Just talked to my Private banker about this card. He seems to have gotten the info this morning this card is a credit card and not a charge card. He said he is not very impressed with the card for the following reason. First the reward program is "World Points" which in his opinion is by far the worst travel reward program in the industry. 2nd Priority Membership included is a basic membership which charges $9.95 per use per member each time you enter a club vs both Centurion and Chairman is Priority Pass Premium which allow unlimited free vists. To unlock Priority Pass you need to meet either a min spending threashold or maintain $200K with BOA. This card hotel benfits are not well thought out either. They are pitching the card to weathly people except there current hotel partners are Embassy Suites, Four Points, and Raddison Hotels which are low end hotels wealth people would not stay in anyways and upgrades are only offered if you book via BOA priority code who room rates might be higher than best rate offered. While AMEX charge card upgrades can be combined with any rate as your upgrade is based on status you have with hotel which AMEX gives you. No free breakfast benefit like you do with AMEX either.


In his opion the card seems to be worse than AMEX own Gold card if you have pay for it for the following reasons. Bad reward program, no real travel benfits per say in his opinion and bad hotel partners. As far as a free card is concerned you cant complain as the benfits are better than most free credit cards. Just really not on par with Chairman or AMEX own charge cards.

Dolmar, the fact that BOA has decided to stick with its poorly thought out Worldpoints program is certainly disappointing but is not particularly surprising. You are certainly a lot more familiar with elite cards than I am, but I have yet to come across an elite card with a superior reward structure.

As for the Chairman card, although I realize that Citi is about to release its new version shortly, does Priority Pass that come with your card give free access to airport lounges just for you or for your spouses/colleagues as well? That would be interesting, since the highest version of retail Priority Pass for $399/year still charges a guest fee of $24. AMEX Platinum obviously gives you plus 2 colleagues (or you plus your entire immediate family) free access to the lounges.

The hotel benefits on the card sound laughable. Did your private banker mention anything about companion tickets or insurance benefits that come with the card?

geo123 said:Dolmar, the fact that BOA has decided to stick with its poorly thought out Worldpoints program is certainly disappointing but is not particularly surprising. You are certainly a lot more familiar with elite cards than I am, but I have yet to come across an elite card with a superior reward structure.

Remember they are pitching this card to wealthy people who you assume would not travel coach class right? Well AMEX membership rewards transfer points directly into airlines program so you can get premium seats with a reasonable amount of points except airlines rewards seem to be almost impossible to redem without planning very far in advance most times and forget about redeming them for any holiday's. Citibank "Thank You" program recently added fix cost business class tickets while they cost 2X as much as awards from airlines they are no capacity controls except room on the flight. Citibank card earn 2X point in EDS + flight points on Chairman and PPE card so depending on how you earn your points these awards might work out to same return as airlines awards which tend to be the best bang for the buck.

As for the Chairman card, although I realize that Citi is about to release its new version shortly, does Priority Pass that come with your card give free access to airport lounges just for you or for your spouses/colleagues as well? That would be interesting, since the highest version of retail Priority Pass for $399/year still charges a guest fee of $24. AMEX Platinum obviously gives you plus 2 colleagues (or you plus your entire immediate family) free access to the lounges.

I Canceled my Chairman card after the first year as Citi only waived my annual fee for 1 year. If I remember correctly Chairman card allows you free access(some people on flyertalk.com have been charged for guest while others have not vs AMEX Centurion version allows you plus 4 people but also remember Chairman Card is $400 vs Centurion is $2500.

The hotel benefits on the card sound laughable. Did your private banker mention anything about companion tickets or insurance benefits that come with the card?

I called him up and ask about the 2 following questions. Companion ticket program is run by a third party company and has a min faire requirement and sat night stay. He assumes it will be similar to both AMEX and Citibank program and could even use the same company. So if you need a ticket from LAX-JFK cheapest ticket is $200 you might be able to get a pair of ticket for $300 but more than likely that $200 fare will not meet the min fare requirement for free companion ticket. So you will end up savings $100 and not the full $200. As for the insurances programs car rental seems to be secondary as there is no mention of it being primary.

He also said they might be trying to work out better deals with hotels in the future as Hilton own Embassy Suites and Starwood owns Four Points but he does not seem to think they are ever getting hotels and deals like AMEX Charge cards has with fine hotels and resorts program. Even the Chairman card has no real hotel benfits either.

dolmar said:Remember they are pitching this card to wealth people who you assume would not travel coach class right?They are pitching it to wealthy people, not stupid ones. Why I fly for business, I typically only fly first/business class since I'm not the one paying for it and because I need to be able to quickly change return flights. When I fly for pleasure, however, unless I am using FF miles for an upgrade, I'd never pay out of pocket for first class seats. I do okay but am definitely not wealthy, so perhaps I am a bad example here. Well, the partners at my firm averaging $600K -- $1.3MM per year certainly do fit into the "wealthy" category but I've never known a single one of them paying out of pocket for first class seats.

I called him up and ask about the 2 following questions. Companion ticket program is run by a third party company and has a min fair requirement and sat night stay. He assumes it will be similar to both AMEX and Citibank program and could even use the same company. So if you need a ticket from LAX-JFK cheapest ticket is $200 you might be able to get a pair of ticket for $300 but more than likely that $200 fair will not count for free companion ticket. So you will end up savings $100 and not the full $200.I am not so much concerned about the savings on the companion ticket as I am about my ability to get free companion tickets. When I fly for business and my ticket gets paid for, it'd be very nice to get a free companion ticket for my wife to join me on the trip.

As for the insurances programs car rental seems to be secondary as there is no mention of it being primary.Very disappointing. Thanks for checking!

Scott,

If you have no plans to fly in the future, how will you meet LFTM?

scott1961 said:markkundinger said:

But to be honest, I don't even know what the perks are that appeal to the high-rollers, besides airport lounge access. If I was spending $100k a year on a card, I'd much rather be getting 2% CashBack.
I'm with you, Give me my 5% CashBack anytime. Helps that I have not flown in over 20 years and have no plans to ever fly again, But I have more than enough with BoA to get the card fee free so would take it

This morning my premier banker called me to say that BOA has pushed back the official public launch of the card to June 1 and that between now and then it will be tweaking some of the benefits that come with it. So, he was apparently told by the higher ups that the tweaks will be sufficiently significant to render the existing Accolodes brochure obsolete. Interesting.

geo123 said:This morning my premier banker called me to say that BOA has pushed back the official public launch of the card to June 1 and that between now and then it will be tweaking some of the benefits that come with it. So, he was apparently told by the higher ups that the tweaks will be sufficiently significant to render the existing Accolodes brochure obsolete. Interesting.
Guess that explains the email I got from my rep. He told me on the phone last week that he had info to send me then I got this:

Hi Scott

The Bank of America Accolades American Express Card has a target launch date of June 1st... I will not be able to provide you with any marketing materials until that time...

LustfortheMoment said:I certainly hope that someone will start a thread which allows the new holders of this BofA AMEX Black card to stand up and be counted........

Why unless they total revamp the card over the next 24 days the card seem to be worthless. It might only be good if they offer a 0% for 1 year with no BT Fee. Current incarnation of the card seems to be a joke. BOA plans to launch a card with no real benfits over plain BOA AMEX card and charge $295 a year except they will waive the $295 annual fee for pretty much everyone. This card reminds me of Private Bank Visa Signature and Premiere Visa Signature cards offered by BOA. Both offer nothing over BOA Visa Signature card offered to general public except both carry an annual fee of $75 which BOA waives for everyone just so they think they are special.

Premiere Version which has $75 Annual Fee
Free version offered to everyone
Private Bank Version which has $75 Annual Fee

Compare the benfits of all 3 and you will see they are the same benfits. Only difference is the annual fee and Premiere and Private Bank card say Premiere and Private Bank on them. The only difference I think is maybe when you call for CS Private Bank get priority then Premiere then general public.

dolmar said:Still not bad. I have a felling BOA should be able to pull that off considering they have exclusive all thoses airlines anyways currently for issueing Visa/Mc in USA which is why US Airways was droped from Diners Club when they switched over to Mastercard. Diners Claimed they lost CO, UAL and US Airways because of exclusive contracts with both Chase and BOA.
As of 2008, I believe Juniper (now Barclays Bank Delaware, actually) will be the only company issuing a US Air creditcard. Both Juniper and BOA issue cards right now, but Juniper's exclusivity starts in 08.

Ladies and Gentlemen

Accolades Rewards Website

Don't forget to click on the picture on the right to see some more literature and the image of the credit card.

No where on the site does it talk about benefits like Priority Pass.

My PB says that I can apply now, but I am not applying until I see all of the benefits. The person at National Customer Service said the card is available through the pilot program and you needed to have an invitation. The card should be available for everyone around June 1.

Have fun.