Continental OnePass Card Holders 50% Bonus Miles

Do you think Continental is fighting for a chance to stay alive amid the merger with United? Back in October my wife and I each opened up new OnePass personal credit cards for the stellar 50,000 miles each offer. After making our first purchases, I actually just threw them in the safe the other day until I can figure out when would be a good time to shut them down prior to them transitioning over to the United Explorer cards. The big thing is I do not want to risk not being able to get the United Explorer bonus in the future if the cards would switch.

Well now Chase is making it harder for me to not use the card. In the mail, my wife and I each received the below announcement that from January 4 to March 4, 2012, we will now earn 50% more miles on all purchases.

So Continental purchases will now net us 3 miles per dollar, and purchases everywhere else will bring in 1.5 miles per dollar. While it is not a huge increase, the Continental Cards now carry a high likelihood of working their way back into our wallets. The Discover More and Miles cards we use only net us 1% back with the excepting of the 5% rotating categories on the More card and 2% back on the Miles cards. Therefore, for everyday spend outside of the Discover premium categories, we are better off using the Continental cards.

As I sit and relish in the thought of raking in more miles, I also begin to wonder.

1) Is this promotion the start of a new trend with Chase? Are we likely see higher earning potentials as the new standard? Or does Chase know that we have not used the cards a ton within the first couple months and really want to win our business?

2) Is this really an effort for Chase to try and unload a ton of extra Continental OnePass miles that they are sitting on prior to rolling over the card to United? Maybe we might see some other new promotions out there to help gather up all those unwanted miles. Maybe it is the other way around and Continental is trying to sell as many cheap miles at discount as they can before the merger?

I really think it is a combination of both scenarios in item 2. Whatever the reason, we will be switching our spending over to Continental and Chase while our Discover cards take a well needed break.

Edit: This is a targeted offer. You may be able to call up Chase and have them apply it to your account, but it is YMMV.