Chase Just NERFED These Credit Cards + Amex ENDING Points Pooling

In this video I want to cover two things. We have Chase making drastic changes. Well actually it's the airline that's made the change but it affects a series of airline credit cards from Chase and this change basically gets rid of one of the most lucrative credit card airline benefits that exists out there on the market today. Then we have Amex ending points pooling on membership rewards earning cards. We'll tell you all about it and this one unlike the first story isn't quite as bad as it sounds since there is a workaround. and we'll tell you what you can do to keep pooling your points. So stay tuned for that. Hey, credit warriors. Welcome to the show. My name is Ben Hedges, aka The Credit Shifu. And on this channel, I cover U.S. credit cards, personal finance, and luxury travel. If you like the sound of that, do subscribe. But let's get into the video. So Southwest Airlines has just announced some huge changes to its loyalty program. And unfortunately, one of the best credit card strategies for getting almost free flights is about to disappear. That's right. Southwest credit card welcome bonuses will no longer count towards earning the famous companion pass from Southwest Airlines. That's a benefit that I've talked about so much on this channel because it's just such a good perk. And for those of you who've used this strategy in the past or are planning on using it or using it again, this is pretty devastating news. Now, if you're not familiar with the Southwest companion pass, it's one of the most valuable benefits in the airline and I guess credit card industry. Basically, once you've earned it, you can designate a companion who gets to fly with you on Southwest flights for just the taxes and fees. Okay, so basically for free, as long as there's an available seat. And it works whether you book your own ticket with cash or with Southwest Rapid Rewards points. Only con is that you have to fly Southwest. All right, that was a joke. But anyway, under the current rules, you can earn the companion pass by accumulating 135,000 qualifying points in a calendar year or by flying 100 qualifying one-way flights. And here's where credit cards come in. One of the easiest ways to earn those 135,000 points has been through the welcome bonuses on Chase's Southwest credit cards. For example, you could open a Southwest personal credit card and get a bonus of 60,000 points. And you could also open a Southwest business credit card and get the current bonus, which is their best bonus of this year, 80,000 points. They don't ban you from getting the bonuses on both, okay, personal and business, and you could then potentially accumulate enough points to qualify it for the companion pass without having to fly anywhere. That's 140,000 points altogether, so it gets you over that 135,000 point threshold. And if you timed it correctly, earning the pass early in the year, you could enjoy almost two full years of companion pass benefits, since you get it for the rest of the current year you're in, plus the whole of the next year. It was an absolutely fantastic strategy, but starting January 1st, 2027, that's changing. Southwest is completely revamping its rapid rewards program, introducing three elite status tiers, okay, silver, gold, and platinum. Couldn't they have thought up something slightly more original? I mean, everyone uses platinum, etc. And instead of earning companion pass qualifying points, members will now earn something called tier qualifying points or TQPs. Under the new system, you'll need 140,000 tier qualifying points or 100,000 one-way flights to reach platinum status, which comes with unlimited companion pass trips. There's also a new milestone at 95,000 tier qualifying points or 75 flights, which gives you three companion pass trips rather than unlimited use. And credit card welcome bonuses will no longer count towards these new qualification thresholds. So you won't be able to open two Southwest credit cards, get a couple of big welcome bonuses and automatically get the companion pass. However, there is some good news starting in 2027 every southwest rapid rewards credit card will earn one tier qualifying point for every dollar spent on purchases and that includes the no frills southwest plus card and actually also the southwest debit card so technically you could still earn platinum status and thus an unlimited companion pass through 140 000 in qualifying credit card spending since credit card multipliers like 2x on grocery etc won't count either so it will just be one point per dollar that counts towards the companion pass. I'm not sure why I introduced that as good news. All right. It's too much spend for the average person, but it is something. All right. It is something at least you can still use your Southwest credit card. It's not based on flights alone, but you do have one last chance to get the companion pass by signing up for credit cards under the old rules. But there's one very important date you need to know. And that date is December 2nd, 2026. Southwest says that if you're approved for a new Rapid Rewards credit card on or before that date, your welcome bonus can still count towards companion pass qualification under the transition rules, even if you complete the spending requirement in early 2027. And finally, Southwest has also announced a brand new premium Chase credit card launching in 2027, which will include access to the airline's upcoming Icon Airport lounges. So that's something to look forward to all right southwest lounges and a premium card to access them but other than that this is obviously a pretty disappointing development the companion pass welcome bonus strategy was one of the best deals in the entire credit card rewards world so let me know in the comments does this change make the southwest credit cards less attractive to you well of course it does but is it a total deal breaker is what i'm trying to say and would you ever put 140,000 worth of spending on one of those cards just to earn the companion pass i certainly wouldn't all the opportunity cost of not putting that spending elsewhere would simply be too great. All right, let's get into American Express ending points pooling. Oh, but first, if you want to earn extra points, the Bilt Dining Program is a great thing to sign up for. Just link your existing credit card that you use for dining, and you'll earn three built points per dollar extra at the many restaurants in their program. It works great with the Amex Gold for seven points per dollar, four from Amex, three from Bilt. Or this quarter, Chase is actually offering seven points per dollar on dining with the Freedom Flex. So if you link that to Bilt, it ends up being 10 points per dollar, okay? Seven from Chase, three from Bilt. And Bilt has many awesome transfer partners like Hyatt Hotels, a load of airlines, and points are also worth 1.25 cents per point through their travel portal. Link for that is below. Also, Black Friday will be coming up in about a month. So Rakuten is another great site to sign up for where you can earn extra cash back or Amex points on top of what you earn on your existing credit cards when you click through from their site to many of your favorite retailers. They will have sky high cashback rates around Black Friday, like 15%, and that's on top of the Black Friday discounts. There's a $50 bonus when you sign up through my link and make a purchase. That link is below too. So let's get into our next story. American Express has just made a pretty significant change to its membership rewards program. And if you have multiple Amex credit cards, you need to pay attention because this could actually cause you to lose some points if you're not careful. So up until now, one of the great things about Amex membership rewards was that if you had multiple cards earning points, they would all automatically pool into one account. For example, let's say you had the Amex Gold card and the Amex Platinum card. You could earn four points on dining with the Gold card, five points on eligible flights with your Platinum card and all those points would automatically combine into one big balance. Nice and simple. But American Express has now changed that. Under the new rules whenever you open a new Amex card that earns membership rewards points a separate membership rewards account will be created for that card by default. So instead of all of your points automatically combining you could end up with several different points balances. Now the good news is that Amex is not banning you from combining your points, you will still be able to pool points from multiple cards so how do you do that? Well, you're going to have to manually link the rewards accounts together and according to the new terms you can do that through the Amex website or mobile app using the Manage Connections feature, you can also call the number on the back of your card and ask Amex to link the accounts for you, but this could catch some people out. Let's say you already have an Amex Gold card with 50,000 points in the account. Then you open a Platinum card, you earn a huge 150,000 point welcome bonus, and those points go into a separate rewards account. A year later, you decide the Platinum annual fee is too expensive, so you cancel it. Now, normally, you'd expect those 150,000 points to be safe because you still have your Gold card. But if you haven't linked the two membership rewards accounts, you could actually lose all 150,000 points when you close the Platinum card and that would be a very expensive mistake, so make sure that you link your accounts now this change only affects newly opened cards, I looked in my account just a moment ago and my Gold and Platinum points are still pooled in one account, so if your existing Amex cards already have their points pooled together those accounts aren't automatically being separated, but going forward every time you open a new membership rewards card you should check that the points are being combined correctly, and definitely do that before canceling any Amex card. Now, American Express hasn't explained exactly why they're making this change. It could simply be about giving customers more control over how their rewards accounts are organized. But it's also possible that Amex wants more flexibility to offer like different redemption benefits on different cards in the future. Like in the future, maybe the Platinum card will give you access to extra transfer partners, or maybe different cards will give different rates for statement credits, right? Some might be like 0.6 cents per point for a statement credit like it is now, some 0.8, maybe some 1 cent per point. Oh, we can only hope. But I don't know whether you would even need this change to make that happen. And personally, I think this is an unnecessary complication to what has always been a very straightforward rewards program. Maybe they just hope that some people will close their accounts and forget about their points and Amex can save some money. All right, guys, that's the video for today. Do check out the Built Dining Program and also Rakuten in the links below. You can get a $50 bonus or 5,000 Amex points for signing up, depending what you choose. And they're going to have some awesome rewards rates on Black Friday shopping. So sign up now in preparation for Black Friday. Links are below. Please subscribe to the channel if you're new. We'll see you next time. Bye-bye.