| | Travel news and best-ever credit card offers | | by Brian Kelly | |  | It's been a big week in the travel industry — here's the news you need to know.
Let's start with putting a lot of points in your pocket.
There are quite a few cards right now with "best-ever offers," but only for a limited time. Here are a few that caught my eye:
- Capital One Venture X Business: Earn up to 300,000 bonus miles, with 150,000 miles awarded after you spend $20,000 on the card in the first three months and an additional 150,000 miles awarded when you spend a total of $100,000 in the first six months.
- Southwest Rapid Rewards® Plus Credit Card: Get a Southwest Airlines Companion Pass, valid until Feb. 28, 2025, and 30,000 Rapid Rewards points with $4,000 in spending in the first three months.
- World of Hyatt Credit Card: Earn up to 65,000 bonus points: 35,000 points after spending $3,000 in the first three months, and up to 30,000 more bonus points by earning 2 bonus points total per $1 spent in the first six months from account opening on purchases that normally earn 1 bonus point, on up to $15,000 spent.
- Marriott Bonvoy Boundless® Credit Card: Earn five free night awards (each valued at up to 50,000 Marriott points) after you spend $5,000 in the first three months.
Any of those four card bonuses is easily worth more than $1,000, based on TPG's valuations — much more, in some cases. You don't want to accidentally miss out when offers are increased, so I'd prioritize applying very soon if you want in on a big bonus.
Speaking of big credit card news, Capital One wants to buy Discover in a megamerger like we haven't seen in a very long time in the credit card space.
What would this mean for the industry? While consolidation can have trade-offs, overall, I think it might take some heat off the Credit Card Competition Act, which certain lawmakers are trying to pass in Congress. In my opinion, if the CCCA becomes law, it will destroy the rewards ecosystem in America.
If Capital One moves a lot of its products to the Discover network and off the Visa and Mastercard networks, there would be more true competition among Visa, Mastercard and Discover for credit card processing.
As a Capital One cardholder, I don't think Capital One would turn my Capital One miles into Discover cash back, so I'm not worried from a consumer perspective. I am just not sure the government will approve this merger, as this administration has not been favorable toward mergers and acquisitions, as we've seen with the blocked merger of Spirit Airlines and JetBlue.
Between some truly fantastic card bonus offers and the potential for a major shake-up in the credit card landscape that could see Visa and Mastercard end up with a more formidable third-party competitor, there's certainly a lot going on.
I'm off now on another big trip with my son to Spain, Italy and the Maldives. You can follow along on Instagram @briankelly, and as always, stay tuned to TPG for the latest in travel, credit cards and rewards.
Safe travels, everyone,
BK
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