A few years ago Barclaycard made the Priceline Rewards Visa card best-in-class at that time. It offered 2% rewards on everything, with no annual fee. I got the card. So did many readers.
After the rewards were dialed down for new customers, existing cardholders kept the original terms. I still have the card although I haven’t used it much after I got the Bank of America Travel Rewards Visa card that gives 2.625% rewards on everything.
Recently Barclaycard enhanced the rewards on the Priceline Rewards card. Grandfathered customers get the enhancements too. The foreign transaction fee is removed. If you redeem the points against a travel charge, you get 10% of the points back. Points are worth 50% more if you redeem against a Priceline Name Your Own Price, Express Deals, or Pay Now purchase.
If you are grandfathered to the old terms, now the card becomes a 3.33%-rewards card for every purchase after you book a hotel with Priceline’s Name Your Own Price, Express Deals, or Pay Now.
When you book a hotel using Priceline’s Express Deals, you know the area, the star rating, and the price, but not the name of the hotel. A third-party iPhone app called Exp Deals Hotel says it can help you guess the name of the hotel. It’s still not refundable, meaning that you should book only when you are absolutely certain of your travel plans.
I booked a few Priceline Express Deals recently. It may not be the best every time, but I think on balance it offers a good combination of convenience, price, and quality.
I would still shop around and see if there’s anything better. After I book Priceline Express Deals though, the Priceline Rewards card gives 3.33% on every charge up to 30x the cost of the Priceline purchase in the next 120 days. Here’s how the math works:
Suppose the Priceline Express Deals purchase cost $100. To redeem against the $100 purchase, you need 6,667 points. After you redeem 6,667 points, you will get 667 points back, which means you will only spend 6,000 points net. You earn 6,000 points when you charge $3,000 on the card. Therefore your next $3,000 spending in 120 days after your Priceline Name Your Own Price, Express Deals, or Pay Now purchase will earn you $100 in rewards. That’s 3.33%.
I emphasize after because if you don’t know when you will use Priceline Name Your Own Price, Express Deals, or Pay Now you may be carrying too many points before you have an opportunity to cash them in at the best rate. After you have an eligible Priceline charge, you have a target. When you hit the target by earning and redeeming enough points, you can put the card aside until you have another eligible Priceline purchase.
If you use Priceline Name Your Own Price, Express Deals, or Pay Now often enough, you will earn 3.33% rewards on everything. Priceline wants you to use Name Your Own Price, Express Deals, or Pay Now more often. You want higher rewards. Win-win.
[Photo credit: Flickr user Stefan Krasowski]
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dan23 says
I don’t currently use priceline for travel booking. I have the grandfathered priceline and the BOA 2.625. The card is already the best card I know of without having account balance like BOA/ML. While the redemption against priceline bonus is certainly a plus, it breaks my use one card for everything plan so I think I will stick with the BOA card for spending. Do you actually plan on switching to using priceline card for spending? Seems like a hassle if you don’t already use priceline frequently.
Also, do you know how this compares ot using 2.625 card and other travel bonuses like orbitz bucks and what not, as using priceline express would preclude using those. Are priceline prices the same or better as the best you can find elsewhere or is their variation in hotel pricing across sites?
Harry Sit says
If you don’t use Priceline there’s no point in using the Priceline card, because 2.625 > 2.2. You would use Priceline only when it offers the best price. There is variation in hotel prices across sites. Priceline NYOP and Express Deals often offer a meaningful discount off the best price found elsewhere. The hotel I booked for $96 was $142 elsewhere. After I have a Priceline charge, I switch to the Priceline card for a few months.
Sam Seattle says
Wow! This is great news. Thanks so much, Harry.
Is using NYOP still popular, or is it harder and harder for your price to get accepted nowadays?
If it is still popular, which website is the best or better ones for bidding on NYOP?
Harry Sit says
I don’t know. I just took Express Deals. I’m afraid NYOP may give me a hotel I don’t want. With Express Deals you can try to figure out which hotel it is by the amenities. It was good enough that I didn’t bother with bidding.
Sam Seattle says
This card doesn’t have a chip, unlike the Barclay Arrival. Will they come with a chip version?
Sam S says
My card was recently compromised, so they sent a replacement card, which HAS a security chip. Good. But still, their call center and fraud dept are in The Philippines, not the US, and they don’t know that Priceline Express Deal charge are redeemable with less points.
Sam Seattle says
How if we buy a Priceline Express Deal every 120 days? Will that be doable to get 3.33% all year round? What can we do to get 3.33% all the time?
jerry says
Seattle Sam, the 120 days restriction does not mean you CAN’T travel more than once. I travel all the time and pay down my travel spending (car, hotel, airfare) using the points earned from this card. I even pay my electric bill, whose pesky fee is less than 3.3%! Take that, utility! All it means is that points can only be applied for up to 120 days after a stay. You can also put down chunks of points to pay off PORTIONS of hotel bills, a little secret not mentioned in this article.
dan23 says
It currently says “Eligible priceline.com purchases of $25 or more posted to your account within the last 120 days are eligible for statement credit redemptions at a 1.5% value. Purchases at priceline.com that are not eligible for redemption at the 1.5% value include cruise bookings, non-Name Your Own Price® car reservations, and hotel reservations designated as Pay When You Stay®” Do you think this means normal flights booked through priceline are eligible for the 50% bonus. Have you tried redeeming against a priceline flight? Thanks.
Harry Sit says
I have a Priceline.com non-Name Your Own Price hotel charge from August but I’m not getting the 1.5% redemption value when I try to redeem against it. Normal flights booked through Priceline are typically charged by the airline, not by Priceline. Priceline puts your card number into the airline’s reservation system.
Zooter says
I made some food and beverage purchases on-ship while on a Royal Caribbean cruise and paid using my old grandfathered Priceline Visa.
When I reviewed my last 120 days of purchases in the Rewards Redemption section of the Barclaycard app, I noticed that the Royal Caribbean charges were put at the top of the list above all the other charges. I priced up a redemption and saw that it was giving me the lower point costs to redeem, just like NYOP (6667 points for a $100 charge). I then redeemed all my points, and then also got the 10% in points back. All in all my redemptions got me the 3.33% effective rate.
Is there some special relationship between Priceline and Royal Caribbean?