NEW Amex Partner and Card + Last Chance For 200k Marriott BONUS

In this video, I want to cover three things. First, we have a new Amex Transfer Partner that anyone with a membership rewards earning American Express card like the Green, Gold or Platinum Now has access to. We also have a brand new Amex card to talk about. Then we have two things that are very urgent. Your last chance to earn 200,000 Marriott points as a welcome bonus for a mid-tier Marriott card that is ending today. And this month could be your last chance ever to earn the Southwest Airlines Companion Pass through credit card spend. I will tell you all the details about that at the end of this video. So stay tuned if you're interested in the Companion Pass. Hey, credit warriors, welcome to the show. My name is Ben. I'm Ben Hedges aka The Credit Shifu and on this channel we cover US credit cards, personal finance and luxury travel. If you like the sound of that please subscribe but let's get into it. This video is brought to you by Max Rewards but more on that later. So first let's talk about this new Amex Transfer partner and that would be Fanatics. They sell sports merchandise like jerseys, clothing and collectibles for all the major US sports plus WWE, UFC, soccer and motor racing. Now this is Amex's first ever non-travel partner. Under the lifestyle tab in your points transfer section, 100 Amex points equals $1 worth of fan cash. That's Fanatic's points currency. So you're basically getting one cent per point. So if you have the Charles Schwab platinum card that allows you to redeem points for 1.1 cents per point. Just redeem there instead and then purchase items from Fanatics with the money. But if you don't have that specific version of the Platinum card, actually all the Morgan Stanley Platinum, that's one cent per point too. But if you don't have those, then the best cashback redemption you can get from Amex is 0.6 cents per point. So if you wanted these pink Sean O'Malley UFC training shorts, for example, well, now you can get them for one cent per Amex point. So anyway, that's live now. If you don't have a fanatics account yet, you can create one by clicking through from the points transfer page on your Amex account, and then you'll be able to transfer points over. Next, let's talk about a new American Express card. So American Express has just unveiled a brand new credit card in partnership with Fanatics. It's called the Fanatics American Express card, and it actually has some pretty impressive earnings rates, especially considering that it has no annual fee. Although you'll need to be pretty crazy into sports merchandise to want this. But if you are... Then it's great. So first, let's look at the rewards. The card earns 5% back in fan cash on purchases across the Fanatics ecosystem, including Fanatics.com, Lids, Mitchell & Ness, Tops, and other Fanatics brands. And if you shop through the Fanatics app, that increases to 8% back or more. You also get 5% back on ticket purchases and select streaming services on up to $5,000 in spending. Annually in those categories and then 2% back on everything else. Now, these rewards come in the form of fan cash, which you can redeem for sports merchandise, collectibles. Tickets and experiences through Fanatics. So it's not the same as earning cash back that you can deposit into your bank account. Hence, this card is really only for people who are massive sports fans. As for the welcome bonus, new cardholders can earn $100 in fan cash after spending $1,000 in the first 90 days. There's also an additional $100 bonus if you spend at least $500 per month for 12 consecutive months. So it's light on the welcome bonus, right? $100, really not very much. But that additional $100 for $500 is a nice addition. The card also comes with some interesting perks. You'll receive 2,500 Fanatics 1 tier points when you open the account and every year thereafter, plus 10 additional tier points for every $50 spent. Cardholders also get early access to select Topps trading card releases, special benefits at Fanatics Fest, and access to Amex offers. And certain American Express travel and purchase protections. There are a few other benefits, including choosing your card's design. So the card basically looks like a trading card with an EMV chip in it. And in the press release, Fanatics president Greg Lisiewski described the card as the true badge of fandom. Yeah, marketing speak. Well, whether that's true or not, you guys can be the judge. The card isn't quite available for applications just yet, but you can join the wait list now with invitations expected to go out later this year. Okay, let's move on to talking about this 200,000 point Marriott bonus. But first, if you're serious about getting every little bit of value out of your rewards credit cards, like the Amex Platinum, you have to check out the app Max Rewards. Not only does it show you your balances, your transactions, your points and rewards balances across all your credit cards, Even if they're from different issuers, so you can see everything in one clear dashboard inside one app, but it also incorporates really useful features like the card value tracker, where you can clearly see the value you got back in a year versus the annual fee. You can see on my Amex Gold, we have the value of the points I earned, the offers and the credits I used. In their most recent update, they've redesigned the benefits page to give you a very clear picture of your coupon book style credits. You can browse across all your cards like The Amex Dunkin' credit, the Lululemon credit. You can even see your spend progress towards a free night on this Hilton card. So it's very easy to see where you can maximize value and where you missed out. Look, I forgot to use my Amex Dining credit in April. And that's exactly what the credit card companies want you to do. Forget about those benefits. Let them reset next month so you lose out. So this really helps you outsmart the corporations. In addition, the offers page still lets you search your offers across all of your cards from different banks. There is the For You tab, which finds offers based on your past spending. The Popular tab, showing you offers popular with other Max Rewards users. And the value tab showing you the offers where you can get the most cashback or rewards. And these offers are from all your banks. Look, here is an Amex one and the next one is on my Chase cards. Some of these are premium features and require Max Rewards Gold, but you could get a free trial and then a three month discount after the trial ends with my link below. Or if you search it directly on the App Store, use code Ben when you sign up for the same deal. There are also a load of free features that you can try out as well. So the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless card from Chase, which is their mid-tier card with a $95 annual fee just a few days ago, launched a 200,000 point welcome offer for spending $3,000 on purchases in your first three months. And you also still have that airline statement credit active as well. Get up to $100 in statement credits after spending $500 on eligible airline purchases. So if we use a Points Guy valuation of 0.75 cents per point for the Marriott points to get the value of the bonus, that's going to be 1,500. Then we add in the $100 airline credit, and that takes us to $1,600. The crazy thing about this bonus, though, is it has only been around for a week. And it's ending today. Like I saw this ad on Instagram yesterday that says apply by November 11th, which is today. So today is the last day it's available. So if you want it, apply right now. It is such a no brainer. I wish I had an affiliate link to shill it to you guys, but I don't. So anyway, get it while you can. But let's now look at another limited time bonus that could be your last chance for a very valuable benefit with Southwest Airlines. That would be the Southwest Companion Pass, and there are two reasons why this is so urgent. So first, we have elevated bonuses on the Southwest cards of 80,000, 85,000, and 90,000 points for spending 1,000, 2,000, or 3,000 in the first three months. These bonuses come around twice a year or so, and they make it easy to get the Companion Pass. And with the Companion Pass, you can take a travel companion with you on all your flights. for free. You just have to accumulate 135,000 points in a calendar year. So if you have some Southwest points already, like 30, 40, 50,000, then this bonus would put you over the 135,000 points to get the companion pass this year. Or if you want to complete the spend for the bonus in January, and you have the points then post either in January or early next year, and then you Then you accumulate the rest of the points you need. In the first quarter or first half of next year, that's even better since you get the companion pass for the rest of 2027 and all of 2028. But this is your last chance to do this with the Southwest credit cards, because as of January 1st, Southwest is changing its rules and Companion Pass will no longer be obtainable through earning Southwest points on their credit cards. It will now be a perk of their new Platinum Rewards tier. You get there by earning 140,000 tier qualifying points. And if you did that through credit card spend alone, you would need to spend $140,000. And even though this change comes into effect on January 1st, Southwest has said that it That if you apply for the Southwest credit cards before the current limited offer ends on December 2nd, points from the credit card will count towards the companion pass for another year until December 31st, 2027. So this bonus is the last time you are ever going to be able to do the whole Southwest companion pass thing with the Southwest credit cards, or at least at a reasonable level of spent. In the future, you'll either have to spend a ridiculous amount of money on the card. In theory, $140,000, although I think there might be a few bonuses along the way that get you extra. Tier qualifying points, so it might not be quite that much, but either that or you actually take 100 flights per year to get platinum status. So neither of these things are easy. So apply before December 2nd if you want to take advantage of this, potentially your last chance to get the Southwest bonus through Southwest credit card spend. All right, guys, that is the video for today. Don't forget to get a free trial of Max Rewards Gold and then a three-month discount after the trial ends. With my link down below, or if you download it directly from the App Store, use code Ben when you sign up for the same deal. Please subscribe to the channel if you're new. We'll see you next time. Bye bye.