[DISCONTINUED] MBNA Choice Privileges MasterCard

It turns out that MBNA has decided to terminate the Choice Privileges MasterCard. For those of you who still have the credit card, you might want to consider hanging onto it if you can because there is no annual fee. Furthermore, you can:

• Earn up to 15 points for every $1 spent at Choice Privileges locations in Canada, the U.S., Europe, Mexico, and Australasia
• Earn 2 points for every $1 spent on all other purchases

Congratulations to those of you who managed to snag the 24,000 sign up bonus that expired on June 9, 2014. Those points can really come in handy, especially now, since there will no longer be a credit card associated with the Choice Privileges hotel loyalty program.

My issue with the Choice Privileges program will not change though, due to the 2 year expiry policy. Points expire on December 31, two years after your points were deposited into your account. So we will need to continually use the points you earn to avoid letting them expire. This unpopular expiry policy could be a reason why the credit card was not popular in the first place.

I do hope that this is one of those “when one door closes, another one opens” opportunity. Hopefully MBNA has new products coming out soon.