As Continental and United move toward their merger they are getting everything arranged. One of the things that they needed to work out was their credit card offer. Luckily for both of them they were already using JP Morgan Chase. This streamlined their process. The new cards came out about two months ago and I haven’t even bothered blogging about them until today. That is because I don’t see a huge value in the card right now. Especially when you put it next to some of the other offers that we have out right now.
The two cards have the exact same base offer right now. You are looking at the following benefits for these cards:
- 25,000 Miles after the first use
- 5,000 Miles for adding an authorized user on your account
- 10,000 Miles when you spend $25,000 on the card in the first year (This is the big bummer-when you are churning cards this is a huge requirement for such little points)
- Free checked bag when flying
- Two United Club (Airport Lounge) passes per year
- Priority Boarding- You must watch the Brian Regan about flying on airlines. He is so funny!
Let’s be honest. This doesn’t look that great. I would definitely wait until they get to offering some specials before I signed up for this one. The only other reason that I would consider this is because Chase is very particular about giving the same sign up bonus to the same person. They will not do this. They will probably stop offering the Continental OnePass card at the end of this year or beginning of next as Continental completely disappears.
You would probably still be able to get the United MileagePlus Explorer card later if a big special came around because you only had the Continental OnePass, but not the United card.
United is great because they fly right out of Idaho Falls direct to either San Francisco or Denver. I would really love to get some points with them. Almost all of my airline points are with American Airlines, which doesn’t fly out of Idaho Falls, only out of Salt Lake City. So I have to add a 3 hour drive to my trip.
Almost all airlines are pretty much the same when flying within the USA. It requires about 25,000 miles to go anywhere in the continental USA. I find in interesting with all of the airline mergers because it will be easier for them to start bumping up the requirements. Soon one company will probably want to charge 30,000 and the other two will follow. We have seen lots of airlines merge over the years, but it seems like we are getting down to just a couple of airlines left.
United isn’t very generous on their redemption when you compare them to American. I’m pretty sure that American is king when it comes to redemption of your frequent flier miles. That also makes this card not near as attractive as the AAdvantage 75,000 deal.
What do you think about the United and Continental cards? Let us know if we are off the mark here.
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