Update: Please see Best Travel Credit Cards for the current best offers; other offers mentioned below have since expired.
A 40K US Airways Credit Card offer has returned. That's the good news. The bad news is that, as usual with this offer, the $89 annual fee is NOT waived the first year. That's why I would still consider the 35K US Airways bonus offer (update: offer expired), with the annual fee waived the first year, to be the better deal, since to earn the incremental 5000 Dividend miles you're spending $89, or ~1.78 cents per Dividend Mile. I wrote about this in US Airways Card Offer: 40,000 Miles with Annual Fee or 35,000 Miles with Annual Fee Waived and my view hasn't changed (although unfortunately with the BankDirect Devaluation it is no longer possible to earn tons of AA miles at half a cent each).
The main good thing is that the 40,000 miles are awarded after first purchase and payment of the $89 annual fee, so this is a good card to get if you don't want high minimum spend to earn the signup bonus.
It goes without saying that it is NOT a good deal to pay 3 cents per mile to earn 10,000 miles, and that you should not be carrying any credit card balances or debt anyway. If you are, focus on paying all of it (and any other high interest debt off) before applying for new rewards credit cards.
Key Details:
- 40,000 bonus Dividend miles after first purchase
- Up to 10,000 bonus miles when transferring a balance within 90 days of account opening (as noted above, not a good deal)
- Earn 2 miles per $1 on US Airways purchases
- One complimentary US Airways Club day pass per year
- Foreign exchange fee: 3%
- $89 annual fee is NOT waived
Also note that Barclays can be very picky in approving your application if you've recently applied for many new credit cards. I always recommend that you apply early on for the US Airways card. It's easier to get approved later for most Chase and AMEX cards, but if you try the reverse, applying for a bunch of Chase and AMEX cards before applying with Barclays, it can be a lot harder to get approved.
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HT: iabhinavsharma on Flyertalk
Disclaimer: Note that some cards in this post offer credit to me if you’re approved using my links. The opinions, analyses, and evaluations are mine. This content is not provided or commissioned by Chase, Barclays, American Express, Citibank, US Bank, Bank of America, or any other company. They have not reviewed, approved or endorsed any of my articles.