Thanks to Laurent for passing along this information. In 2012 Chase was offering lots of people a full waiver of the $395 annual fee on the MileagePlus Club Card, which includes a lot of good benefits:
- Free membership to the United Club
- Hyatt Gold Passport Platinum status
- Ability to upgrade award flights
- 1.5 miles per dollar on all purchases
- Primary insurance coverage for rental cars
The original trick was to get an offer code from one of the pamphlets on display in the club. Fast forward a few months and there was an application link available. Some people got a partial waiver and others got a full waiver. You could bring up the full waiver in your browser by changing the URL to end with “AFW” (Annual Fee Waiver) instead of “95SC” ($95 Statement Credit).
I thought this link stopped working, but apparently United just got better at targeting people, and I’m no longer targeted. (I wonder why…) So the best offer available for most people is currently just a $100 fee waiver — a whole $5 more than last year! Laurent let me know that the full annual fee waiver is still out there. Again, I am not eligible. But I logged into Megan’s account and suddenly the app worked.
It seems to have something to do with cookies. I did not access the application from United.com, nor have I ever seen Megan get an offer for the card from United. All I did was log in, and then in a new window I visited the application link below. (Update: This offer no longer appears to be available. You can find current offers by visiting our credit card offers page.)
https://www.theexplorercard.com/mpclubafw.aspx
The fact that I logged in first seemed to be enough. If I didn’t log in, or if I logged in to my own account, then the application would redirect to the $100 statement credit offer.
So, if you’ve been thinking about getting the MileagePlus Club Card and were waiting for a more generous sign-up offer, you may already be eligible — you just didn’t know where to look. And if you’d rather fly American, the Citi Executive / AAdvantage World MasterCard link still seems to be working, too, offering 100,000 miles at a $200 statement credit. I surmised earlier that it may only last until March 15.
