The US Air "new’ 50k credit card offer – An Investigation Sherlock Holmes would be proud!

THE US AIR “NEW” 50k CREDIT CARD OFFER

Well, the story goes like this. There has been a non affiliate US credit card offer with 40k signing bonus for a long time, with annual fee waived in the first year and 10k at one year anniversary. It was churnable too!  It was supposed to be good for Chairmans Preferred Members only but always worked for eveyone. Most affiliate links out there were much worse than this non affiliate offer. To the bloggers’ credit, I did not see the subpar offer much at all, thankfully! And then, bang, suddenly the offer out just now changed to offer (still) 40k after first use, 10k for a balance transfer (makes me puke), NO 10k at anniversary AND $89 annual fee! So…I did an experiment and started logging to see which blogger was first out of the gates to let the world know about the amazing new 50k offer. Showing 50k in the title is BAD, 50k in the body of the post is bad, no mention of 50k at all is GREAT, no mention of $$ disclosure in the body is BAD, tell everyone to AVOID the 10k transfer is GREAT, pointing to the better offer is GREAT…etc.

This is who was first out of the gates:

Travel Is Free [50k in body, no disclosure. You were the quickest pistol!]
Frugal Travel Guy [ no mention of 50k, tells to avoid balance transfer, no disclosure. You sure move fast for a senior;-)]
Deals We Like [50k in title, with disclosure. To blogger’s credit after UPDATE, it points to better non aff offer, well done, just don’t be so quick next time ok?]
Just Another Points Traveler [this is part of a weekly summary so I am not sure if it even counts:-) No 50k, no disclosure] Subliminal message to the guy who emailed me that I never burn good friends, here is proof. The TBB Editorial board is beyond influencing, lol.
Frequently Flying [50k in the body, with disclosure. Way too cheery about this card…settle down please]
Help Me Travel Cheap [50k in title, no disclosure, he mentions the “other” offer but scares everyone away and he continues the sales job for this card with commentary such as: “check out this awesomeness”, “amazing credit card perk”, “…take advantage of while it lasts”, “I am pretty excited” – WTF, for a moment there I thought I was reading commentary about that luxe blender in the Home Shopping Netwrok!]
Milevalue [No 50k, no disclosure. He goes on, naturally, to talk about US Air awards. You can tell he is new to credit cards, no mention about the other offer!]
View from the Wing  [Well, the best write up about it by far! The only negative about it is that the aff cc link always gets the real estate on the top of each post, even though it is not better! If it was TBB I would not even put up the aff cc link in the first place. Oh wait…with that type of attitude monetization of this blog remains a Mayan dream, lol]
Unroad Warrior [50k in title, with disclosure of “small fee”, was the bold font on the 50k necessary?, no word on the balance transfer cost or to stay away from it? Do bloggers just get these and post them right away without doing ANY research at all?]
Miles Momma [50k in title, no disclosure, offers link of the generic offer but shoots it down way too quick. For the record, the generic link still works just fine, no one has been denied yet for not being a US Air employee all right? Says balance transfer is a bad deal. She gives the card a thumbs up, I give it a thumbs down. I got no conflicts of interest, who are you gonna believe? 🙂 ]

I think the others saw me on Twitter that I am on this case and went into…hiding, lol. You can run but you can not hide. NBA player Rasheed Wallace has a saying “Ball don’t lie”. TBB says “Google Reader don’t lie”!

By the way, here is the still better US Air offer. To my knowledge, the “restriction” on the top as an exclusive offer for “Chairman’s Preferred Members Only” has never been enforced. And the reference to the US Air employee number was left blank and apps still went through! It is by Barclays bank and they are also even more weird to deal with than US Bank! Your mileage may (suddenly) vary! Got these cards myself and the 10k anniversary bonus even posted before the annual fee came due #winning

A kind commenter said the following which amazingly I could have said myself! Thank you for allowing me to repost here with your permission!

Again, I really don’t see any problem with having a link to a credit card. I appreciate when there’s appropriate disclosure about financial relationships.

But to claim that this is a better offer than was available before shows either that the blogger is dishonest or not really that much of an expert on the subject. Because there’s long been a 40k after first purchase offer.

And then if the blogger pitches it as a 50k offer that’s disingenuous. THAT is pimping.

Lots of credit card content is fine, analyzing the offers is great, offering a novel perspective is useful. And sometimes there will be duplication across blogs talking on the same thing. I’m fine with that. But what absolutely drives me bonkers is pitching a card as better than it is. Reasonable people can even disagree on the value of a card, but please don’t call a US Airways credit card that gives you 40,000 miles up front and 10,000 more miles for a balance transfer “a 50,000 mile signup bonus.” IT ISN’T.