This is still my go-to credit card despite Shatner no longer gracing the front design. 2% back on purchases, and when cash back is redeemed against Priceline purchases, it nets over 3% cash back. Card basics (From DaveHanson’s original FWF thread):
No Annual Fee, no foreign transaction fees
2% (2 points per dollar) cash back on every purchase
5% (5 points per dollar) cash back on purchases where Priceline is the merchant that processes the charge.
Cash Back is redeemed against purchases made on the card.
Cash Back redemption formula: 1pt = 1 cent. Thus, a $100 purchase requires 10,000 points to redeem. You can redeem and get the entire amount of the purchase back, or if you do not have enough points, you can redeem in increments of $25.
All cash back redemptions against travel purchases get a 10% refund. As an example, if you made a $100 purchase on Priceline, you would redeem 10,000 points, but receive a 1,000 point rebate at the end of the transaction. This rule is not limited to Priceline purchases - it applies to any merchant code that falls into the travel bucket.
Where the card really takes off is when you redeem points against Priceline.com purchases where Priceline is the merchant making the charge. In addition to the aforementioned 10% travel bonus, you receive a 33% discount on the number of points required to redeem cash back for the amount of the purchase. For example, if you wish to redeem cash back against a $300 Priceline charge, you would only need 20,000 points instead of the normal 30,000 points. Upon successful redemption, you would then receive the 10% travel rebate of 2,000 points, resulting in a total cost of 18,000 points. This is, of course, in addition to the 5% you get back for the original Priceline purchase.
This makes the card 3%+ cash back on general purchases when you redeem against Priceline.com purchases.
I knew some prick would bring up this sore spot for me. I applied and got the 1% card without realizing they had changed it. I kick myself for that one. hehe
OP, do you want to maintain the info I had in my OP on this at FWF? No problem if you do…
It’s a fantastic card if you ever use PL. Remarkable that years after sunsetting it for new apps, it is even better than it was originally for travel and PL redemptions.
DP - Was forced to make a regular booking and I later learned that regular (Non-NYOP/Express) bookings get the 50% reduction for point redemptions too.
So if you’re forced to make a regular booking you can at least use it to efficiently cash out points.
Did the charge go through with “Priceline” as the merchant, or the hotel itself? If the former, then I’m not surprised that you got the bonus, since that’s all that seems to matter.
This card was a life saver for us in Europe trip. There are lots of automated parking machines that only accept chip & pin CCs. And this card could be used as chip & pin.
Make sure to set your pin for this functionality if you are traveling to Europe.
One other good thing was it was not denied anywhere, while my Chase card was denied about half of the places, although I gave travel notification in advance.
15 years running, this has been my go to card. I don’t make Priceline purchases often, but love getting the 10% cashback redemption rebate on travel purchases and use that all the time to get effectively 2.2% cashback on my purchases. Something odd I noticed recently… an airline ticket purchase I made direct from the carrier is showing the cashback redemption discounted as if it were a Priceline purchase, making it 3% cashback on my purchases. Is anyone else seeing this? Is this a documented promotion I missed reading about or is this a glitch in the system?
I can confirm this as well. An Alaska Airlines ticket, purchased directly through Alaska’s site (no affiliation to Priceline) is showing as redeemable with a 33% discount on the number of points required.
I made a hotel purchase through Priceline.com but when the statement arrived, it had the name of the hotel as the descriptor (nothing about priceline) and thus I don’t get the option to get the 33% point discount for rewards redemption. Priceline visa CSR doesn’t know what to tell me. Anyone have this situation before?
I made a hotel purchase through Priceline.com but when the statement arrived, it had the name of the hotel as the descriptor (nothing about priceline) and thus I don’t get the option to get the 33% point discount for rewards redemption. Priceline visa CSR doesn’t know what to tell me. Anyone have this situation before?
This is actually how it’s supposed to work, per the T&Cs.
You should at least get the extra 10% point rebate if you redeem points for this purchase, yielding you a 2.22% rate of return on the spend generating those points.
Not sure why others are reporting having better luck. I do hope we’re all talking about the exact same flavor of PL card…
Unless you book through NYOP / Express Deal, the merchant processor is normally the hotel itself.
I’m thinking the reason I got one of my regular bookings discounted was because the hotel I booked at was just a small mom and pop and probably didn’t have a merchant processor of their own so they opted to use PL.
I’m thinking the reason I got one of my regular bookings discounted was because the hotel I booked at was just a small mom and pop and probably didn’t have a merchant processor of their own so they opted to use PL.
Seems plausible to me. Worth testing to see if this is consistent with other data points.
I applied and got the 1% card without realizing they had changed it. I kick myself for that one. hehe
