can usually earn with the loyalty program)
• The card offers 2x points on eligible grocery store and restaurant purchases (including inflight food and beverages), and 1x points on all other purchases

Here are the perks of the Breeze Card:

• The card offers complimentary inflight Wi-Fi on Breeze Airbus A220 flights; this otherwise ordinarily costs up to $8 per flight
• The card offers priority boarding for cardmembers and their travel companions on all Breeze flights
• The card offers 7,500 anniversary bonus points after spending $10,000 on the card in a membership year
• The card offers a one-way bundle upgrade for every $15,000 spent on the card in a calendar year, allowing you to upgrade to a Nicer or Nicest bundle

Breezy Rewards’ is Breeze’s new loyalty program

Coinciding with the launch of its new credit card, Breeze Airways has also revealed a rebranded loyalty program. This is known as Breezy Rewards, though it’s mostly about marketing, as not much is changing, at least for now.

As before, Breeze continues to award BreezePoints. Breeze essentially offers rewards in the range of 2-6% for your travel (including ancillary fees), depending on the purchase type. For the time being, it doesn’t seem that there are any plans to introduce elite tiers, or other perks of the program.

My take on Breeze’s new credit card & loyalty program

It’s cool to see Breeze Airways evolving. There’s not much to the loyalty program changes, as the airline is just renaming its loyalty program, without really evolving the rewards structure or perks.

I think Breeze’s biggest challenge with creating a robust loyalty program is that Breeze’s point-to-point route network is pretty limiting in terms of people being able to be “loyal” to the airline. Unless you consistently fly one or two routes that Breeze operates, it’s hard to fly the airline often. And if you do frequently fly with Breeze, odds are that you’re not motivated by the loyalty program, but rather by the ability to fly nonstop in a given market.

The new credit card is pretty well thought out, in my opinion, though it’s still hard to get excited about it:

• The card essentially offers 1-5% in rewards on Breeze purchases, 2% rewards on grocery stores and restaurants, and 1% rewards on everything else, and that’s not even cash back, but rather just “money” that can be spent on Breeze; that’s not very rewarding, compared to putting your everyday spending on a card earning 2% cash back (or more)
• The spending bonuses are potentially quite interesting — spending $10,000 earns you $75 worth of bonus travel on Breeze, while spending $15,000 earns you a bundle upgrade, so perhaps $15,000 in spending annually is the sweet spot
• If you fly Breeze with any frequency, the free Wi-Fi and priority boarding may come in handy, and could justify the annual fee

Bottom line

Breeze Airways and Barclays have just launched a co-branded credit card. It’s cool to see this card come to life — it offers some useful perks for travel on Breeze, plus has some valuable spending bonuses, but unfortunately the rewards structure otherwise isn’t very compelling. Breeze has also rebranded its loyalty program as Breezy Rewards, though it doesn’t appear that there are any new perks for the program, at least for now.

What do you make of Breeze Airways’s new credit card and loyalty program changes?