Priceline Visa Gets New Perks, Making Grandfathered 2% Version Even Better

Barclays recently notified existing Priceline Visa cardholders that it would be adding a number of new benefits to the card. The new perks include bonus points back when redeeming for travel, no foreign transaction fees and more flexible redemption. What’s particularly interesting is that these new benefits are also being extended to those with the grandfathered 2%/5% version of the card, making the grandfathered version better than ever.

In particular, the new benefits for the Priceline Visa include:

• Get 10% of your points back when you redeem for statement credits on purchases at Priceline.com and on other travel purchases
• No foreign transaction fees
• Redeem points for statement credits against any purchases of $25 or more made within the last 120 days (up from 30 days for regular transactions or 90 days for Name Your Own Price transactions)
• Partial redemption is now allowed. Previously, you could only redeem points against charges that were less than your point balance. Now, you can still redeem $25 or more towards a purchase, even if it is less than the total transaction amount.
• Points will be worth more when you redeem against any eligible Priceline.com transaction.

  Cardholders are currently reporting being able to redeem 1 point for 1.5 cents of value towards a NYOP transaction, compared to the 1.1 cents to 1.5 cents per point offered before, depending upon the transaction size. (Note: There isn’t enough data yet, to say for certain that all NYOP purchases can be redeemed at a 1.5 cent per point value.)

Existing cardholders will have all of these new benefits automatically added to their account, with no need to manually opt-in.

Once the benefit is active, you’ll be able to see it in your online account.

Which purchases are eligible for the 10% Travel Redemption Bonus?
Travel purchases eligible for the 10% Travel Redemption Bonus include: “Merchants using merchant category codes including airlines, hotels, motels, timeshares, campgrounds, car rental agencies, cruise lines, travel agencies, discount travel sites, trains, buses, taxis, limousines and ferries.” In addition, if you’re doing a Name Your Own Price redemption, you’ll get the 10% bonus on top of your NYOP redemption bonus.

However, the online interface currently does not make it obvious which purchases will be eligible for the 10% bonus. You’ll need to make sure that the merchant category for your charge is an eligible travel category manually before going to redeem your points. (Update March 11, 2015: One way to see eligible travel charges is to go to your online account, click the “Tools” link, then the “Spend Analyzer,” then select the “Travel” category.)

The Priceline Visa now shares many of the same benefits with the Barclaycard Arrival Plus card
With these changes, the Priceline Visa has matched many of the features of the Barclaycard Arrival Plus World Elite MasterCard, which also offers a 10% points bonus on travel redemptions, no foreign transaction fees, and a redemption period of 120 days. The Arrival Plus card has annual fee of $89, however, while the Priceline card does not. The current Priceline offer, however, offers 5 points per dollar on eligible Priceline.com purchases and 1 point per dollar on all other purchases, whereas the Arrival card offers 2 points on all purchases.

Those lucky enough to have the grandfathered Priceline Visa, however, have the best deal, earning 2 points on all purchases, 5 points on NYOP purchases with no annual fee–along with all the nice, new benefits.