Chase Sapphire 200k Bonus COMING + New Hilton "Diamond Reserve" Status

In this video, I want to talk about three things. A rumored 200,000 points bonus that is supposedly coming very soon on a certain Chase Premium credit card. Then we have a rumor of a new Hilton status above Diamond that has actually just been confirmed by Hilton and an easy way that you can get a $250 Amazon gift card just in time for Black Friday. We'll tell you all about that at the end of the video. Hey credit warriors, welcome to the show. My name is Ben Hedges aka the credit shifu 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, we have a bit of leaked info pointing to a 200,000 point bonus coming on the Chase Sapphire Reserve in just a few days time. Check out this image from an internal memo sent to Chase bankers. We are introducing the largest Chase Sapphire Reserve offer ever, available for a limited time to select clients. This is a targeted offer and will not be made available to all clients. It goes on to say that it is beginning on November 16th and it's 200,000 points for spending $10,000 in your first 6 months of having the card. And then it talks about how this is a targeted offer and where bankers should look out for it within their internal computer system. So, since this is a targeted offer, what it sounds like is that you will need to go into a branch and inquire about it with a banker and depending on certain criteria that Chase won't tell you about, you may or may not get offered this bonus. My guess is that it will probably be offered to people with higher spending. I mean, that's kind of obvious, right? So, November 16th is the date if you want to inquire about it. It is 75,000 points more than the current 125,000 public offer. So, it is well worth asking about it. It could be worth as much as $4,000 if you're able to book travel at 2 cents per point using the new points boost feature through the travel portal and possibly could be worth even more if you're able to transfer it out to airlines and uh book business class flights and find a good deal that way. All right, let's move on to the second story of the day. So, certain blogs have already started leaking out that Hilton is preparing to launch a new Diamond Reserve membership tier. And Hilton, in a very cool way, has played along with them and acknowledged that the rumors are true. On Instagram, saying, "Yep, you caught us. Hilton Honors is up to something." Then they show quotes from multiple articles, including US credit card guide. We'll go through exactly what was leaked out in just a second, but first we'll just tell you the situation with Hilton Honors, their loyalty program. Now, you can be a member, a silver member, a gold member, or a diamond member. And you can get silver, gold, or diamond just by signing up for one of the three Hilton Honors MX credit cards. The no annual fee card gives you silver. The mid-tier surpass card, I think the annual fee is $150, that gives you gold. And the $550 a year Hilton Honor Aspire card gives you diamond. So, it's unusual that with Hilton you can effectively buy their top tier status for $550 a year or not even that actually since the card has an annual free night which may be worth $550 depending on how you use it. And there's also a load of credits on the card too that can help you earn back most if not all of that annual fee. But this has led to a dilution of the status in the US market. Okay. Since if a hotel is busy and they receive a load of diamond members since everyone has the status through the Aspire card, then there may not be enough rooms available to give upgrades, okay, and the lounge will get crowded, etc. I remember at the Hilton Wall Village in Hawaii. I stayed there a couple of years ago. I really wasn't satisfied with my room and I actually asked if I could pay for an upgrade and they said there were no higher rooms available cuz I guess they'd given them all out to diamond members with the card through free upgrades. So, this may well be why Hilton is adding this new status. And I'm guessing that this status will not be obtainable by simply having a credit card, i.e. you cannot buy it. So let's actually have a look at the information that has been leaked. But first, if you are into credit cards, especially premium credit cards like the Chase Sapphire Reserve or Hilton Aspire, it is essential that you get as much value back from them as possible to offset the high annual fees. That is why I have partnered with Max Rewards. It is the credit card management app that the pros use. Not only does it give you all your transactions, balances, points and rewards balances, upcoming bills, etc. in one place, even when your cards are from different issuers, but it also tracks credits so that you don't miss out on value. This is essential on those high-end cards like the two we mentioned in this video, the Sapphire Reserve and the AMX Hilton Aspire, as well as very popular cards like the MX Platinum. In addition, MX card holders will find the premium version of Max Rewards, Max Rewards Gold, especially useful because it activates all of your MX offers for you, so you never miss a deal. And I've often come home on several occasions, in fact, and found an email saying, "I used an offer without even knowing it, saving me money." When you activate all of your MX offers, new AMX offers you never knew existed will even appear in your account. Max Rewards activates them, too. You can get a 7-day free trial of Maxrewards Gold and then a three-month discount after the trial ends if you want to continue when you use my code hedges 25 when you sign up through my link below. You can also just download the app and check out the free features. Link is down in the description. So, US Credit Card Guide originally leaked out that one of their users had found Hilton source code in their website which had different letters representing different levels of membership. So if you look you have the usual member silver gold diamond but then you also have diamond reserve the honors society and lifetime. Then another of their users was actually able to get a web page to display. He says right now through the control panel you can get a new landing page to show but the benefits are not confirmed. The Chinese are really intelligent. I don't know how they do it. But anyway, we just have a screen showing us what it takes to become a Diamond Reserve member, okay? Which is 80 nights, 40 stays, and $18,000 in spend. And also the fact that you will earn 22 Hilton points per dollar spent at Hilton if you are a Diamond Reserve member. I like this person's comment here. Just directly come out with a Diamond Reserve card, $1,999 annual fee, and three free nights. Yeah, I don't think they're going to do that. All right. The whole point of this seems to be so that Hilton has an elite tier again above diamond that you can't just buy by having a credit card. Also, there was that honors society tier that we saw earlier in that person who looked at the source code. People seem to think that that's going to be some invite only tier that's not like publicly available. Anyway, apart from that, we don't have much other info. Oh, other than the theme will apparently be black, which makes sense for your highest tier, and the requirements to reach the lower tiers through stays and spend will be cut down by 30%. But you can just buy them through having a credit card anyway, so it really isn't major good news. I just hope that gold and diamond don't lose benefits with this new high tier. Not sure when this is coming out, but Hilton says stay tuned. All right, let's talk about our final story of the day. How to get an easy $250 Amazon gift card. All right, so Black Friday is coming up and normally in the leadup to Black Friday, the Amazon Prime Visa Signature card from Chase does an elevated bonus in the form of a gift card. This year is no different. For new members who sign up for the card right now, you will get a $250 Amazon gift card instantly upon approval. This means that you can then go and buy $250 worth of discounted stuff on Black Friday, which is in like 2 weeks. That is easily enough for a new TV or maybe even a new laptop if you can find one that is heavily discounted. Now, you do need to be a Prime member to have this card. Otherwise, they give you a different gray card that has lower cashback rates and you do not get the $250 gift card, but I'm guessing that there are going to be a lot of Prime members in the audience who don't have this card yet. And there may be other people who will think it's worth it to sign up for Prime. It's $139 a year, but it gets you free shipping on most things on Amazon. And you can then get the Amazon Prime Visa Signature card which gets you 5% back at Amazon or Whole Foods. It gives you additional discounts and you can also get that $250 gift card when you sign up for the credit card. So, it is probably worth it if you're a medium to big Amazon shopper. I am a Prime member and I have the card and I find the whole thing really worth it. I do save a lot of money. Now, I have no special interest in getting you to sign up for this guys. I do not have an affiliate link. Chase won't work with me anymore. Um, but I do think that this one is a no-brainer for many people. So, I recommend it. And if I didn't have it already, I would be applying for it right now, too. Anyway, that's the video for today. Don't forget to get a free trial and then a 3month discount on Max Rewards with my link below and code hedges25. Please subscribe to the channel if you're new and we'll see you next time. Bye-bye.