Until now, Amex was the king of coupon book credit card perks. These are rebates and discounts available to cardholders for specific types of spend. They’re designed to make it look like credit cards have become more affordable even as their annual fees increase. In recent years, Amex has systematically gone through their card lineup to “enhance” their cards with higher fees and more coupons. Now, someone on the Chase United card team with excellent copy & paste skills has absolutely inundated the United card lineup with coupons that are even harder to use than Amex’s. There’s a new coupon king in town. Amex has lost its crown.
Overview of Card Changes
Before diving into United’s new coupons, here’s a summary of each card’s non-coupon changes:
| Card | Old Annual Fee | New Annual Fee | Key Changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| The New United Gateway(SM) Card | $0 | $0 |
|
| The New United℠ Explorer Card | $95* | $150* |
* $0 introductory annual fee for the first year
|
| The New United℠ Business Card | $99 | $150 |
|
| The New United Quest℠ Card | $250 | $350 |
|
| The New United Club℠ Card | $525 | $695 |
|
| The New United Club℠ Business Card | $450 | $695 |
|
As you can see above, before considering the new coupons, most cards have higher annual fees and worse benefits than before. The Quest card is a notable exception in which improved benefits arguably offset the $100 price increase. Also, those who want to spend their way to United elite status will like the fact that the PQP earning limits have gone up on all cards.
And what’s with these huge spend requirements to earn “2 Global Economy Plus seat upgrades”? It’s almost insulting. Economy Plus is just economy with slightly more legroom. It’s not even close to Premium Economy or regional first class.
Coupons, coupons everywhere
Below I’ve outlined most of the new coupons found in the United card line up. It’s staggering to me both how little creativity went into this (i.e. almost all are copied from other cards) and how they’ve managed to make most of them harder to use than with similar Amex (or, in one case, Citibank) coupons.
Prepaid Hotel Rebates
Both of the $150 United cards (Explorer and Business) come with $100 in United Hotels credit. On the surface this sounds identical to the Delta Gold card’s $100 Delta Stays credit. But United makes this one harder to fully use by breaking up the $100 across two stays. With United, you get at most $50 back per stay.
Renowned Hotels & Resorts
This is a hotel booking website that offers perks when booking luxury hotels:
- Daily breakfast for 2
- $100 property credit (includes dining, spa or other activities at the property)
- Room upgrade at check-in, if available
- Early check-in/late check-out, if available
- Complimentary wifi
Quest cardholders get $150 back per anniversary year while Club Infinite and Club Business cardholders get $200 back per anniversary year.
This is obviously a copy of the Amex Platinum Card’s $200 Fine Hotels & Resorts / The Hotel Collection rebate. I prefer Amex’s approach, though, because it is offered per calendar year and so it’s much easier to remember when it resets.
Rideshare Credits
Delta Platinum and Reserve cards offer $10 per month in rideshare rebates after a one time required registration. United now offers similar monthly credits as follows:
-
- Explorer: $5 per month
- Business: $8 per month; $12 in December
- Quest: $8 per month; $12 in December
- Club Infinite: $12 per month; $18 in December
- Club Business: $12 per month; $18 in December
Of course United had to make it a little bit more difficult than Delta’s coupons. With United you need to opt in every year.
Avis/Budget Rental Car Credits
Here United decided to copy Citi’s AA Executive card rather than Delta. Citi’s AA Executive card offers up to $120 back on Avis or Budget prepaid car rentals every calendar year. With the Citi card, you can use up the entire credit with one rental. Of course, United wanted to make it harder on us so they’ve broken up the rental credits across two rentals, each of which must be at least 2 days long, and made the credit reset each anniversary year. Worse, instead of a statement credit, you get United TravelBank credit.
-
- Explorer: $50 United TravelBank ($25 per rental) for Avis/Budget rentals booked through cars.united.com per anniversary year
- Quest: $80 United TravelBank ($40 per rental) for Avis/Budget rentals booked through cars.united.com per anniversary year
- Club Infinite: $100 United TravelBank ($50 per rental) for Avis/Budget rentals booked through cars.united.com per anniversary year
- Club Business: $100 United TravelBank ($50 per rental) for Avis/Budget rentals booked through cars.united.com per anniversary year
Instacart Credits
This version of copy and paste stayed in-house at Chase. Here they copied the old Instacart benefits that used to be available for Sapphire Preferred and Sapphire Reserve cardholders. Annoyingly, with cards that offer more than $10 per month in credits, they decided to break up the credits across multiple Instacart purchases.
- Explorer:
- 3 month Instacart+ membership, then 25% off through 12/31/27
- $10 rebate per month through 12/31/27
- Business:
- 3 month Instacart+ membership, then 25% off through 12/31/27
- $10 rebate per month through 12/31/27
- Quest:
- 3 month Instacart+ membership, then half price through 12/31/27
- One $10 and one $5 rebate per month through 12/31/27
- Club Infinite:
- Free Instacart+ membership through 12/31/27
- Two $10 rebates per month through 12/31/27
- Club Business:
- Free Instacart+ membership through 12/31/27
- Two $10 rebates per month through 12/31/27
FareLock Credits
Finally an original coupon! If you’re looking at buying a flight, but you’re not 100% sure, United lets you purchase FareLock to lock in the current price for 3, 7, or 14 days.
- United Business: $25 per anniversary year
- United Club Business: $50 per anniversary year
JSX Semi-private Jet Service Credits
Here’s another original-ish one. Delta and Amex have offered various discounts and rebates for private jet service at different times, but I don’t remember this JSX service in particular. Here’s the rebate that each United card offers:
- Explorer: $100 per anniversary year
- Business: $100 per anniversary year
- Quest: $150 per anniversary year
- Club Infinite: $200 per anniversary year
- Club Business: $200 per anniversary year
Annual fees are near carbon copies from Delta’s lineup
United didn’t limit their copy & paste skills to couponing. They also copied and pasted annual fees. United’s new card lineup copies Delta’s annual fees almost exactly. The one deviation is at the high end where United charges $45 more for their club-access cards than Delta (which may be justified since United allows cardholders to guest in their family to United Clubs whereas Delta provides only 4 guest passes per year to Sky Clubs).
| Annual Fee | Delta Card | United Card |
|---|---|---|
| $0 | Blue | Gateway |
| $150 | Gold & Gold Business | Explorer & Business |
| $350 | Platinum & Platinum Business | Quest |
| $650 | Reserve & Reserve Business | |
| $695 | Club Infinite & Club Business |
Conclusion
I’m really disappointed with the direction Chase and United went with their card refresh. In most cases they raised prices and made the base-level benefits of their cards slightly worse (or much worse if you counted on Star Alliance club access before). Then they threw in a junkpile of hard-to-use coupons to make up for the higher annual fees. No thanks!
Of course the changes aren’t bad for everyone. The Explorer and Business card annual fees only rose slightly over $50 each and if you make even a half-hearted attempt to use their coupons, you could easily recoup more than that. Those who like to spend their way to elite status will like the higher PQP limits and the annual bonus PQPs available with the more expensive cards. For everyone else, I think the one bright spot is the Quest card. Yes the annual fee increased from $250 to $350 but they also increased its TravelBank credit by $75, changed the two 5K award rebates into a better 10K award discount, added the ability to get a second 10K discount with $20K spend, increased the cap on Premier Qualifying Point earnings, and added a 1,000 Premier Qualifying Point (PQP) bonus each year, starting in 2026. And all of that is before counting any savings you might get from the card’s slew of coupons.
What do you think of the United card changes? Comment below.
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[…] are what a lot in the miles and points space call “coupon book” credits. (I credit Frequent Miler with coming up with this […]
Appears that Chase has confused even itself with this dizzying array of credits, other benefits and terms/conditions. For example, the email I was sent with details of the “upgraded” Business card indicated 2 “continental” US economy plus seat upgrades with $25K spend each calendar year, while online under “my benefits” for the Biz card it’s stated as 2 “domestic” economy plus upgrades after “$40K” spend. The more detailed terms and conditions online then indicate 2 “domestic” eco plus upgrades with $25k (not $40k) spend. These all differ from the 2 “Global” economy plus upgrades with $25k spend referenced above in your summary that came from another source.
It may also be worth noting that the rideshare credit fine print states “You will receive this benefit starting the month after enrollment…” but then later adds “Eligible purchases will qualify for this benefit the month enrollment is completed and each month thereafter.”
Interestingly, some of the reported benefits, including the JSX credit, appear in neither Chase’s email nor online under the card’s benefits tab (for both the Biz and Quest cards).
Is downgrading to the United Gateway card still an option if you have the Explorer card currently?
Yes I believe so
I think I’ve had my United Explorer card for well over 20 years. But, even at $95 I probably wasn’t getting much out of it, and will now drop it. After we’ve moved a few years ago, I’m flying United less, maybe once or twice a year. We hardly ever have a need to check bags and don’t care much about united lounge access. It used to be worth it because I could transfer chase points to united and get better options if I had the explorer card. But they’ve devalued miles and I can’t get bargains like trips to europe for 60k miles anymore. United miles used to be worth close to 2 cents per mile and now they are around 1 cpm. I think the card is now only a good deal if you fly united often, or if you are getting the sign up bonus (and then drop it after the first year).
This is definitely a worse card offering than before. I certainly wouldn’t considered it past the first year, but since the annual fee is waived the first year, I am thinking about it for the SUB. I DID get a SUB on the old United Explorer card, but this one is marketed on chase.com as “The New United℠ Explorer Card”. Does this now count as a different card?
Looking forward to the “what crazy thing” segment this week!
This sucks. I don’t want to spend $10,000 on the Gateway to get reduced mileage awards.
It’s crazy to me that the Quest card gets $200 travelbank credit each year, while the Club card gets $0.
Mostly useless benefits, maybe the hotel discount could be useful but I’ve never used United Hotels, I assume that they’re more expensive than other avenues and of course you don’t get any loyalty benefits. Also why is instacart here, the others I can kind of see being relevant for a traveler, but instacart shouldn’t be on an airline card.
What worries me more is whether this will be a trend with Chase, will they start raising the fees for all of their cards and adding extra coupons that make them more annoying to use? Well, I suppose now this is the best chance we have to cancel and send a message before it gets out of hand. I’m definitely going to be cancelling my Club card, the lack of *A access completely kills any benefit I had since I mostly fly overseas. Unless people start to cancel or downgrade their cards now and send a message, expect all of our Chase cards to add this nonsense.
Only worth it for the SUBs. Loyalty not going to be worth it now w the CLUB card taking away Star Alliance Lounges.
You can get Peacock through Instacart+
Yes
Just say no to coupon cards.
can one combine a instacart credit from 2 cards on one order?
I don’t think so
how about adding both cards to one account and getting the credit on a subsequent order?
This worked when the preferred and reserve had instacart credits.
The loss of saver view via backdoor Explorer -> Gateway PC is going to be missed.
This really doesn’t change anything for me with the Exploder Card – $150 for bags plus two club passes (and maybe $50 for a cheap hotel room) still works. United nerfed their points program years ago so [shrug emoji].