I have written about this card before and had a couple of posts that talked about the value of it. I will put part of it in here, but to read the whole analysis, check out this post.
The Premium United Club Card – Annual Fee Waived First Year For Many [Targeted]
According to The Points Guy, this card is now more widely available without the annual fee for the first year. I tried all the accounts I have access to and they all had the annual free offer. This is a great deal if you were considering this card or really needed Star Alliance lounge access (among the other many benefits of this card).
Before you apply, it is important to note one thing – this card does not have any sign-up bonus. It does have a lot of perks that Chase/United feel are worth the annual fee of $450 so to get them free for the first year is a pretty great deal.
This card and the free offer are available via the same link I put in the above post – here. To check for the annual fee waived offer, you will need to sign in to your United account and then it will display if it is available to you or not.
Here are the major benefits associated with the card:
Card Benefits
There are a few benefits that I would consider very good for this card. Here is what they are:
- No fee for 2 bags for the primary cardholder and one traveling companion
- United Club membership
- Waived close-in booking fee for United flights
- Premier Access
- 1.5 United miles per dollar spent
- Hyatt Gold Passport Platinum status
- Hertz President’s Circle status
It appears that the last two may have been added since I last wrote about this card. I did not notice them before (though they had been with the card in the past) and they are nice little benefits to have to round out the travels – hotel elite status, car rental elite status, and airline-lite elite status.
Summary
Make sure you read the earlier post to see how to extract the most value from this card and if it is worth the credit pull for you at this time. With Chase tightening the noose on applicants with 5 or more applications in the last 24 months (including for business cards soon), you may choose to skip this card at this time. But, if you are a United flyer and would like to get every benefit possible, this is a good card to have.
Another option would be to call and ask about upgrading your United MileagePlus Explorer card. I had done that in the past and the annual fee had been waived for me with that. Nothing to lose by calling!
