Category Archives for Credit Cards.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
JonNYC tweets about American considering a change to their systemwide upgrades that are provided to Executive Platinum and ConciergeKey members: that they would only be usable by the member themselves (and presumably other passengers on the same reservation) and could no longer be gifted to family or friends. American says no such change is imminent.
This would be all about breakage, making upgrades cheaper to offer because more of them would go unused if they cannot be given away. And by the way they’d be taking away benefits and scaling back costs at the same time they are requiring more revenue from a customer to earn these in the first place.
IHG reported its year-end results and noted the importance of their loyalty program to drive direct bookings (no commissions to online travel agencies) and higher revenue (“Loyalty members 7x more likely to book direct, and deliver a 25% stay premium.”).
They also noted that they’re testing variable redemption pricing.
Ebates though now offers an option to earn American Express Membership Rewards instead of cash. And they have a credit card that earns an additional 3 points per dollar on shopping done through the portal.
I’ve argued that the biggest threat to rewards credit cards is that interchange fees, the percentage of each transaction that the banks and payment networks take, will fall.
However the opposite seems to be happening. TVisa, Mastercard, and Discover are set to raise interchange rates slightly this spring.
More consumers are receiving card offers in the mail — up “from 54% to 67% over nine months last year” including an increase in applications from consumers with annual incomes between $20,000 and $50,000.
Fewer card applications, an increase in reaching down to lower income and possibly lower credit score consumers, combined with data like auto loan delinquencies at their highest level since 2010 (during the Great Recession) seem to raise some economic flags.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
New variable Air France KLM Flying Blue points pricing is live and often makes no sense. Some awards are more expensive, some less expensive. Instead of a hidden award chart they have a calculator.
But they still offer various routes at 25% or 50% off each month and new ones are up for booking in February and travel in March and April.
Apparently American Express is sending out 1099s to people who referred customers to their credit cards.
Just because Aemrican Express tells the IRS that Hilton points are worth 1.25 cents apiece doesn’t mean that’s the revenue on which you owe tax. You can dispute the value and pay less tax as a result. Here’s the process to do it.
Recently the Wall Street Journal wrote about banks trying to control rapidly spiraling rewards costs. I didn’t take seriously the idea that banks would cut back on rewards to consumers to do this because they are offering rich rewards for a reason: they need to do so to attract consumers which earn them a piece of every transaction (plus annual fees, and interest when they don’t pay off their bills).
Josh Barro though takes on the broader claim about banks backing off of big rewards in New York magazine.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
