For years, savvy consumers have used credit card spending to beef up their frequent flier mileage balances, their hotel points, or just plain old cash. For those who paid off their bills in full every month, cards have been a great way to put off payment for three to six weeks, while earning a nice return — of hundreds or even thousands of dollars’ value — through rebates or points.
But credit card companies have always hated clients who paid off their bill on time. (With a taste for irony, they call them “deadbeats.”) And now, with the Obama administration starting to tighten the leash on the banks that were allowed to run amok with usurious rates and obnoxious fees for the last decade, the question arises: Is the party over for credit card points?
No. The banks may be cutting back on the size of credit lines, but the rewards card is unlikely to go anywhere.
Ron Lieber, in the New York Times, addresses this question head on. I agree wholeheartedly with his assessment:
So will credit card companies kill reward programs or drastically scale most of them back? Of course not.
“If you strip away the reward component of a credit card, it’s essentially a commodity,” said Rick Ferguson, editorial director at the loyalty marketing company LoyaltyOne. “The reward is what gives it its personality. It works from a branding perspective as well as a mechanism to influence customer behavior and consolidate spending on a particular card.”
That last part is crucial. People who spend a ton generate fees galore from merchants, and that money helps the card company stay in business. So you may soon see card companies giving away more goodies or lowering annual fees for people who hit certain spending thresholds each year. American Express already does this on a number of cards.
This last point is key: So much of the discussion in the media has focused on interest rates and the fees charged by banks to the debtors. This ignores the profits that banks make on processing the transactions themselves. Those fees may be charged to the merchant, but the bank doesn’t care where it makes its money, as long as it makes it.
Bottom line: Reward credit cards aren’t going anywhere. If your bank starts to get chintzy with its rewards, or starts hiking an annual fee, call them up and negotiate. Threaten to start shopping around for an alternative if they don’t maintain — or improve upon — the status quo.
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May 21st, 2009 at 2:39 am
I’m so glad in NL we use our credit cards to actually pay for things, or flights, or car rental, and then make sure the card is paid off by the end of the month. I think part of the US credit mess has to do with all these ridiculous points/awards/whatever programs.
It seems like Americans don’t realize that they are intentionally spending extra money (which they don’t have) on things they don’t need in order to get the extra miles/points in order to get an upgrade somewhere, later. Which these customers pay for themselves, obviously, by paying high interest and card fees.
I’d rather only pay for stuff I need. I use the Mastercard that comes with my regular bank account, which charges me 10 euro in fees per year for the whole package (debit card, credit card, internet banking etc.), and no interest on the credit card if you pay your bill by the end of the month.
I pay for flight upgrades and hotel rooms by myself, instead of thinking where/what/when to get points and when I am allowed to spend them.
May 21st, 2009 at 9:22 am
Good to see someone else realizing that the doom-and-gloom is so overblown. The card companies don’t want to strangle that golden goose so much that everyone starts using cash — their worst nightmare.
May 21st, 2009 at 9:23 am
I say good riddance. These points schemes simply set up rival economies that fooled consumers into believing that this was all about something other than money, and any reminder to consumers that these cards are about money – and nothing else – will only improve transparency.
I know too many otherwise intelligent people who get sucked into these mileage/points/whatever alternative currency a card offers scams in order to get a “free” ticket that happens to cost them three years of inflated annual fees, overage charges, interest and other bonus add-ons.
I stand by my credit union card: 10% interest and cash-back on all purchases. Currency conversions are done at cost. If you’re disciplined about saving, the money I’ve saved by using a card like this (that encourages you to pay off balances, but does not require it) more than pays for all the “free” tickets I would have earned on other cards. Not to mention the additional vacation days I would need to take to fly on the days when those tickets are actually available.
The sooner credit card consumers realize that there is no free lunch, and that the time and energy people spend learning to game these cards actually has a cost associated with it, the better off we will all be.
May 21st, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Marieke,
Not all Americans are that stupid, and not all Dutch are that frugal. I think your smug generalization is a bit too broad. I (a Chicagoan) generally buy stuff that I need, and some stuff that I want. (We’re all human, and I’m not a miser.) But I pay for it all with my credit card, which I pay off on time, and I collect rewards. The rewards aren’t a problem, having a bad financial sense (or education) is the problem. Anyone who pays cash or pays off their card every month without getting rewards is leaving money on the table.
May 21st, 2009 at 4:30 pm
[...] out “Will the credit card industry’s woes mean the death of points and miles?” for an in depth look at the situation and for tips on how to deal with banks if they start getting [...]
May 22nd, 2009 at 8:43 am
[...] In defense of reward-earning credit cardsPosted by: Mark Ashley Wednesday’s post on the premature declaration of the demise of rewards cards brought some angry responses in my e-mail inbox. One example: How can you even suggest that the [...]
May 22nd, 2009 at 10:02 am
[...] Will the credit card industry’s woes mean the death of points and miles? | Upgrade: Travel Better For years, savvy consumers have used credit card spending to beef up their frequent flier mileage balances, their hotel points, or just plain old cash. For those who paid off their bills in full every month, cards have been a great way to put off payment for three to six weeks, while earning a nice return — of hundreds or even thousands of dollars’ value — through rebates or points. [...]
May 22nd, 2009 at 2:11 pm
I don’t think we should or will see an end to the points schemes offered by credit card companies no matter what happens. These are the offers that make them stand out from each other as afterall the interest rates are all worse than we’d like them to be no matter how good an individuals credit might be. As for Credit Unions, I believe the days of 10% interest are over, at least for now. As you can see from the link below you need to have at least $25,000 deposited before you even start to see a return on your money.
http://www.sdccu.com/pages/rates/DepositRates.pdf
As a person that loves to travel and is not easily duped into spending what I don’t have, then the benefits of earning these points from careful credit card useage is a perk that works for me. I’ve not spent more on a credit card in order to get mileage or money back, but I’ve been wise with my choices on spending, always paying back at the end of the month to not incur interest charges. Paying for things like groceries, gas and other regular bills on a credit card is not buying stuff I don’t need in order to gain more points.
I have a friend that’s been on many free flights and stayed at many hotels for free all on airmiles. He does the same in paying on his credit card for things that are regular bills.
For those that think its a scam, then perhaps it’s a lack of financial discipline that makes you feel this way. It can and does work for some people, but I acknowledge there are people more easily tempted who stray from the winners gameplan on managing a credit card which means incurring no interest and no additional expenses on items not really needed.
I believe the people of this country are ill informed on how to manage money. This should be a subject taught in schools from an early age. Mathematics is one thing, but what about financial 101 ??
May 25th, 2009 at 8:36 am
Marieke, if most Dutch people do indeed pay off all of their credit card charges each month, it would explain why you have to pay so much to maintain a banking account. From my perspective, even 10 Euro is too much. I pay off my cards in full each month, too, and I want an interest-bearing checking and savings account, credit cards with rewards features, and internet banking for free. In other words, when it comes to credit cards, I want a cut of the 3% the banks are charging the vendors for each purchase I make, even if I don’t maintain a balance. Of course, I doubt this is possible in the Netherlands if everyone pays off their cards each month, because then the banks wouldn’t be profitable. But here in the States, I have the option of free-loading off those who do maintain a balance. Isn’t it wonderful?