Chase Value Miles Platinum Visa Credit Card Review

An Old Chase Rewards Card - Back in 2005, Chase had many credit cards. In fact, unlike in todays's world where most credit card issuers are consolidating their credit card portfolio, many issuers like Chase, Bankk of America, Capital One and MBNA were all issuing many different variations (sometimes the same variations) of their credit cards under different design and different names. The Chase Value Miles Platinum Visa Card is one of the few travel reward credit card that Chase has.

How You Earn Miles - No Ultimate Rewards - Back in 2005, Chase had not come up with the Ultimate Rewards program yet. In fact, back then, their reward program was nowhere near compared to the good ones like the Membership Rewards and the Citi ThankYou. The Chase Value Miles allowed you to earn one mile for every dollar you spend on the card. Miles can be redeemed for airline tickets by most major US carriers with no blackout dates. You can earn up to 4,000 miles a month or 40,000 miles in one calendar year. Back then, Chase did not state on their website how long are their miles valid for. I made a call to the credit card application center and they did not have this information either!

A Guess About Their Reward Program - When I was reviewing this card back in 2005, Chase did not allow one to have a peek at their reward program (unlike Membership Rewards and Citi Thankyou). But this card was later discontinued and the Chase Flexible Rewards took it's place. Being frustrated at not being able to access their reward program, I actually applied for the Chase Flexible Rewards card and managed to properly review these early Chase rewards card.

The reward program from the Flexible Rewards card that I had allowed me to redeem points for travel, merchandise and gift cards. Trust me when I say that there were very little merchandise and gift card partners back then. For travel, you had to book your tickets with Chase and you got a 1% return on your points (ie 100 points equals one dollar). My understanding of the Value Miles back then when I called Chase was that it was primarily a travel rewards card. So it might have very well been the case that you could only redeem points for travel.

It was competing with some very good cards - To be honest, I was surprised that Chase discontinued this card and essentially changed the name to the Flexible Rewards Card. I do not think it was a massive success. And the reason is that they were card from other issues that were really better.

For example, Citi had the Diamond Preferred Rewards Card and the Citi Premier Pass Card that were miles ahead of the Value Miles in terms of points you can earn and the reward program. American Express had the Blue Card, and back then, Membership Rewards was the best program out there.

Did we recommend this card back then? - Back in 2005, I thought that this was a pretty average card in a very competitive space. Limiting the number of points you can earn a year certainly did not help it. But even my Flexible Rewards Card got replace by the Chase Freedom and many got their cards replaced with the Chase Sapphire Card. If you asked me today, I would say that the Chase Ultimate Rewards program is arguably the best reward program in the market today and I would highly recommend any rewards card from Chase.