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Brex Devalues Rewards
- fairity 4y agoIf I'm understanding this correctly, they're only devaluing points when you redeem them for cash or transfer them to another points system. In so doing, they're effectively creating lock-in for their own points redemption programs. The cynical part of me wonders if they timed this change to coincide with the SVB debacle in the hopes that the negative PR would be drowned out.
- drstewart 4y agoYou think they planned, executed, and released this change in under 48 hours, mostly over a weekend?
- mateo- 4y agobased on headlines, it looks like they've been working all weekend
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- teaearlgraycold 4y agoYou know it’s easy to have a change staged and only pull the trigger at the right moment, right?
- drstewart 4y agoSo they had the change staged and were waiting on the off chance a bank collapsed?
- teaearlgraycold 4y agoWaiting for any big news. Maybe waiting for a specific known event in the future but pulled the trigger early. Or it’s just a coincidence.
- throwaheyy 4y agoYes. It would just be a constant in the code somewhere.
- itake 4y agoEvery time I’ve used a platform OTA, the prices were way higher and less choices (even with the point discount) than I could purchase on another OTA. I never considered platform OTAs a reasonable option.
- CPLX 4y agoThere are good ones. Chase Sapphire is an example, and I think people like Amex too though I don’t use it.
- mvid 4y agoCorrect. Chase and Amex use the prices from the airline. They aren't as good as the scammy aggregators, which try to upsell you further in the purchase process or tell you the price is no longer available
- TedDoesntTalk 4y agoDon’t they have more blackout dates than the airlines?
- atdrummond 4y agoFor fare sales or awards? If anything, I find it is the opposite. The US Big 3 have very little inventory open - and what is open is super expensive. (Let’s say $10k worth of airline miles for sake of argument.) You’re better off using CC points for tickets through the card’s OTA where you can get the above $10k itinerary for $2k worth of points - and since the value per point is known and fixed, this price is never a surprise.
- scarface74 4y agoThere are no good travel portals. If you need to change anything or if there are any issues, going through a portal is alway a pain compared to booking directly. Amex in particular for domestic flights have Delta and JetBlue as a partner. You get much better value by transferring to one of those two than booking through a portal. You will only get 1 cent per point by using the portal. You can routinely get 1.2 - 1.5 cents per point for Skymiles
- CPLX 4y agoYes that’s the consensus. It was a tool to drive new accounts and now they don’t need that tool. The fact that it’s wildly unethical to do it this way without notice is something I guess they feel isn’t important to them. Not a good look for someone in the financial services business. I was a client up until last year but I closed my account because they seemed shady.
- paxys 4y ago> The cynical part of me wonders if they timed this change to coincide with the SVB debacle in the hopes that the negative PR would be drowned out. Being in the news for any reason is the last thing a bank wants right now. With startups and the public so much on edge, a simple "omg look at this, Brex is in trouble" tweet can be enough to cause them serious harm. My guess is the exact opposite – the announcement was pre-planned and they went ahead with it, but some middle manager is going to be getting an earful for not delaying it until the sector is out of the woods.
- fairity 4y agoBrex isn't a bank. They partner with a dozen or so banks including JPMorgan (https://www.brex.com/legal/brex-cash-partner-banks https://www.brex.com/legal/brex-cash-partner-banks). And, it's clear keeping out of the news was not their strategy this weekend bc the CEO has voluntarily been making public statements in a successful attempt to drive account signups.
- paxys 4y agoTweeting "we will help startups affected by SVB" is very different from announcing major policy changes in your own operations.
- btown 4y agoThere's a third possibility: "get our rewards terms stable and sustainable before we have a massive influx in new accounts so we don't shock the new accounts by clawing things back any time soon." I have a feeling Brex was quite prepared for this whole thing to play out. With the degree of polish on https://www.brex.com/svb-emergency-line https://www.brex.com/svb-emergency-line, and the ability to double in a single weekend the number of banks they spread deposits into... whether it was simply because their own analysts saw this happening at some point and had a proactive play-by-play of what to do, or something more coordinated with the VCs advising their companies to move their funds to Brex, is something that I'm sure will be of interest to many in the industry.
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- tempsy 4y ago…how else are you supposed to use your rewards outside of cash redemption or airline transfer airline transfer is generally the best ROI way to use credit card points so this is a massive unannounced devaluation by any measure
- a13n 4y agoWelp time to switch corporate credit card providers.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y agoThe name is too similar to Brexit. Too confusing. Why would they choose such a name?
- jldupinet 4y agoI heard is due to the founders being Brazilian so: American Express - Amex Brazilian Express - Brex
- capableweb 4y agoTwo days after "Emergency bridge loan for SVB customers" offered by Brex: https://www.brex.com/svb-emergency-line https://www.brex.com/svb-emergency-line - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35102196 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35102196 ~8 months after "[Brex will] no longer offer services to the small business market" - https://www.brex.com/support/why-am-i-no-longer-qualified-to-be-a-brex-customer https://www.brex.com/support/why-am-i-no-longer-qualified-to... - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31772211 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31772211 Further context, Brex is a YC company (Winter 2017), their launch post is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17418813 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17418813 "Launch HN: Brex (YC W17) – Corporate Credit Card for Startups" | 183 points | June 28, 2018 | 126 comments
- throw03172019 4y agoI guess the bridge loan doesn’t matter now that the depositors of SVB are getting their funds tomorrow?
- capableweb 4y agoI'm sure at least some people jumped on the offer as the situation was very uncertain up until just some ~13 hours ago.
- cj 4y agoFWIW - this is extremely common among other credit card point systems. Including airline miles, etc. Not sure if this is really news or if it’s just another credit card company doing what credit card companies do.
- CPLX 4y agoIt’s not really. They do devaluations no question about that. But a zero notice change in the ratio of transfer points would be unusual and definitely cause a lot of screaming. It’s not an ethical thing to do. If you tell me I can do X that helps you and then you’ll give me Y you can’t just change that. Devaluing with a little notice is a different thing entirely. Even short notice is dubious but defensible. This not so much. Of course the only thing it will do is cause people never to trust their rewards programs, giving them further rationale to ditch them.
- tempsy 4y agono it isn’t. my chase, amex, cap 1 points transfers to the exact same airlines as Brex at 1:1 ratio and always has the airlines and hotel programs do change and devalue their programs from time to time but not the credit cards that offers transfers to these programs
- throwaheyy 4y agoCapital One actually got better — they used to be 2:1.5 before improving to 1:1, as well as adding more transfer options.
- magold 4y agoWith Ramp, cashback is the only reward option, no gimmicks subject to devaluation. Ramp offers fixed 1.5% cashback on statement balances, and there's no spend requirement before it kicks in. Much better way to go.
- aftbit 4y agoI hope Ramp is ready for the massive influx in signups that this will result in. We're considering moving our spend entirely to them because of this change.
- kvee 4y agoSo what's the best thing to do with lots of Brex rewards now?
- Aeolun 4y agoThere is nothing I’ve heard about Brex that is good.
- mateo- 4y agoreally?
- tehwebguy 4y agoOh wow, no-notice devaluations make a rewards / card program pretty much radioactive.