Category Archives for Credit Cards.
Citibank should be notifying its customers today of benefits changes that go into effect May 1 for the Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® card. One is a modest positive, while the other will be disappointing to many.
Last summer Citi adjusted the benefit of their primary AAdvantage consumer card, adding two new bonus categories for spending and introducing the ability to earn a discount on American Airlines travel through card spend. So I’ve been waiting to see what sort of updates would be coming to the Barclays AAdvantage cards. There are several changes that go into effect May 1.
Marriott let me know that the hack of their systems released my unencrypted passport number and unencrypted credit card number. Even this information isn’t helpful because they don’t let me know which number or whether or not it’s expired.
The data breach compromised 383 million records including 5.25 million unencrypted passport numbers and 8.6 million payment cards. Marriott claims most credit cards were expired which means they have that information, but even though they’re telling me my credit card number was compromised they aren’t telling me the expiration date of the card.
If you have the Marriott Bonvoy American Express Card you might not even know it because you still think of it as the Starwood Preferred Guest American Express Card — and your card still says SPG on it.
One of the biggest criticisms of the new program is that the value of points earned via credit card is one third less than Starwood Amex cardmembers are accustomed to. They’ve solved that through the rest of the year.
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.
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 »
