Questions and Answers

View from the Wing did a post on this new program.  Lucky hasn’t done one.  Wondering what others think.  It’s a niche program, but as I understand it, it potentially packs a big value for renters in high-cost markets.

Basically you earn 1X transferable points for every regular dollar spent (everything that is not rent), plus they will mail a check to your landlord every month (no fee) and you can earn bonus points on your monthly rent check.  The rental bonus is limited to a maximum of 4,000 points per month, and the earn rate depends on your regular (non-rent) spending that month — below $250 there’s no bonus on rent, above $250 regular spend earns 0.5X bonus on rent, above $1,000 earns 1X bonus on rent, above $2,000 earns 2X bonus on rent.

I live in midtown Manhattan and pay $3,850 a month in rent for my one-bedroom.  So if I spend exactly $1,000 in non-rent spending a month, I’d get a return of 4.85X transferable points per non-rent dollar spent, 1000 points on non-rent spend plus the 1X bonus on rent for another 3,850 points, for a total of 4,850 points on $1,000 in non-rent spending.  In practice obviously I won’t be exactly at their tiers, but it looks to me like if I’m *anywhere* between $250 and $2,083 in non-rent spend in a given month, I’d earn *at least* 2.93 points per non-rent dollar.

Also these points transfer to Hyatt, AAdvantage, and a few other programs.  So you can pretty easily get — let’s call it 3X Hyatt points on otherwise nonbonsued spend without much effort. That’s a lot better than 2X points on a typical nonbonsued card.  Basically for at least $1,000 in otherwise unbonused spend, I’d earn 58,200 transferable points a year — about enough for, say, two free nights at Hyatt’s top-tier properties charging 30,000 points per night.  Let’s say realistically I overshoot a bit each month to make sure I’m about $1,000 and end up spending $1,400 a month — I’d be earning an average of 3.75 Hyatt points per non-rent dollar spent, just for letting them write my monthly rent check.  That sounds really good.

Anyone see a catch here I’m missing?  Not sure why Lucky hasn’t written about this opportunity yet?