About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Is The Golden Age of Credit Card Bonuses Ending? Here’s How And Why Chase and Amex Are Quietly Changing the Rules

Jun 27 2025

One upside of this new approach that Chase and American Express are taking is that you’d expect richer rewards and lower annual fees to be the result in a highly competitive industry. In fact we have seen much richer rewards over time – standard bonuses were smaller and points-earning was generally just one mile per dollar when I got started – but fees have also risen. There are also a lot more rewards card issuers than there used to be, and a lot more products, so the customers Chase and American Express are trying to avoid can simply look elsewhere.

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