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No company, no matter what potential customers, is going to keep something around that is losing them massive amounts of money. People that owned businesses were paying bills with the card, which would be thousands per month; a lot higher than consumer bills. Either US Bank would keep the bill pay category and end up like Washington Mutual, or get rid of it and just take a minor loss. Anyone remember the 5% for six months AARP card from Chase? There are always people who will ruin something for everyone by going way too far
@navigatethis12 wrote:No company, no matter what potential customers, is going to keep something around that is losing them massive amounts of money. People that owned businesses were paying bills with the card, which would be thousands per month; a lot higher than consumer bills. Either US Bank would keep the bill pay category and end up like Washington Mutual, or get rid of it and just take a minor loss. Anyone remember the 5% for six months AARP card from Chase? There are always people who will ruin something for everyone by going way too far
Yes, but "way too far" is so subjective. I would think that most would think paying a phone bill/utility bill of say $100 - $200 a month was ok (use as intended). $10M a month, probably not! But in between it depends on so many factors, such as CL and income. And it really is the responsibility of the bank to set limits if they are concerned.
The aggressive view is parallel to yours: "someone somewhere is going to get it shut down eventually no matter what I do, so I should take as much advantage now as I can". Tragedy of the Commons in action again.
@longtimelurker wrote:Yes, but "way too far" is so subjective. I would think that most would think paying a phone bill/utility bill of say $100 - $200 a month was ok (use as intended). $10M a month, probably not! But in between it depends on so many factors, such as CL and income. And it really is the responsibility of the bank to set limits if they are concerned.
The aggressive view is parallel to yours: "someone somewhere is going to get it shut down eventually no matter what I do, so I should take as much advantage now as I can". Tragedy of the Commons in action again.
Well since it was a personal card, any bills being paid that are for a business is too far. 1,000 a month would be a $50 loss for them and two months would be $125 if the person redeemed when they got to $100. That's not that bad, since the rate on the card isn't that low and there are likely people that carry balances with them. Turn it into 10,000 a month and that's obviously not something they are going to just sit back and take. I think you can judge too far as when you would not want to have it done to you. I know people will say it's a huge bank and they deserve it, but not really. I am guilty of buying cash equivilants and signing up for cards and bank accounts just for the bonus, but I would never dream of buying as many cards as some people do.
I wouldn't say that they are a huge bank so they deserve it, but I would say that I have no idea of their P+L model, so maybe 1% of people paying $10,000 a month is fine, or maybe 0.01% paying $500 a month is a huge problem. I shouldn't have to really guess (or compare it to what I would want done to me), when they could have quite easily placed caps, avoiding those who want to get too much and still offering "reasonable" customers an attractive deal.
That said, the Cash Plus and BCP/BCE approach, of changing the program even if annoys customers, seems far superior to the Chase/Citi procedure of identify targets, close their accounts and make them forfeit all their points. In some ways Amex and Cash Plus are admitting responsibility for not having the correct model, Chase/Citi are saying "You have found holes in our program and that isn't what we meant..."
I'm going to do only about 2k in VRs per month or so per card that gets me extra points. I'm going to supplement those with some other options, and I should be fine. I'm going to get what I need and just a bit more so I can earn rewards for some trips.
@FutureBillionaire wrote:I'm going to do only about 2k in VRs per month or so per card that gets me extra points. I'm going to supplement those with some other options, and I should be fine. I'm going to get what I need and just a bit more so I can earn rewards for some trips.
That is the problem, you have absolutely no idea that that will be fine. If they get very aggressive, any identifiable manufactured spend could be cause for AA. Yes, 2K is less likely than 200K, but you don't have the assurance. And from some viewpoint, the additional 10K TY points might not be worth the small risk. (This leads to "don't do it at all or do it big" school of thought!)
That said, I sort of agree, although I plan 5-8K, a month.
@longtimelurker wrote:
@FutureBillionaire wrote:I'm going to do only about 2k in VRs per month or so per card that gets me extra points. I'm going to supplement those with some other options, and I should be fine. I'm going to get what I need and just a bit more so I can earn rewards for some trips.
That is the problem, you have absolutely no idea that that will be fine. If they get very aggressive, any identifiable manufactured spend could be cause for AA. Yes, 2K is less likely than 200K, but you don't have the assurance. And from some viewpoint, the additional 10K TY points might not be worth the small risk. (This leads to "don't do it at all or do it big" school of thought!)
That said, I sort of agree, although I plan 5-8K, a month.
I agree with you. We don't know what they will do. But, they want us to use the card. As long as it looks like I use the card normally in addition to this, I have to be ok I'm assuming.