U.S. Bank Hotel Cards
Club Carlson Premier Rewards Visa Signature card
Club Carlson Rewards Visa Signature Card
Club Carlson Business Rewards Visa Card
About Club Carlson Premier Rewards Visa Signature Card
Card Highlights
Club Carlson Premier Rewards Visa Signature Card is a Credit Card
With a credit card, you can carry a balance and accrue interest if necessary. Note this is not advised by me. The points game does not work well, if you are carrying a balance and accruing interest. See #4 in Let’s Get Started To Earning Free Travel.
Card Rewards
Earn Club Carlson Gold points with the card. Learn about Club Carlson Gold Points here.
Sign-up Bonus
Earn up to 85,000 Bonus Gold Points – receive 50,000 Gold Points after your first purchase plus 35,000 points once you spend $2,500 on your card within the first 90 days. APPLY FOR THE CARD HERE.
Annual Fee
$75 annual fee
Earn Miles on Spending
Earn 10 points per $1 spent on purchases at participating Carlson Rezidor hotels
Earn 5 points per $1 spent on all other purchases
Renewal Bonus
40,000 renewal bonus points each year when you renew your card
Bonus Award Nights
Earn one free night when you charge at least $10,000 during the 12-month periodimmediately prior to the statement on which the Annual Fee is billed and renew your card.
Gold Elite Status
Your Club Carlson membership will be upgraded to Gold Elite Status after you activate and use your card.
More About The Card
Apply For The Card Here
Earn 3X Bonus AAdvantage Miles on Certain Purchases
Posted 3/7/2015
I got this offer with my Citi/AAdvantage Platinum Select card.
Upon enrollment, you can earn 3X AAdvantage miles on purchases at hotels, restaurants, movie & show theaters and arena & stadium events through 03/31/15. You can earn up to 2,500 AAdvantage bonus miles.
For me, due to this 2,500 bonus mile limit, I will likely not even entertain this offer. I really can’t do anything with 2,500 miles and I do not want to forgo using my Barclaycard Arrival Plus World Elite MasterCard or my Chase Sapphire Preferred card, my 2 main cards right now, for a mere 2500 miles. But if you are trying to accumulate American AAdvantage miles, then you should take “advantage” of this offer if it is available to you.
Preferred Hotels and American Express Team Up To Offer A Free Night
You can get a complimentary third, fourth, or fifth night when you book two, three, or four consecutive nights depending on the property you choose and pay with any American Express Card now until March 31, 2016.
Your qualifying stay must be booked on a Preferred Hotel Group brand website or by calling +1 866 990 9491 and mentioning American Express Complimentary Night. Complimentary night varies by hotel. Use promo code MKTAMX.
Rent With Hertz and Earn Bonus Amtrak Guest Rewards Points
From now until June 30, you can earn 200 Amtrak Guest Rewards points for every day you rent a car with Hertz. That’s four times the normal point earnings. Plus, you’ll receive a discount of up to 25%.
I Knocked $75 Off My $95 Annual Fee On My CitiBusiness/AAdvantage Platinum Select World MasterCard
I just received the bill for the $95 annual fee on my CitiBusiness/AAdvantage Platinum Select World MasterCard. I did not want to pay this fee. After I satisfied the terms of my offer and got my 45,000 American AAdvantage bonus miles, I stopped using the card. I did not want to pay $95 for a card that I no longer use.
I have negotiated the annual fee with Citibank in the past. This past December, I negotiated an offer regarding my Citi/AAdvantage Platinum Select World Elite Mastercard. Citi made me an offer in which I need to use the card for 5 purchases of $20 or more over the next 3 months. I did this and the $95 fee was credited back to my account on the next billing cycle.
I did not get as good of an offer with the CitiBusiness card, but it was a deal I accepted nonetheless. I need to spend $100 on the card in the next month and they will credit back $75 of the $95 annual fee. I reluctantly agreed and will spend the $100. I guess $20 is worth it to me to keep the card. Who knows, maybe there will be some good spending incentives with the card over the next year.
A couple of more things–the deal that I took was one of 2 options. The other option was for me to spend $3,000 on the card in the next 3 months and they would have credited back the entire $95 fee. That extra $20 credit is not worth me forgoing $3,000 worth of charges on another card like my Barclaycard Arrival Plus World Elite MasterCard. On that card, I earn 2 miles for every dollar I spend, so spending $3,000 would yield me 6,000 miles. 6,000 miles that I can use for a statement credit on a $60 travel charge (and I get 10% of my miles back!). This $60 credit is 3 times the extra $20 credit Citi was offering me.
Also had Citi not negotiated the fee with me, I likely would have canceled the card. I recently canceled my Chase Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Premier Card and over the last few years have canceled other Chase cards because unlike Citi, Chase will not negotiate with me. Don’t forget, canceling a card has a small impact on your credit score as long as other positive financial factors are in place. You can read about the effect of canceling a card on your credit score here.
How Does Canceling A Card Affect Your Credit Score?
Your FICO credit score is basically determined by how you rate in 5 FICO categories. The first 2 categories, payment history and outstanding debt, account for almost 2/3 of your credit score. 15% of your credit score is based on the length of your credit history.
You will rate high in this 15% category if once you have a credit card, you maintain that account for a long period of time. However, this point is contrary to some of the tips that I give as to how to play the credit card points and miles game. Specifically, I suggest that you sign up for cards to get lucrative point and mile bonus offers. I then suggest that you cancel the card after you get the bonus if you don’t use the card and need to pay an annual fee. If you do this, you will likely keep these accounts open for only about a year before you cancel them. So we need to ask how does canceling a card affect your credit score?
It does affect it, but only a little.
First, the length of you credit history is only 15% of your total credit score
Like I said above, payment history and outstanding debt make up 65% of your score. If you make your payments on time and keep your debt at around 30% of your available credit (a 30% utilization rate), canceling a card or 2 each year should have a minimal impact on your score. I cancel cards all the time. Over the last few years, to avoid annual fees, I have canceled my Chase Hyatt credit card, (and Rob’s too) my Chase Marriott Rewards Premier card, my Chase United MileagePlus Explorer card and my Chase Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Premier Card. I have canceled my Citi/AAdvantage Platinum Select World Elite Mastercard. I have also canceled my American Express Premier Rewards Gold card in favor of an American Express Everyday Preferred Card. I did all of this and right after got approved for a Barclaycard Arrival Plus World Elite MasterCard with a very nice credit limit.
Most recently, I canceled both mine and Rob’s American Express Gold Delta SkyMiles Cardsand my Chase United MileagePlus Explorer card (for the second time).
Second, there will be cards that you have had for a long period of time that will help your credit score (or at least there should be)
You should have some staple cards that you use for your purchases when you are not trying to meet a spend requirement or trying to accumulate specific loyalty points. For me these cards are my Chase Sapphire Preferred for restaurants and travel, my American Express Everyday Preferred card for groceries and gas, my Chase Freedom card for the quarterly bonus category, most recently my Barclaycard Arrival Plus World Elite Mastercardfor all my other purchases (loving the 2 points earned on every purchase) and finally my American Express Platinum card for big purchases, events, tours, etc. Do you want to talk about a long term credit history? I have been an American Express card member since 1988. How is that for history?!?!?!
Third, even if your available credit goes down because you canceled a card, as long as you have other cards, a strong utilization ratio will keep your score high
Don’t forget, your utilization ratio is a ratio which compares the amount of credit being used to the amount of total credit you have available. You should try to keep this ratio at about 30% or less.
One trick to try after you cancel a card is to try request a credit limit boost on another card in order to maintain the ratio. (I have never done this but will actually try to do so in the future.)
Another thing here that may work in your favor is that the card you are canceling, may have had a low credit limit anyway. Remember, as you apply for a greater number of cards, you may need to push some of your credit applications along. One way to do this is to request a small credit limit. Another way to do this is to transfer some of your existing credit to the new card. In both cases, it is likely that your credit limit on this new account will be low. Canceling a card with a low credit limit will not have such a big impact on your credit score because the credit limit portion of your utilization ratio will only be slightly reduced when you cancel the card.
Lastly, the cards that you are canceling, you have likely not held for very long anyway
You may only be applying for a card to get the bonus and will cancel when the annual fee becomes due. We know that a longer credit history provides more information and offers a better indicator of your behavior. So canceling these short-term accounts has less of a negative impact on your score then if you were to close an older account.
Ways To Ensure Your Credit Applications Get Approved
Ask For A Small Credit Limit
Ask To Have A Portion Of Your Credit Transferred From One Of Your Other Cards From The Same Bank
Ask To Have A Portion Of Your Credit Transferred From One Of Your Other Cards From The Same Bank
Posted 3/6/2015
Sometimes a bank may be hesitant to approve you for a card because you may have recently gotten a card from the same bank. For example, a bank such as Chase, may approve you for one card every 6 months. I personally at times have gotten around this by calling them on the phone and moving some of my credit from one of my existing Chase credit cards to the new one that I am applying for. Chase is more apt to approve your application if they are not extending you additional credit but rather just transferring some of your existing credit to a new line. The number to call to reallocate your Chase credit is 888-245-0625.
BTW, for me this has worked with applications for my Chase Marriott Rewards Premier card, and my Chase IHG Rewards Club Select Credit Card For Rob, it has worked with applications for his Chase Marriott Rewards Premier card too. and his Chase United MileagePlus Explorer Visa.