New Chase Lounge At THIS Airport + NEW Premium Credit Card

In this video, I want to talk about two things. Firstly, we have a new Chase Sapphire Lounge coming to a certain airport in one of the U.S.'s most well-known cities. Then, in addition to that, we have a new premium hotel credit card that just hit the market. And this is the first new premium hotel card that we've had in quite some time. So we're going to tell you all about it. 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, please subscribe. But let's get into it. Oh, and this video is brought to you by Silo, the brokerage where you can earn credit card style points on your investments and get your Amex, Platinum, and Gold card for free. But more on that later. All right, so let's check out this article from One Mile at a Time. Yay, Miami Airport, MIA, getting Chase Sapphire Lounge in Concourse E. Kind of funny he put yay in the headline, but I guess it's because Miami is his home airport, right? He explains that in the article. So how do we know this or how does he know this? Well, let's start from the beginning. Last year, Miami-Dade County put out a request for proposals for a new lounge in Concourse E of Miami Airport. You can see the space on this map, which is included in the document. And as you can see, it's about 13,700 square feet in space. You can see that on the plan here. And that's a pretty big lounge, right? As lounges go, I consider anything over 10,000 square feet as a good size lounge. When they announce a lounge, it's like under 10,000 square feet. I'm like, oh, there's going to be lines to get in, you know, but over 10,000 is generally pretty good. In the document, which is ridiculously long, they mention on, I think it's the third or fourth page, that the lounge should be available for people buying day passes or with memberships. And by memberships, I assume they probably mean priority pass, which is the lounge program that you get with most premium U.S. credit cards, or users of specific cards, like Amex, Chase, and Capital One would probably be the ones that count too, okay? Those are the major U.S. banks that will offer lounge programs that are their own proprietary lounges, all right? So like the Amex Centurion Lounge, Chase Sapphire Lounge, and Capital One Lounge. But the key point here is they didn't want an airline-specific lounge. So we knew it was highly likely to be one of those big banks that we just mentioned that would end up getting this. But there is already a Centurion Lounge, an Amex Centurion Lounge at Miami Airport. So we suspected it wouldn't be Amex, okay, unless they wanted to move the location, but that's unlikely. And so that leaves Chase and Capital One as the only other two U.S. banks with lounge networks. And it seems that Chase beat Capital One because we now have a document, an additional document, where the mayor of Miami-Dade County is recommending Chase be awarded the lease on the space. Let's read that. The proposed concept is the Chase Sapphire Lounge by the Club, a common-use and membership-based lounge intended to serve domestic and international travelers. The facility will offer premium seating areas, complimentary food and beverage service, made-to-order menu options, a full-service bar, Wi-Fi, business amenities, televisions, quiet areas, and other hospitality services designed to enhance the passenger experience. And at this stage in the process, it doesn't seem that they're going to backtrack and choose someone else. It's just that the county board of commissioners just has to approve it, and then they'll be on their way. So what will this lounge provide? How will you get in? And when does it open? So the request from Miami-Dade County asked for a lounge that includes the complimentary food and beverages, a full-service bar, a business center, and optional features like spa, salon services, or shower facilities. I always like when lounges have shower facilities, nothing like a shower before a red-eye or to freshen up between two legs of a journey. How will you get in? Well, it should be the same as for other Sapphire lounges already in the program, okay? So if you have the Chase Sapphire Reserve, you'll have unlimited access. If you have a priority pass membership from another credit card, you'll get one free visit per year. I think that's just to advertise it to you, and you start liking it, and then you go and apply for the Sapphire Reserve. And you can also purchase additional day passes for the discounted rate of $75 per person. Yeah, it sounds a lot still, but it is actually discounted if you have priority pass from another credit card, all right? If you don't have priority pass from another credit card, you can buy a day pass for $100, which you probably won't do because that really doesn't sound worth it. You could just go and get some food in a restaurant in the terminal. When is it opening? Well, there is no timeline as of now, but one mile at a time estimates 2028, and I think that is probably a pretty good guess. The lease is 15 years, so once it does open, you'll have a good amount of time to enjoy it when you fly through Miami. Oh, and just FYI, that concourse, all right, that area of the airport where it is, is heavily used by American airlines. So if you fly AA, you are likely to be using a gate that is near this lounge. Okay, let's move on to a brand new premium hotel card. But first, over the past year, you've probably heard me talking about Silo, 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. Well, now we have an exciting update about Silo that I know viewers of this channel in particular will find interesting. Silo is rolling out a new status program that will cover your American Express gold and platinum card fees. If your account with Silo is big enough, you unlock status benefits. At $750,000, they'll cover your American Express gold and Costco executive membership fees every year. And at $1 million, they will cover the $895 annual fee on your Amex Platinum II. They even say that if you are in the Chase or Citi credit card system instead of Amex, you should reach out to them because they may very well pay the annual fee on one of those cards for you instead. Don't forget, this is in addition to up to 250,000 points on your portfolio balance each year and up to a 250,000 point welcome bonus in the first year. So a total of potentially 500,000 points in year one. That bonus was going to end at the end of last month, but they've extended it until the end of June. Points are currently redeemable for cashback at one cent per point, but soon you'll also have many more redemption options. Silo's travel portal is launching this month and they've confirmed that their first two transfer partners will be Turkish Airlines and Avianca, slated to launch in early July, with many more partners rolling out in the second half of this year. While credit card companies give you points for spending money, Silo has turned that concept on its head and gives you points for saving and investing money. So if you want to get your Amex gold and platinum for free while also earning points on your portfolio, use my link silomarkets.com slash ben to get started by the end of June. So Wyndham and Barclays just surprised everyone coming out with a brand new, what I call tier four premium travel card. It is called the Wyndham Earner Premier and it has a $395 annual fee and a welcome bonus of 120,000 Wyndham points, which is split into two halves. Earn 90,000 points after spending $6,000 on purchases and paying the annual fee in full, both within the first 120 days and also earn 30,000 bonus points after spending $750 at hotels by Wyndham in the first 180 days. So that is a new way of doing it. Normally it's just like spend 6,000 for this part of the bonus and then another 3,000 for another part of the bonus, right? But this time they're actually saying 6,000 in general spending for most of it. And then you get an additional 30,000 points if you show your loyalty to us by spending at our hotels. So interesting way of doing it. I don't think I've seen that before. The points guy values Wyndham points at 0.7 cents each. And this is a bit weird since he used to say 1.1 cents each, but he's using a new system now where it's really lowered the value. Hilton points are down to 0.35 cents each according to his new way of calculating. So I'm really not sure how accurate this is since when I try to calculate Hilton points, I normally get half a in value. But anyway, at 0.7 cents for Wyndham points, the bonus is worth $840. And at 1.1 cents, it's worth 1,320. In reality, I think it's going to be somewhere in between. So, you know, close to a thousand dollars probably in value, but that's just the bonus. Let's now look at the benefits of this new card. So in terms of point earning, the card earns eight points per dollar at Wyndham hotels and four points per dollar on eligible vacation club, travel, dining, and grocery store purchases, excluding Target and Walmart. That's pretty standard that those two are excluded because they don't code as grocery. They are like super centers or whatever. And then one point per dollar on everything else. Good to see travel, dining, and grocery. Those are solid categories that a lot of people will have high spending. And just FYI, in addition to this new card, Wyndham has refreshed all the other co-branded cards. So for example, the Wyndham earner business card that I have has now lost eight points per dollar on gas. It's gone down to five points per dollar, which is a real letdown for me because I use that card for gas a lot, especially since gas has been so expensive recently. The annual fee has also increased from 95 to 149. So I might actually end up canceling that card. I will paste an article down below in a pin comment with all of the changes on all the cards, right? The personal and the business ones. So if you have one of the Wyndham cards, whether that's personal or business, you can go down there and see what's happening to your card. All right, let's keep going with How are they having you offset that annual fee? Is it through a priority pass membership? Well, no, it's 2026 dummy. We offset annual fees through endless credits now, but in all seriousness, I guess they figure that people who get this card will also have another non-co-branded premium card like the Amex Platinum, Chase Reserve, et cetera, which gives you priority pass anyway. So they have avoided priority pass and we see a annual fee that's a little lower than normal, okay, $395, and they've given you a load of credits to offset it. Let's go through them now. $100 statement credit after making eligible hotel purchases. Basically, after you spend a total of $100 at Wyndham Hotels each year, you get $100 back. So that takes the annual fee down to $295. $65 statement credit after making eligible wholesale club membership purchases. They do not give a list of which clubs count. So it seems they're just relying on Visa coding them as a wholesale club membership fees. But I would guess that the most common ones like Costco, Sam's Club, et cetera, you will have no problem with. That brings the annual fee down to $230. Up to $120 statement credit after making eligible meal delivery purchases. Pretty self-explanatory. So UberEats, Postmates, Seamless, Grubhub, et cetera. That would take the annual fee down to $110. $95 value of your complimentary Wyndham Insider membership. That is like special discounts with Wyndham that you have to be a special member to get. I won't count that since probably that's not something I'd spend money on. Up to $100 statement credit after making eligible streaming service purchases. This one I will count, all right? I'm signed up to several streaming services, so I definitely get value out of this. So that takes the annual fee down to $10. And then we also have global entry every four years. I won't count that, one, because it's every four years, and two, you probably already have another premium card like Amex Platinum that gives you global entry anyway. So yeah, by my calculation, the effective annual fee is $10. Not bad. And you get Wyndham Diamond status on top of that, which used to be way better and get you like five casino hotel high statuses through status match. But unfortunately, they've nerfed that. However, if you wanted diamond status with Wyndham, this is a great way to get it. In total, I am impressed with this card. I like the fact that they have been realistic about the annual fee, setting it a bit lower, right? If you have the Amex Platinum for $8.95 a year, you're not going to want to spend another, say, $6.50 or something to get a card for Wyndham Diamond status and Wyndham perks. You'd probably just switch to Hilton or Marriott, which the Platinum gives you high status with. So them coming in a bit lower, $3.95, easily offsetable with credits. So it is smart. I think a lot of people will still be able to accept this card, even if they have other premium credit cards. Let me know what you think of the card in the comments below, guys. It is available now, so you can go and apply for it. I'll also put a Doctor of Credit article down below in a pinned comment that details all the changes to the other Wyndham cards. So if you have one of those cards, you can check it out, right? Don't forget, if you want to get your Amex Gold and Platinum for free whilst earning points on your portfolio, use my link, silomarkets.com slash ben, also in the description below and get started by the end of June. Thanks for watching. Please subscribe if you're new and we'll see you in the next video. Bye-bye.