Sign-up bonus

A sign-up bonus is an enticement offered by card issuers to consumers for applying and using a card. Sign-up bonuses have become generous in recent years, sometimes as much as 100,000 points. Typically, the cardholder must “earn” the bonus by reaching a spending threshold in a limited initial period, for example, by spending $3,000 on a card in the first 90 days after opening the account.