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I received an email this morning from Award Wallet saying that because of my elite status I am eligible to receive a free 6-month FoundersCard membership. This offer appears to be targeted as Greg has his share of elite status also but hasn’t received the email from Award Wallet. Still, this could be an intriguing deal.
FoundersCard is a membership program that purportedly yields some nice discounts and also typically includes elite status in a number of programs and/or fast tracks to elite status (Miles to Memories has a full review of benefits, including those newly-added in 2021 like Virgin Atlantic silver status after a single flight). Unfortunately, it sounds like the elite status perks like won’t be part of the trial based on the fine print at the bottom of the email:
Most benefits are available during the trial, though certain benefits including status upgrades, may require a Membership upgrade to access.
The trial may therefore be slightly less exciting. That said, I’ve been curious about whether there are benefits beyond elite status that would make it worth the cost of membership, so I went ahead and applied for the trial. It says it takes a few days for the approval process. Given that most credit card issuers make decisions in 60 seconds or less, I’m not sure why it takes a few days to get approved for a membership program with no credit line, but it is not instant and I therefore don’t know which benefits are off-limits during the trial.
Note that the trial is available to new members only and is subject to approval.
Offer available to new FoundersCard Members only. Application is subject to approval and terms of Membership. Some benefits may not be available during the complimentary period. Cancel online anytime during the complimentary period.
While I’ve often heard people extol the benefits of FoundersCard, I’ve never been intrigued enough to pony up for a membership. The sticker price of $595 per year has seemed awfully high, though we very often see offers of $395 per year through various affiliates (and recently as low as $295 per year through Miles to Memories or even as low as $99 for one year during the pandemic). This offer through Award Wallet provides 6 months for free and then a price of $395 for a year upon completion of the free trial.
I was initially a bit hesitant to sign up for this because I didn’t want to forget the end date for the trial and get charged $395 for being forgetful. If I didn’t find it useful, I could see my free membership floating out of sight and out of mind. But I was sold on the idea of signing up for the trial when I read this at the bottom of the free trial landing page:
WILL I BE CHARGED DURING MY FREE COMPLIMENTARY MEMBERSHIP PERIOD?
No, you won’t be charged during your complimentary Membership period, which begins the day your application is approved, and ends 6 months from that date. You will be charged $395 for the annual Membership fee at the end of your complimentary Membership period, and you are eligible for a full refund as long as you contact us within 60 days of that charge.
That last part — being eligible for a full refund if I contact them within 60 days of the charge — put me over the edge in signing up. Even if I don’t like the service and manage to forget about it completely, I’ll see the charge within 60 days and be able to get a refund. Conversely, six months should give me plenty of time to decide whether it is worth the hype.
If you are an Award Wallet member with elite status, keep an eye out for an email. The subject line of the email I received from Award Wallet was “Exclusive Invitation to Activate 6 Months of FoundersCard Membership”.
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I received this offer as well and am debating on accepting it. You cannot see the list of benefits until after you submit the application. From what I can tell you have to use a link through the membership to qualify for airline or hotel discounts but if you do that are you able to access and earn your loyalty points for the program as well. I have not found the answer to that and still need hotel qualifying nights for this year. Not sure yet if I’m going to accept this. Have you been approved yet?
For trials like this I still try to use Privacy.com to pay since you can restrict the $ and $/per month or individual charge and that helps at renewal time. Worked wonders on XM radio and Panera coffee club.
Great tip. What is the cost for Privacy.com? I dislike when companies don’t reveal the pricing until I provide my email address.
I don’t know the answer to your question, but the solution to that problem is to have a throwaway email address you use for stuff like that. You can almost always update the email address later if it’s a service you like and you want it associated with a more-used email address. I know that’s not a perfect solution as it means supporting businesses with a model that annoys you and junking up some server somewhere with unnecessary email, but it’s the easy solution.
Agreed 🙂
It’s essentially Paypal Key combined with 1% back. Question: Does it work where Paypal Key doesn’t? 🙂
Let us know which of the benefits you get with the free trial, if you are “approved”.
The short answer is that the trial doesn’t include most of the stuff you would want (like elite statuses), but does have an extensive list of discounts. I just spent a long time scrolling and didn’t get to the end. As to which of those discounts provide real value, I’m skeptical but it’s going to require some time to figure out.
I would never be promoting a website (Award Wallet) to my trusted userbase without a full disclaimer. For Award Wallet to work, you are required to give Award Wallet the username and passwords to all of your accounts – any cybersecurity expert will tell you, this is a receipt for disaster and a single point of failure! There are many other safe ways to do this without using Award Wallet, why did you not provide these to your users? When your userbase losses all of their hard earned points, they will also stop reading your blog. I would never be promoting Award Wallet. By you promoting them and knowing the risk, it speaks volumes on your integrity and raises questions on your selection process for everything you promote. One day we will see that Award Wallet was hacked on the news, and I will tell you, “I told you so.” What kind of encryption is Award Wallet using (if any)? Who has access / permission to that database? What protocols are being used to transfer the username and passwords from Award Wallet to the vendors websites? When was the last time a cyber assessment was done with Award Wallet? Is Award Wallet ISO 27001 certified? When was the last internal and external penetration test completed and what were the results? I could go on and on. Websites remain hacked for years and years until anyone knows about it, trust me on this. It was a bad decision to promote this website.
OMG Jeff what an overreaction! We frequently rely on many different businesses to keep our Data safe. There has to be some degree of trust here or things would come to a grinding halt. I have used Award Wallet since their inception and there has never been a problem. Bloggers are not responsible for full disclosure of anything that is the responsibility of the end user.
I think it’s great you are trying the card. I could never see a reason to get it. I’m sure that if there’s a reason to keep it, you’ll dig down and find it. The fun of FM (and especially your videos) is that you guys really dig into things and always tell it like it is. Blogs that just re-post press releases are so-o-o-o boring.
So what benefit do you get during the free trial?
Presumably corporate discounts on stuff / travel.
I was targeted and couldn’t find the expiration date of the offer in the email. For anyone wondering, it looks like it says it in the preview text: May 31.
That’s what I was wondering! Thanks!
I got the offer yesterday about noon. So they are rolling it out over time it appears.
Anybody know what the discount on Stripe is? For a lot of small business owners, that alone might make it worthwhile.
The free trial gives no benefits with Stripe, which was the only reason I signed up for it myself. You have to “upgrade” to a standard membership for 20k of fee-free payment processing, or an elite membership for 50k of fee-free payment processing.
FoundersCard is great for business travelers who want access to a bunch of corporate rates. It gives discounts for airlines (UA!), some very low level status, as well as discounts on things like TripIt. I have been a member for years, and always get at least my money back for it…not to mention their support is always the same friendly 2-3 people…:-P This is still a small business from what I can tell.
Does it provide any status that can be used for a status match, especially for airlines?
It appears (from the Miles to Memories link) that FoundersCard has had access to occasional special status challenge deals with United and American in the past. AA Platinum was 10K EQMs in three months — and you could choose the start date for the challenge. So, no direct matches but an easier than usual path to status has been available at times.
Looks like the free trial probably won’t come with status (I included that in the post). The paid version comes with airline status fast tracks, but not necessarily outright status I don’t think. Most airlines want to see your flight activity for a match, so I don’t know that the fast track offers will give you something matchable, but I’ll likely take a stab at it if anything useful is included in the trial membership.
In terms of hotels, I believe FoundersCard has previously included (not sure on current offerings since I don’t yet have a membership) Hilton Gold and Caesars Diamond, the latter of which can be matched to Wyndham Diamond and the former of which could maybe be used for a match to other hotel programs.
Hi, I always wanted to ask this question. What’s the eligibility of applying for this card? Or anyone can apply?
Sorry, I have no idea.