The Wells Fargo Autograph Journey Card: An Intriguing New Source of Flexible Points

In my experience, the best return on routine spending is through credit cards that offer flexible points. Because these flexible points can be transferred to many domestic and international airlines, cardholders can find the most valuable redemption for a particular itinerary and date. Points can also be transferred to hotel chains although it can be harder to get solid redemptions.

Currently, the key five flexible points programs are offered by Chase, American Express, Capital One, Citi, and Bilt. This week, they will be joined by Wells Fargo, which will offer flexible points through its recently launched Autograph Journey card.

The Autograph Journey card is offering a 60,000-point bonus for making $4,000 in purchases in the first three months. The cash value of this offer is $600. The annual fee for the card is $95.

Spending Bonus Structure

The Autograph Journey is clearly oriented toward travel spending as travel categories will net you the best spending bonuses.

• 5X spending bonus for hotels – Aside from bonuses on co-branded hotel cards, this is the highest generic spending bonus for hotels of which I am aware.
• 4X spending bonus for flights – This is also an excellent bonus rate even compared to what is offered on co-branded airline cards. While the best generic flight bonus is the 5X bonus with an American Express Platinum card, that card has an annual fee of $695.
• 3X spending bonus for dining – This is solid and competitive with other travel cards.
• 3X spending bonus for “other travel” – Again, this is solid and competitive.
• 1X for all other purchases

Importantly, none of these bonuses requires spending through a Wells Fargo (or any other) portal.

Other Benefits

This card offers some travel-related benefits.

• A $50 per year credit for a $50 minimum airline purchase
• $1 million in travel accident insurance
• Trip cancellation/interruption protection
• Lost baggage reimbursement
• Cellular telephone protection

Potential Transfer of Points to Airlines and Hotels

While it is easy to get $600 in cash value out of this $95 card from its welcome bonus, there is greater potential value in transferring the points to airline partners. Airline partners include:

• Air France (Flying Blue)
• Avianca LifeMiles
• British Airways Executive Club
• Aer Lingus AerClub
• Iberia Plus

These points can also be transferred to Choice Privileges, a hotel program that includes brands like Radisson, Clarion, and Rodeway Inn.

This is a very limited list compared to the list of transfer options offered by the other issuers of flexible points (Ex: Amex points can be transferred to 18 airlines; Capital One points to 15 airlines). However, Wells Fargo has indicated that they are talking with other carriers about partnerships and expects to add to the above list soon. I am inclined to believe this will happen as such partnerships are profitable for airlines and hotel chains and, as discussed in a recent TRO post, many non-US airlines partner with multiple issuers of flexible points.
 
If Well Fargo can significantly expand its transfer partner options, the Autograph Journey could become a significant player in the travel card market.

Conclusions

Overall, it is great to see another option for those interested in flexible point travel cards. Competition is good for the points and miles community and will keep the current banks who issue proprietary points from becoming complacent.

A key strength of the Wells Fargo Autograph Journey is its spending bonus structure. For the key spending categories of travel – flights, hotel, car rental, restaurants – the spending bonuses tend to match or surpass what is currently being offered by competitors. It is easy to imagine that a business traveler or vacationer could rely heavily on this card if airline and hotel brand loyalty is not important.
 
At the same time, the limited list of transfer partners is a key weakness. The benefit of flexible points is that they can be used with a variety of airline and hotel partners. For the near term, the Wells Fargo flexible points will not be so flexible with respect to travel partners. However, it remains to be seen how many partners Wells Fargo will add in the coming months.

For now, I could see this card as useful for several types of points and miles enthusiasts.

• People highly likely to plan travel on one of the five partner airlines
• People who travel but are not particularly brand loyal to any airline or hotel chain
• People who have points on another Wells Fargo card and want the option of combining them with points from an Autograph Journey card
• People who are blocked from getting welcome bonuses with other flexible point cards (Ex: beyond Chase 5/24 limit)

The Wells Fargo Autograph Journey card might or might not fit into a productive travel rewards plan for you. Going forward, I will be keeping an eye on this card, especially any changes in transfer partners, and will keep you apprised. For now, I think its value is limited, but I also expect its value will improve and for this card to become an option for more people. Our job at Travel Rewards Optimizer is to keep track of changes and opportunities so we can provide our clients with guidance to get the most value out of their travel rewards programs. When we design a custom Travel Rewards Optimizer plan for you, we take your travel goals, travel habits, spending patterns, and preferences into account. We want to ensure that the cards we recommend for you can quickly generate free travel and provide relevant benefits while keeping your annual card fees under control.

We are ready to help you turn your routine credit card spending into the travel of your dreams.