Not sure who else saw it, but USAA quietly released the Eagle Navigator credit card recently. The $95 price point puts it in direct competition with the Capital One Venture card and the Chase Sapphire Preferred. In true USAA fashion, it’s worse than both of them.
With the USAA card, you get:
- 3X points on travel including air, hotel, car and vacation rentals, rideshare, tolls and more
- 2X points on other purchases
- Up to $100 TSA PreCheck® or Global Entry® credit every four years
- Annual 10,000 bonus points (equals $100 in travel) after booking hotel or car through the USAA Rewards Center
- Basic travel card benefits like no foreign transaction fee, car rental insurance, etc.
With the Capital One Venture Card, you get:
- 5X miles on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel
- Get 2X miles per dollar on every purchase
- 75,000 miles sign up bonus
- TSA PreCheck or Global Entry credit
- Basic travel card benefits like no foreign transaction fee, car rental insurance, etc.
With the Chase Sapphire Preferred, you get:
- 5x total points on travel purchased through Chase Ultimate Rewards
- 3x points on dining at restaurants including eligible delivery services, takeout and dining out
- 2x on other travel purchases
- 60,000 point sign up bonus
Anyone comparing the three cards would immediately eliminate the USAA card from the running because it earns less than the other cards. On top of that, Chase and Capital One both have offers where you can earn extra points/miles on certain categories periodically. It’s unclear if USAA will offer that.
I do want to say great job to the team who helped delivered this, from IT to analysts to product owners. And I don’t mean that sarcastically, this is super impressive and you all should be proud of yourself for bringing this to market. But USAA as an entity yet again dropped the ball in offering something compelling. Nothing sets this card apart from its most direct competitors. In fact, it’s unequivocally worse than both of them. No wonder they didn’t make a big fuss about it. It’s like USAA’s entire goal is to be at or below average.
Average credit cards, average bank accounts, average insurance, average member service, average employees, average pay, average benefits.
It’s a shame, too, because USAA was once best in class.