February 2012 Continental Credit Card Mailer: Free Lounge Passes
I am beginning to enjoy opening up our Continental Personal and Business cards more and more everyday. As a quick rehash for any new readers, back in October my wife and I each applied for Continental personal and business credit cards. I was approved for each, and my wife the personal card (I also learned some lessons to hopefully help her get approved in the future). We earned a bounty of miles off of opening up a couple of simple credit cards.
Besides the first purchases to earn bonus miles, I did not plan on necessarily using the cards a ton. However, Chase has been doing a great job at driving my spending towards the Continental cards.
I have had the cards for several months now, and still have not used them a lot, but have added spend to the cards so it does not look like I just opened them up to get the miles. The Business card I have been using only for the use of expenses with maintaining and operating InACents and other domain names we own. Our Financial Adviser recommended keeping only business spending on the Business card to keep accounting easier.
So I was surprised last week when I received a mailer from Continental offering us two complimentary United Club passes (up to a $100 value) just because we have been using the card. Then a week later, my wife and I each received another two passes. So in total, we received six lounge passes between our three Continental cards. Normally, I would not expect these passes until after the first year is up on the card, and the new annual fee is paid. A lot of times the credit card/airline companies give them to you as a means to help justify paying the annual fee after the first year. So to get them after only a couple of months was a grand surprise.
The passes are valid in all of 2012, so they will definitely come in handy during our Hawaiian vacation this summer. Plus, we have never been inside an airline lounge before, so it should be a great newbie experience.
There is some question whether little kids will be required to have a pass for access to the lounge, but now we have enough passes should they request them for the kids.
What a bunch of junk! I want those passes! How in the world did you get them? I totally could have used them… grrrr.
@Alley Arch: The credit card looked at me, and I smiled back. So it must have been it’s way of saying it loves me too. Valentine’s love!
I really enjoy your blog, keep up the great work!
We are taking our first FREE family vacation this summer and are traveling from TLV to JFK with a stopover in Paris. I noticed that on the Continental website one can purchase a lounge pass for only 2,500 miles. So I was thinking of purchasing theses passes for the kids and I for our Paris stopover. When looking into it, I discovered that kids were not allowed into the lounge. This is a tremendous disappointment as I don’t know what I will do with them for 4 hours!
So, make sure you look into which lounge you will be staying at and if they allow children inside. Some Continental lounges allow children and some don’t.
If you get a chance to check out my blog, I would love to hear what you think!
@DealsSeeker: Thank you! I have heard mixed reviews also. The representative I talked with was not completely sure whether kids needed a pass, but assumed yes; however, people have told me it really is up to the agent whether they waive them thru or not. So if you are purchasing the passes, it really is a gamble.