Currently all of the landing pages for the FNBO Best Western cards are resulting in an error and not accepting new applications. Reader Harry Nguyen has stated that as of 8/18/24 these cards have been discontinued. We reached out to FNBO and they provided the following statement:
Yes, our applications for new cards are unavailable at this time. This doesn’t affect our existing Best Western cardholders.
At the time of publication Best Western did not respond.
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Looks like a new development on this - apparently these cards are now serviced by First Bank and Trust as a Visa rather than an FNBO Mastercard. The anniversary bonus was downgraded in my opinion - rather than 40,000 points on your anniversary for $5k annual spend, it's now a free night and a possible second free night after $10k annual spend. I was previously able to spend my way into ~2.5 free nights (at decent 16k/night locations) , so the new structure is pretty bad in comparison. Only question is whether existing cardholders will be grandfathered, transferred to the new bank, or have existing accounts closed/converted.
Is it a coincidence that early next year will be exactly 10 years since FNBO took over the Best Western credit card?
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/fnbo-will-issue-the-new-best-western-credit-card/
Isn't 5 or 10 years a common period for an agreement between a credit card issuer and the partner program (hotel, airline, etc) for which the card is issued?
Signed up earlier as a happy midpoint for quality and coverage in both the US and EU. But their coverage in EU is really not good. I've since moved to Choice since their coverage in Nordic countries is much better and I primarily visit Nordic region only.
Spending 5k on the $89 BW card for the 40k point is often not worth it because their good hotels are usually extremely expensive with points (especially compared to using Choice International points in the Nordic region). Haven't used it since I started swiping Aviator Silver for AA Plat...
This seems like good news. Hopefully the offer will be much better or a new card issue will take it over. Seems weird to me that Best Western wouldn't want a good credit card.
I went to sign up 2 days ago and realized the links were dead on the bank website, couldn't figure out why. Bummed since they were active just last week. Hopefully they will come back soon. Best Western isn't talked about much in the hotel hacking realm, but when I stumbled across them this summer was surprised at the low redemption values-- one 40,000 card was an easy 7 days of free stays at some locations.
Possibly BW moving to another issuer???
Possibly
Hopefully.
The no-AF Best Western card had much better earnings on Best Western stays when it was around about decade ago, and then when FNBO took it over, they dropped the earnings on Best Western stays so much that it no longer made much sense to use it for every stay.
And the $89 AF Best Western card that FNBO created never gave an anniversary night, the way a $49 AF Chase IHG card (since discontinued for new applications) has always done.
Because best western points are hot garbage. Actively book away from BW and towards choice and Wyndham after too many shenanigans from BW loyalty. They don’t get loyalty and I don’t think FNBO is poised to help them figure it out
P1 here and P2 milked these SUBS for numerous stays in Europe over the last two years.
It's wild how many Best Westerns are throughout Europe. In some cases, they better than Marriott, Hilton, IHG, or even Hyatt is offering over there. Well done.