From Chase updating the Sapphire Preferred to the first Direct Mail offers observed for the Zable Card, Andrew Davidson breaks down the latest news in the financial services industry. He also discusses Wyndham and Barclays launching a Premium Credit Card, Coverd announcing the launch of the Coverd Card, and United and Bilt promoting miles for Rent.
Want to discover more of Andrew’s cutting-edge insights on financial products, marketing strategies, and industry innovations? Follow him on LinkedIn, or listen to him as the host of Mintel’s Little Conversation podcast.
Here are the 5 things you need to know:
1. Chase Updates Sapphire Preferred Card
Chase announced a value update to Sapphire Preferred with NO INCREASE IN THE ANNUAL FEE. (Wait, didn’t I just do a post like this for Amex/Delta?🤔 )
Positive changes:
- 3x on gas, EV charging, and vacation rentals including Airbnb and Vrbo
- Hotel credit doubled up to $100 from $50
- $120 Global Entry / TSA PreCheck credit added
- Emergency Evacuation coverage added (up to $100K)⭐
Negative changes:
- 10% Anniversary Bonus discontinued
- Hyatt transfers drop from 1:1 to 4:3
💡 Chase raises the bar on travel protections
- Value injection. This is my second post in a week about a card injecting value without increasing the fee (although in this instance, clearly a couple of other benefits were dropped to offset the changes). What does this say? There’s a limit to how far issuers can push annual fees before cardholders start doing the math. The strategic play is to stack perceivable value, even if the incremental cost to the issuer is low, and neutralize churn without touching the fee line. Don’t expect this trend to slow down. The fee freeze is becoming the feature.
- Best for travel protections claim. Chase messaging is that Sapphire Preferred now has “the most comprehensive suite of built-in travel protections in its class.” That’s a bold line with no footnote attached, but when you actually do the benchmarking across the $95 tier, Chase’s claim holds up. The reason is one specific benefit: Emergency Evacuation coverage. Until this announcement, that benefit only lived on cards charging $595 and up. The Citi Strata Elite at $595 doesn’t have it. The Amex Gold at $325 doesn’t have it. The Capital One Venture X at $395 doesn’t have it. Chase just pushed a premium-tier protection down to a $95 card. The bar for the category just moved.
2. First Direct Mail Offers Observed for the Zable Card
The British are coming! And I’m not just talking about the Scots in their kilts in Boston or the England fans in Florida during the FIFA World Cup.
At Comperemedia, we recently captured some acquisition direct mail offers from UK-based Lendable for the Zable Credit Card (issued by Continental Bank, based in Utah), a new or newish non-prime card depending on where you live. The card is currently available in 43 states and growing. We also captured offers for personal loans up to $35k from Zable.
Zable Credit Card
- No annual fee
- Credit lines from $300 – $5,000
- APR 29.49% – 35.99%
- Virtual card number on approval
- Standard Mastercard benefits
Source: Comperemedia Direct [04/01/2026 – 05/31/2026] as of 06/23/2026
💡New competitors
- Foreign invasion. Zable/Lendable is already lending while Revolut and OakNorth seek full banking licenses. Nubank from Brazil has conditional OCC approval. Dutch neobank Bunq filed in January. The US banking market is suddenly the most attractive expansion target for international fintechs and a more permissive regulatory environment under the current administration appears to be the unlock. Not everyone is staying though. Monzo just exited the US for the second time, pivoting to Europe after securing an EU banking licence. I started my career watching Capital One and MBNA cross the Atlantic and disrupt the UK market. Now the world is coming for the biggest banking market on the planet. The question is whether the incumbents are paying attention.
- The non-prime angle. The non-prime positioning is what makes Zable different from the rest of the pack. Revolut is chasing premium customers. OakNorth is SME lending. Zable is going after underserved US consumers that Capital One, Credit One, and Merrick have built businesses on. Lendable’s bet is that their AI-driven underwriting model can price that risk more accurately than the incumbents. The numbers back their confidence: Lendable reported a 120% rise in profits and 90% revenue growth in 2025, and is now directing those profits into US expansion.
3. Wyndham and Barclays Launch a Premium Credit Card
New PREMIUM card alert. Barclays and Wyndham just refreshed the entire Wyndham Rewards card suite, headlined by a new $395 annual fee product.
Highlights of the Wyndham Rewards Earner Premier Card:
- 120K bonus points worth up to 16 nights (that’s a lot of nights…)
- $400 in value from credits including a Rewards Insider membership ($95), a Wyndham credit ($100), a meal delivery credit ($120), a streaming credit ($100), and a warehouse credit ($65)
- 8X points at Wyndham, 4X on dining, grocery and travel, 1X elsewhere
- Diamond status
Source: Wyndham & Barclays
💡Practical premium
- Premium stretch. This is a pattern now. Wyndham joins JetBlue and Alaska in launching premium cards despite positioning themselves as the non-fancy option. This is what I call premium stretch. The risk isn’t just price. It’s asking a value-oriented customer to behave like a premium one. What creates the opportunity is scale. Wyndham has 124 million members, so you don’t need many of them to convert for the economics to work but it comes with a caveat. JetBlue needed to enhance its premium card just 14 months after launch, an early signal that getting the value equation right takes iteration. That experience matters. Barclays is coming into this with a clearer sense of how to get it right, and if it falls short, they know they’ll need to adjust.
- Practical credits. The language used in the announcement is deliberate. “Practical credits.” A card positioned as a go-to for everyday travelers. The best co-brand cards earn their fee during the trip, through things like free bags, lounge access, and credits that show up while you’re traveling. Wyndham is doing the opposite, building the value around everyday spend. It reflects a customer trying to balance a better travel experience with day-to-day value.
4. Coverd Announces the Launch of the Coverd Card
A credit card “launched” recently but you couldn’t actually apply for it. Coverd announced its new card and the press release said it was “available beginning today.” I clicked apply and got this instead: “Early access only. Your account isn’t on the list yet.” 👉
The players behind this launch:
- Coverd
- Rain
- Visa
- Third National
There’s an interesting story here, especially given the players involved. But this feels less like a full launch and more like an early-access rollout with a press release attached.
In response to my post, the founder of Coverd said. “You will be able to get the card soon. We are working hard clearing the 100,000 ppl who were already on the waitlist at the moment.”
💡Clarity matters
- Missing info. According to the agreement, this card functions more like a crypto-collateralized secured charge card than a traditional credit card. You link a wallet. You post collateral. If a payment is missed, or the collateral drops in value, it can be liquidated through a smart contract. Most of that context doesn’t show up in the press release, website, or App Store listing.
- Rewards maze. Multipliers reset hourly. You only get the boosted rate on a first purchase in a category, then it drops to the base rate. There are five-minute surge windows advertising 100x🤯. A monthly cap, based on prior spending, limits the total value. Card marketing has always required a bit of interpretation. This is one of the first examples I’ve seen where understanding the product really depends on reading the legal terms closely and even then it’s still not clear.
- Transparency and trust. I’m always interested in innovation in the card space and was drawn to this announcement for that reason. There’s clearly a novel structure here. But it also raises a broader question: what does transparency look like as products get more complex? Most consumers aren’t going to read a cardholder agreement or reverse-engineer a rewards model. And for fintechs trying to build trust in a category dominated by incumbents, clarity may matter just as much as creativity.
5. United and Bilt Promote Miles for Rent
Pay Rent. Earn Miles. I was staring at this ad on my seatback screen on a recent flight from New York to Chicago. 👉
Last December, United Airlines and Bilt announced an extension of their partnership whereby United/Chase cardholders can earn 2X points on rent payments of up to $50K per year when they use a United card to pay rent through the Bilt platform (3% fee).
Bilt also has a similar partnership with Alaska and both United and Alaska are Bilt 1:1 points transfer partners.
💡Capturing the moment
- Unique message. A unique channel. United marketing typically focuses on benefits along the travel journey so rent seems out of place on the plane but the channel makes perfect sense. A captive audience. 2 hours and 15 minutes from LGA to Chicago. On a seatback screen that United has invested heavily to put in front of every single passenger. Plus you only needed to look at the length of the priority boarding line to know there would be plenty of United cardholders on that flight. The QR code led to a Bilt sign-up prompt. Idle flight time becomes a loyalty enrollment moment.
- Why it makes sense. Bilt founder Ankur Jain said it directly at launch: “United has major hubs right where our members live.” San Francisco. Denver. Chicago. Houston. Newark. Los Angeles. Washington D.C. That overlap is the strategy. United already has the cardholder. Now they want more of their wallet and rent is the biggest line item in many people’s monthly budgets. Until now, it never earned a single mile. If rent works, mortgages will likely be next. This is a differentiator for United vs American and Delta so we may also see it in more channels.
