Chase to REFRESH Two Cards + Southwest To Open Airport Lounges!

So in this video we have a few confirmed stories and we have a few rumours. I love a good rumour in the credit card space and I'll space them out so that we're like alternating back and forth between rumours and confirmed stories. So we have a rumoured Chase FreedomFlex refresh. Wasn't it refreshed the other day? Well apparently there is more to come. Then we have a confirmed story about Southwest Airlines new airport lounges and their new premium credit card. Then we have a rumour about a refresh on another Chase credit card. And finally a 100,000 points welcome bonus that is coming to an end soon and that is confirmed that it's ending soon. 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 and this video is brought to you by Silo the brokerage where you earn credit card style points on your investments. They just launched a new entry-level plan and doubled the points earnings caps but more on that later. So first of all check this out from reddit user niceletterhead345. Allegedly Chase is refreshing the FreedomFlex later this month. Also sounds like the CSR elevated offer is returning later this month but in branch only. Now it seems like this person is a Chase employee since they go on to say this. Email that went out to branch employees. Unfortunately I don't have a hard copy of the email. I've seen it and got this from the horse's mouth but if I get something I will. So he is of course talking about the FreedomFlex one of Chase's no annual fee credit cards that earns ultimate rewards points. Now if you don't know there was just a minor refresh on the FreedomFlex last month which was that foreign transaction fees went away so you can now use your card overseas with no fee. But then a devaluation as well which is that they stopped offering cell phone insurance. But when asked about this the reddit poster said that this will be an additional refresh on top of what has already happened. So what could this be? Well I don't know in my opinion the card already works pretty well. It earns 5 points per dollar back in different categories each quarter on $1,500 worth of spending. This quarter that includes gas which is super useful. It also gives me 3x at drugstores which is a pretty rare category and has no annual fee. I don't really want anything more from this card. The card is already perfect in my opinion. It complements my other Chase cards perfectly. But anyway let's wait and see and maybe we will be pleasantly surprised. Now let's talk about the new Southwest Airlines airport lounges. All right Southwest Airlines is about to do something that it has literally never done before. Open airport lounges. Southwest just announced its first ever lounge network and construction has actually already begun at the first four locations. Austin, Bergstrom International Airport, Baltimore Washington International, Honolulu and Nashville. The first lounges are expected to open in late 2027 and Southwest says this is only the beginning with at least seven additional lounges planned over the following several years. They're trying to become a real airline. And here's where things get particularly interesting for credit card people. Southwest isn't doing this alone. They're partnering with Chase and Southwest specifically says the new lounges will build on what Chase has already done with the Sapphire Reserve lounge network. Does this mean that they're going to be as classy as the Sapphire lounge? I don't know. I mean I tend to think of Southwest as more of a McDonald's level brand, but I guess they're moving up in the world, right? If we're using restaurant examples there, you know, maybe they're moving up to the level of Chili's or something. Southwest says the lounges will feature sophisticated design, locally inspired food. They all say that higher end amenities and travel benefits similar to what Chase currently offers inside the Sapphire Reserve lounges. And these images are just AI mock-ups that I made, but you know, they probably aren't far off what the lounges will look like. But probably the biggest piece of news is how you're going to be able to get into these lounges. Southwest confirmed that Chase will launch an entirely new premium Southwest rapid rewards credit card in 2027. And that card will include access to the Southwest lounge network. We actually did a rumor video on this a while back, and now it has been officially announced. Now, Southwest has not revealed the annual fee, the reward structure, welcome bonus, or exactly what the lounge access rules will look like. But I would guess this is going to be a $450 plus a year annual fee card, maybe $550. There aren't that many cards that are still $450 these days, right? That used to be like the number. The Amex Platinum was $450 like seven years ago or something. Anyway, I think this is another sign of just how dramatically Southwest is changing. We've already seen the airline move away from some of the things that historically made Southwest, well, Southwest. Okay. And now they're entering the premium airport lounge space. So things are really changing. And by the end of 2027, you could be flying Southwest in a pre-assigned seat, sitting in a premium Southwest lounge and getting into that lounge with a premium Southwest credit card. That sentence would have sounded pretty strange just a few years ago. Now, obviously we will have to wait for Chase to reveal this new card because the annual fee and the benefits and the balance between them are going to determine whether this card actually makes sense. But if the annual fee is reasonable and the benefits offered are good and there is a Southwest lounge in your local airport, this could be a great card for some people. All right. Let's now talk about another rumored credit card refresh. But first, over the past year, you've probably heard me talking about Silo, Silo, Silo, Silo, Silo, Silo. Well, there's a reason for that. It is the investing platform that enables you to earn points on your stocks. It's like what Bilt has done with earning points on rent, but for investing. This month, they launched two big updates that make the platform much more useful and accessible. The first is Blue Rewards, a new entry-level plan that costs just $95 per year. That's the same annual fee as a mid-tier credit card. It lets you earn half a point per dollar each year on up to a $50,000 portfolio that works out to as many as 25,000 points per year paid monthly. Silo have just launched their travel portal where you can use Silo points to book travel at one cent per point with over 300 airlines and hotel chains. It's a really cool interface and makes searching and booking travel an absolute breeze. In my opinion, the booking experience is better than most big banks, not naming any names. This is all in addition to up to 500,000 points on your portfolio balance each year and an up to 250,000 point welcome bonus in the first year. So a total of potentially 750,000 points in your first year. That's their Labor Day bonus and it's only available until the end of the month. So if you want to check out their new blue plan and earn points on your portfolio that you can use for free travel, you can click my link in the description or go directly to silomarkets.com slash Ben to get started today. Alright, here's another one from Reddit. The Air Canada aero plan card, which is also from Chase, is supposedly getting a refresh too. And we actually have some clues as to what some of those new benefits in this refresh will be. Reddit user correctcondition50 shared this. Notice this new benefit showing in my Chase account. It says up to $50 twice annually in Air Canada statement credits, but tapping it only leads to a generic Chase page with no terms. Sharing as a data point since I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere else. Then there was another post on Reddit by someone called The Legend of Rabbit. Apparently the Chase aero plan card is going to get a refresh as Kayak has a demo link with some information about it. But sadly, if you click on the link, Kayak has already removed the content from the web. However, people have compiled all of the benefits that this guy and others online have found. DannyTheDealGuru, great site by the way Up to $100 in Air Canada statement credits split into two $50 credits annually. That one we already knew about. And yes, he says this benefit has already appeared in some cardholders Chase accounts. 3 points per dollar on travel. 3x at grocery stores and restaurants through December 31st, 2026. Dropping to 2x at the beginning of 2027. Maybe part of a welcome bonus. Then 2x on gas beginning in 2027. Okay, that's weird. Maybe they're doing like annual rotating categories or I don't know. The Kayak information indicates pay yourself back may end after December 31st, 2026. Although this benefit has historically shown year end expiration dates and subsequently been renewed. So that doesn't necessarily mean it's actually disappearing. Pay yourself back, by the way, was a pandemic era benefit on Chase cards because at that time people weren't traveling. So Chase was giving you another way to use your cards paying off, you know, charges on the card more than one cent per point. It has, however, been devalued on most Chase cards anyway. So if it really is going away, seeing it go probably wouldn't be a big deal for most people, especially since most people have the Air Canada card to earn Air Canada miles for travel anyway, not to get cash back or pay yourself back. Anyway, for this one, guys, I feel this rumor is way more confirmed than the Chase Freedom Flex one. This isn't some guy on Reddit says, no, this is people have actually seen the benefits listed in their Chase app and on a page on Kayak. So I'm pretty sure that this one is actually happening and we'll probably know about it soon. All right. Let's now move on to 200,000 point bonuses that are about to end. So for the last few weeks, the Chase Inc Business Unlimited card and in cash cards have been running a 100,000 point bonus offer. These cards market the bonus as cash back, but it can be used as points as well. If you get two cents per point transferring to airlines via your Chase Sapphire or Inc Preferred, the value is two thousand dollars. But yesterday, Frequent Miler, another great points and miles blog, by the way, it came out with this. We've received word that the 100,000 point offers for the Inc Business Cash and Inc Business Unlimited cards will be ending soon. We don't have an exact date yet, but that usually means a matter of weeks. If you're interested in either card, it's worth deciding sooner rather than later. I assume that they use affiliate links on their site. And what happens is that those affiliate networks send out an email saying that you're allowed to market the card as ending soon or last chance, but they may not tell you the exact date that it ends. So anyway, if you want this bonus, I would suggest to apply now. I'll put my affiliate link down below. If you want the card anyway, want to help me out, use my link. I'd be very grateful. All right, guys, that's the video for today. And don't forget, if you want to check out their new blue plan and earn points on your portfolio that you can use for free travel, use my link silomarkets.com slash Ben to claim 250,000 points as a welcome bonus. That's their Labor Day bonus and it runs until the end of September. Get it while you can. Please subscribe to the channel if you will. See you next time. Bye bye.