NEW Centurion Lounge Open + EARN 23 Amex Points per $

In this video, I want to talk about a brand new Amex Centurion Lounge that has just opened at a certain US airport. We have your last chance for 90,000 bonus points on two Chase credit cards, and we have a special promo period starting on Rakuten, which if you don't know, is a shopping portal that lets you earn either cashback or Amex points on your shopping just by clicking through their site to some of your favorite stores on top of what you'd already earn on your credit card. We are going to see rates of up to 23% cashback slash 23 Amex points per dollar next week, and I'll tell you all about it. Hey, credit warriors, welcome to the show. My name is Ben Hedges, aka The Credit Shofu, and on this channel, I cover US credit cards, personal finance, and luxury travel. If you like the sound of that, please subscribe, but let's get into the video. So first up, let's talk about this new Amex Centurion Lounge, and this would be at Salt Lake City Airport in Utah, which has the airport code SLC. Now, Amex says this is their 31st Centurion Lounge. I guess it is, although some of these things that are now called Centurion lounges, I think in the past were called like Centurion Studios or something, and they've been upgraded to lounges. So I guess it is 31, but I don't know if they're all the same level, okay, especially some of the ones down in like Mexico and stuff. The new lounge though is 18,000 square feet, which is on the large side for an airport lounge, which is great. Many of the lounges we see opening are around 10,000 square feet, but there's so much issue with overcrowding now that it's great to see a big lounge. The lounge leans heavy on local themes like winter sports. So you can see you have this mountain artwork in the background here, this fireplace, it's got that ski lodge kind of vibe, right? And you know, Salt Lake City is known for being just a 40-minute drive from some of America's best ski resorts, including Park City, and it probably has the best snow in the country as well. Isn't that on the Utah license plate? Maybe it is. Oh yeah, it is. One of the options you can have it. There seems to be a few different options, but one of them is greater snow on earth. There are two bars in the lounge. This is one of them with views of the mountains. You also have a cafe called Blue Roast serving espresso drinks. The entrance counter also looks really cool, kind of a different color scheme to normal. I think this is the wall of leaves next to the entrance counter here, but those are all marketing photos from Amex. So let's look at some online blogs and photos. So here's the Points Guys article. He shows you where it is, Concourse B, it's near gate 31, and this is what the entrance looks like. Next, we see the entrance reception area, and yes, that wall of leaves is left of the counter there. Scrolling down, we have some more shots of different areas. The hearth room, as it's called, that's that place with the fireplace. We have various bars and the coffee shop. There's also a YouTube short I found from the Salt Lake City Tribune, a local paper, where you can see the lounge actually with people and staff members in it. I'll of course put all of the links to these down below if you want to check out the original, so Points Guy article and Salt Lake City Tribune video. Anyway, it looks really cool. It's open every day from 4.45am to 11.15pm. To get in, you have to either be an Amex Platinum or Centurion cardholder, or have the business versions of those cards, or you can also get in with the Delta Reserve, but only if you are flying Delta. All right, let's move on to our next story. Your last chance for a 90,000 Chase Point bonus on two popular Chase credit cards. All right, so let's talk about this 90,000 Chase UR Point offer on two of the most popular Chase small business credit cards that's ending soon. So the Chase Inc. Cash and Chase Inc. Unlimited are currently both offering $90,000 million. No, that's not right. Both currently have this offer for $900 in cashback when you spend $6,000 in your first three months. $900 in cashback is also redeemable as 90,000 Chase Points and becomes more valuable if you also have a personal Sapphire card or an Inc. Preferred business card. Since you can then transfer the points to airlines and hotels, you can get up to two cents per point in value using the points boost feature through the travel portal. So it's going to be worth anywhere from $900 up to $1,800. And if you're really good at transferring to airlines and booking business class cabins, maybe it actually could be worth even more. These two cards both have no annual fee, so they are a great companion if you already have a Sapphire or an Inc. Preferred card. And in case you're wondering, I do have the Inc. Unlimited. Now, it was Danny the Deal Guru who broke this news about these two offers ending soon saying, Chase media team says these two offers are ending soon. They didn't share an exact end date. And I was actually able to confirm this, although it doesn't say ending soon on the landing page for either of these cards. It just says limited time offer. If you search on Google for Chase Inc. cards, the sponsored result, i.e. the ad that Chase is paying for on the Inc. business cash, before you click in just in the description that shows up on Google, it does say offer ending soon. So I guess they're probably preparing for having offer ending soon branding on the page as well. And they've just put in that metadata to Google early. So while I don't know when exactly it is ending, I would guess it's going to be about two weeks to a month. If you want either of these cards, I would apply soon. Like I said, I have the Inc. Unlimited. It's 1.5 Chase points back on all spend. I like using it for business spend since I can't be bothered to keep track of categories with my business spend since it's a relatively small amount compared to the personal spend that I do. So I like using the Inc. Unlimited for that because I don't have to think about it. The Inc. cash is more like a small business version of the Chase Freedom with 5% category. So depending on your business, what you do, you might have really good categories that fit. You don't need a company to get approved, though, for either of these. Anyone who is a contractor or you get paid with a 1099 at the end of the year, not a W2 should qualify for this. And you can use your personal SSN. You don't have to have an EIN. I'll put my referral link down below, which gives you all the Chase Inc. cards, including these two. As always, I thank you very much if you use our links, since it really does help me out a lot. All right, let's move on to how you can get 23% cash back or 23 Amex points per dollar on your holiday spending. OK, so if you don't know, Rakuten is a shopping portal that lets you earn extra cash back on top of what you earn on your credit card at some of your favorite stores just by clicking through from their site to those particular stores' websites. And this includes some stores that we have credits for on popular credit cards like Saks and Lululemon on the Amex Platinum. The cash back you earn on Rakuten can also be redeemed as Amex points. So one cent in cash back becomes one Amex point. In my opinion, this is a better deal, since even if you still want cash back, if you have the Charles Schwab version of the Amex Platinum, like I do, then you can redeem Amex points for 1.1 cents per point, up to a million points per year. So that works out at 10% extra cash back in your Charles Schwab brokerage account. You can then transfer it out from there to whatever account you want. But you still have flexibility to use them as points as well and book flights and hotels with them. But anyway, Rakuten is doing an event called the Big Deal Reveal, and they have 10 days of increased cash back at many stores that you may want to do holiday shopping at. Here they all are. It's one per day starting from November 1st, which is tomorrow. Ultra Beauty, 20% slash 20 Amex points per dollar on the first. Just assume that every cent in cash back is going to be equivalent to one Amex point if you want to redeem that way. I don't want to keep saying it. Then on November 2nd, we have QVC at 15%. On the 3rd, it's LG at 22%. Then we have Expedia on the 4th at 12%, just on hotels though. So if you're thinking of booking a hotel, maybe do it on the 4th. Then on the 5th, it's 18% at Gap. Then on the 6th, Dermstore at 23%. That's a skincare brand. On the 7th, we have Lanzen at 20%. Then on the 8th, Lululemon at 15%. That's when I'm going to use my quarter four Lululemon credit on the Amex Platinum. And I'll be sure to click through from Rakuten first so that I can earn those extra points. And then Teemu on the 9th at 21%. I don't generally buy anything from Teemu. It's cheap stuff from China. And finally, Adidas on the 10th at 20%. So it really is a cool set of savings. And also, if you sign up now, you can be ready for Black Friday, where they're going to be ridiculous offers at hundreds of stores on top of all of the Black Friday discounts. Like it'll probably be 15% cash back at Saks. Teemu will be like 80%. I'm joking. It won't be that high, but it'll be high. And so, yeah, I'm going to use my Saks credit then around Black Friday if it really is 15% at Saks. There'll probably be deals on Samsung, LG. Maybe I'll get a new TV too, because my current one is broken. Anyway, I'll put a link below. So if you're new to Rakuten and you want to sign up, if you sign up through my link, you can actually get $50 or 5,000 Amex points as a bonus when you sign up and make your first purchase at any of the stores on their site. It is literally a no-brainer if you're going to do any kind of holiday shopping for this month. So do check it out below. Sign up. Be ready for Black Friday. And that's where I'm going to leave it for today, guys. All of the links for things I've talked about are below. So those cards with the 90,000 point offers, I'll put the press release and the articles about the lounge below. And of course, the link to Rakuten. Please subscribe to the channel if you are new so you don't miss a video. We'll see you next time. Bye-bye.