The revamped Wells Fargo Propel American Express® Card is an intriguing credit card, as it offers what essentially amounts to 3% cash back on travel, dining, gas stations and popular web streaming services. But what takes the card and its rewards structure from intriguing to formidable is the ability to combine Wells Fargo Go Far Rewards points between two different Wells Fargo credit cards and increase their value up to 75%.
Much like Chase Ultimate Rewards points can be combined across cards, Go Far Rewards earned with the Propel Amex can be combined with rewards earned from the Wells Fargo Visa Signature® Card and inherit the higher redemption value of points earned with the Visa Signature. Of course, to make this work, you have to have both the Propel Amex card and the Visa Signature card. Unfortunately Wells Fargo has a very restrictive rule for receiving two welcome bonuses for its credit cards, so let’s look at the rewards structure and your options for gaining access to both these great cards and their rewards.
Go Far Rewards Program Basics
First, here are the details on each of these two cards, along with their welcome bonuses:
Wells Fargo Propel American Express Card — 3x points on travel, dining, gas and select streaming services. 1x points on all other spend. 30,000 points after spending $3,000 in the first three months. 0% introductory interest rate on purchases for the first 12 months, then after the introductory period is over, the interest rate increases to 14.24% to 26.74%. $0 annual fee.
Wells Fargo Visa Signature Card — 5x rewards points earned for up to $12,500 spent on gas, grocery and drugstore purchases for the first six months. 1x points on all other spend. 0% introductory interest rate on purchases for the first 15 months, then after the introductory period is over, the interest rate increases to 13.90% to 27.74%. $0 annual fee.
(Note that the information for the Wells Fargo Visa Signature Card has been collected independently by The Points Guy. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.)
Go Far Rewards earned with the Propel Amex can be redeemed toward travel at 1 cent per point through the Go Far Rewards travel portal or for cash back. Points earned with the Wells Fargo Visa Signature card can also be redeemed at 1 cent per point toward travel (hotels, cruises, rental cars and so on) but can also be redeemed specifically for flights at 1.5 cents each, which can be boosted up to 1.75 cents per point if you spend $50,000 on the Visa Signature in a year. That means a combination of the Propel Amex and the Visa Signature will earn you between 4.5%-5.25% on travel, dining, gas stations and select streaming services when you redeem the points for flights.
Go Far Rewards also has merchandise, gift cards, theme park tickets and auctions available for redemptions. You can also earn more points through the Go Far Rewards shopping portal, which has both in-store and online shopping offers. Don’t overlook the portal, especially the local offers, as one time my wife got her sewing machine fixed at a local sewing store offering 30 points per dollar.
Wells Fargo Sign-Up Bonus Eligibility
You have a few decisions to make if you’d like both the Wells Fargo Propel American Express and the Wells Fargo Visa Signature in order to unlock up to 5.25% cash back towards flights. At the bottom of every Wells Fargo credit card application is the following language:
That means if you’d like both the 30,000 welcome bonus points from the Propel Amex as well as the Visa Signature sign-up offer of 5x rewards points on selective purchases for the first 6 months, you’d have to space your applications out by 15 months. You can also only receive one business card introductory offer and one personal introductory offer every 15 months.
But even if you’re willing to forego one of the bonuses, it’s probably still going to be tricky to be approved for two Wells Fargo credit cards in the same day. In addition to the 15-month rule, Wells Fargo also has the following rule on the bottom of the Propel Amex application (though not specifically on the Visa Signature):
“You may not qualify for an additional Wells Fargo Credit Card if you have opened a Wells Fargo Credit Card in the last 6 months.”
Is this rule being enforced? Well, Wells Fargo isn’t the easiest issuer to deal with and it’s hard to find solid data points about how often the bank will approve you for a card. There was also previously an existing relationship rule where Wells Fargo typically wanted you to have at least a checking account with them first before applying for a credit card, but that rule has been dropped for the Propel Amex.
Two Cards for Two People
But there is a way to take advantage of the higher Visa Signature redemption values and still get both bonuses for one household at the same time. A fantastic aspect of the Go Far Rewards program is the ability to gift points from your account to anyone else’s account. That means my wife can sign up for the Propel Amex and I can sign up for the Visa Signature — we’d each get the bonus points and then we can combine our rewards in one Go Far Rewards account.
These transfers work from any Wells Fargo Go Far Rewards credit card to any other Wells Fargo Go Far Rewards earning credit card, so if you have any second person you trust and are willing to split rewards with such as a spouse or close friend or family member, you can repeat the above process.
If you prefer to go it alone, you need to do the math on whether you’re willing to forego a bonus, and if you are, wait 6 months between applications to be safe. But which bonus should you forego? It depends on how much spending you usually do in six months. If you can max out the 5x categories on the Visa Signature card offer, you’d end up with 62,500 points, so you’d want to apply and be approved for that card first. On the other hand, if you don’t see yourself putting more than $6,000 in spending on those bonus categories in a 6 month period, you’d be better off getting the entire 30,000 point Propel Amex bonus for just half the amount of spending (and spread across all purchases, not just bonus categories).
Bottom Line
The Wells Fargo two-card combination makes it relatively easy to earn enough points for free flights, and a nice kicker is that flights booked through the Go Far Rewards portal have also always earned redeemable and elite qualifying miles for me over the last two years. I earned American Airlines Executive Platinum status in 2016 for little money out of my pocket when I completed a status challenge flying tickets booked with Wells Fargo Go Far Rewards and Citi ThankYou Rewards.