Legacy Priceline Visa Discussion - 2% cash back on all purchases

I made two express hotel purchases during the promotion. Both only earned at only 5x. Statement closed and still no bonus. I sent a PM to Barclay. I got a response letter through postal service mail saying I need to call them. It should not be this tough.

I agree completely jfurby. Similar situation here. Iā€™ll wait awhile and then also notify them.

I have been using this card during an Iceland trip this past long weekend. Got an interesting email from Barclays, subject line ā€œNo foreign transaction fees on international purchasesā€ .

The body reads,

Hello David,
Because you used your priceline rewards VisaĀ® Card for a recent international purchase, you didnā€™t pay a foreign transaction fee.
So be sure to continue using your card for all your purchases both inside and outside the U.S. to get the most out of this benefit.

I found that interesting. I know the banks and Visa make a bit on the dynamic currency conversion. iā€™m inferring thatā€™s enough of a sweetner to motivate the folks at Barclays to craft an email just to encourage that.

Iā€™m certainly happy to give them any extra taste here. This card is valuable enough to me that Iā€™d go to significant lengths to keep it.

I think the card issues are all hoping you use their card on vacation and then get home and slowly pay the minimum. Sometimes I forget that people do that, but it is likely what subsidizes all of our points.

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There was a time, not all that long ago, when I seriously worried that Barclays would take away our 2% across the board reward on this wonderful card.

That was then. This is now.

Today there are sufficient other cards out there at 2%, or even better, to where I no longer worry about the 2% at Priceline disappearing. This is a good thing.:grin:

shinobi, I still worry. :slight_smile:

Two main concerns. The first is that they simply close the card upon detecting heavy spend (even if entirely non-MS). There are many data points recording this card being closed.

Second, I worry theyā€™ll simply dilute the benefits or product change the card. Clearly the 10% redemption bonus on travel, for example, was intended for the new 1% card (and was indeed not posting on this card for several months).

Regardless, it is indeed a wonderful card. :slight_smile:

Yeah, once the 3%+ back on airline tickets and Priceline express deals dies, Iā€™ll be looking for another card. Thatā€™s the sole thing keeping me on this card as itā€™s so much better than any other cash back-type offering.

Barclays customer service is just awful on so many levels. It took me two months to get a clearly fraudulent transaction removed from my account, and I had to fax a bunch of stuff to make that happen. They charge a $15 fee to expedite new cards despite our familyā€™s heavy usage of the card (AMEX does this for free). Any issue (like the missing 10x bonus points from the recent promotion) requires faxing or correspondence by snail mail which is just crazy in this day and age.

But, thus far, itā€™s worth it in my opinion given the cash back.

Amtrack tickets didnā€™t que up the 33% bonus when I put them in the rewards cart.

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Is NYOP hotels dead now too? At least the markets Iā€™ve tried recently, itā€™s been unavailable. What a sad end to the business model that started this company.

Seems that way. To be completely honest, I havenā€™t used NYOP in years. I always found Express Deals to be a dollar or two per night more than what a winning bid could be had for. It is worth being able to identify the exact Express Deal hotel versus the luck of the draw with NYOP, where you could often end up getting ā€œupgradedā€ to a less desirable, higher star hotel.

I agree though, it is sad to see. I remember bidding on gas and groceries back in the day. Good times.

I was hoping for a summer points bonus spend incentive from Barclays, but donā€™t know if they will do one this year.

Also, not sure when it started, but merchant refunds do remove rewards points now. Clearly, I never took advantage of it.

rasheed, AFAIK merchant refunds have always removed reward points for me.

FWIW I havenā€™t received a spend incentive for years, but I chalk that up to heavy spend on the card.

novocane, i donā€™t show any NYOP hotels either, just express deals. interestingly, thereā€™s been no press release to announce their demise, either.

Card is changing which is always worrisome, although Iā€™m not really seeing anything that effects me personally.

The way your priceline RewardsTM VisaĀ® Card points are rounded will change on October 16. These changes will be reflected on your next billing statement after October 15. For more information about the rounding rules, please refer to your Reward Rules available via the Learn More link below.

Link to Rules:

https://gif.barclaycardus.com/servicing/93b4c97e/img/prl/rewardsTnC/BAR-6660-6.pdf

Not seeing much change in the rules

Possibly this, maybe someone was gaming the system with many microtransactions, but overall I donā€™t see any change for your typical card holder

When a purchase and/or transaction is not a whole dollar
amount, any amount that is equal to or greater than $0.50 will be
rounded up to the nearest whole dollar and any amount that is
equal to or less than $0.49 will be rounded down to the nearest
whole dollar to calculate your points earned. For example,
if you make a purchase and/or transaction in the amount of
$25.50, you will be awarded 26 points, but if the purchase and/
or transaction amount is $25.49, you will be awarded 25 points.

I do think thereā€™s a typo here as the points earnings should be 51 and 50 respectively, but the 2 points per dollar spending language is still there.

Update

After looking through my earnings I think I understand it better, although I always thought it worked this way.

Current Earnings seems to be double then ceiling

image

New earnings will be double then rounding, which is going to skim on average half a point off each transaction, probably not a big deal.

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Agreed. But much appreciate your post regardless. Thank you. Even though I wonā€™t be impacted this time, ANYTHING related to this card is of signal importance to me. This card is a HUGE moneymaker. It is a wonderful card.:heart_eyes:

So true. I keep waiting for it to be nerfed. Barclays asks for no annual fee, and yet I would happily pay a premium fee to keep it.

I wonder what the largest number of points redeemed on the card in our group is (can be checked in rewards center)?

This is a true portfolio play for Barclays and Priceline. As long as the portfolio (including other card variations) is profitable, then maybe we are okay. I feel this is different than Chase where the head of cards sort of indicated that the portfolio is okay, but she was including not just CSR, but all Sapphire-brands.

The real risks I see is if Priceline does remove its opaque products and doesnā€™t have enough prepay travel items for sale, it might lose its ability to attract cardholders and customers with enough unique options.

That being said, the best reward option that I think many of us use is not documented anywhere. So, it can come and go anytime. Strange stuff.

Was anyone who was shutdown able to get this card reopened?

Strange indeed, IRasheed.

I thought it was especially odd that the 10% travel bonus came, went, then came again on this card. Itā€™s as if they tried to correct the (errant) application of this benefit, but their system overrode it.

I wonder whether anyone ever has been shut down at all. Itā€™s a concern that crosses my mind far more often than I wish it would. So far so good, but I worry such misfortune could materialize without any warning whatsoever. :cry:

I can confirm that several owners of this card have been shut down over the years. AFAIK, all of them were churning on it more or less heavily (sometimes only modestly).