Credit Card News

Priceline VIP Rewards Credit Card Introduces PricePoints Feature

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Late last year, the travel booking site Priceline in partnership with Barclays introduced the Priceline VIP Rewards Visa. Now, the card is adding a new feature with a somewhat unique benefit for cardholders.

This week, the two companies announced the debut of PricePoint. With this feature, customers will be able to earn points on Priceline bookings even when redeeming points for those bookings. For example, a customer redeeming $100 in points toward a $500 booking will still earn 5x points on the $500 total instead of the $400 net. To make this feature work, when completing the purchase, cardholders will initially be charged the full “Pay Now” amount. However, a statement credit for their redeemed points will be issued three to five business days after the transaction is made.

The Priceline VIP Rewards Visa offers a number of perks for customers. As mentioned, cardholders earn 5x points on Priceline bookings. In addition to that, the card also earns 2x points on gas purchases and 2x points on restaurant purchases (including delivery services). All other purchases earn 1 point per dollar spent. Points are then redeemable at a rate of 1¢ each. Notably, the Priceline VIP Rewards card carries no annual fee and also waives foreign transaction fees. Additionally, cardholders earn automatic Priceline VIP gold status.

Beyond the standard benefits, the card also currently has the same welcome bonus it launched with. New Priceline VIP Rewards Visa customers can earn 10,000 bonus points when they spend $1,000 on the card in their first 90 days. These points are enough for a $100 statement credit. Meanwhile, customers who spend at least $10,000 per year on the card, can earn up to $100 credit toward Global Entry or TSA PreCheck application fees each anniversary year.

Commenting on the new feature, Priceline’s Senior Director of Ancillary Products Denise Bialek said,”Priceline strives to use innovation to make the best deals available to customers. With PricePoints, we are bringing this vision to life through a game-changing credit card program that allows travelers to earn 5x points on all Priceline travel, even when redeeming points at the time of bookings.” Bialek added, “PricePoints allows travelers to earn and redeem their rewards more rapidly with one of the richest point systems in the online travel industry.”

The ability to earn points even when redeeming them is fairly rare when it comes to travel credit cards. Therefore, the PricePoints feature is notable and could make the Priceline VIP Rewards card a more attractive option for some consumers as a result. Of course, considering the rest of the perks, the card still only really makes sense for those who regularly use (or would be willing to regularly use) Priceline for booking their trips. So, while this perk may not make too much of an impact now, perhaps we’ll we could see other, more generic travel credit cards roll out similar features in the future.

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