topic Re: New Mileage Plus Visa weirdness in Credit Cards

New Mileage Plus Visa weirdness

redheadtempe36 — Tue, 23 Feb 2016 00:00:30 GMT

So, I was recently approved for a MileagePlus Visa card from Chase. The card arrived, and the CC # is on the back. The front is blank except for my name. Is this normal? Looks like this:

Re: New Mileage Plus Visa weirdness

Anonymous — Tue, 23 Feb 2016 00:10:50 GMT

My Discover is like that. Citi DC has name on the front, but acct # on back.

Re: New Mileage Plus Visa weirdness

UncleB — Tue, 23 Feb 2016 00:22:45 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
My Discover is like that. Citi DC has name on the front, but acct # on back.

I think companies now are trying change up things to be 'different', to set themselves apart from the 'pack', so to speak. LOL

Personally, as long as it gets me through the line, I'm happy.

Re: New Mileage Plus Visa weirdness

Anonymous — Tue, 23 Feb 2016 00:26:18 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
My Discover is like that. Citi DC has name on the front, but acct # on back.

Sorry, didn't realise that your name is on the front. That means my DC is exactly like that. My original Discover said just Discover (nothing more than the name) on the front.

I recently switched over to their NHL branded card (same card, only with team logo). I just pulled that out. That has the team logo and Discover on the front, all other information on that back.

Re: New Mileage Plus Visa weirdness

redpat — Tue, 23 Feb 2016 00:28:35 GMT

Nice wallet.

Re: New Mileage Plus Visa weirdness

Loquat — Tue, 23 Feb 2016 00:34:26 GMT

My Venture and Venture One cards are like that...

Re: New Mileage Plus Visa weirdness

msbia — Tue, 23 Feb 2016 00:55:19 GMT

Venture family of cards, United, Chase Sapphire Preferred...all have that distinction. Personally, I love it!

Re: New Mileage Plus Visa weirdness

Anonymous — Tue, 23 Feb 2016 01:02:12 GMT

What...are you trying to show off your card and wallet?? There are a growing number of cards like that. I would like BoA to switch to that route! Nice card and congrats!

Re: New Mileage Plus Visa weirdness

Anonymous — Tue, 23 Feb 2016 01:18:55 GMT

No, you should send it back.

..... just kidding.

Re: New Mileage Plus Visa weirdness

FinStar — Tue, 23 Feb 2016 01:28:37 GMT

@msbia wrote:
Venture family of cards, United, Chase Sapphire Preferred...all have that distinction. Personally, I love it!

Exactly.

OP, nothing weird about it but it sounds like this is the first time you've seen a United Mileage Plus CC? The Ritz is also another one.

Now, my United MP Select WEMC (no longer offered, last surviving Chase WEMCs) still has the standard embossed numbers on the front. My Venture WMC became a flat card a while back, but the numbers and name appear in smaller font (barely raised) still on the front.

Re: New Mileage Plus Visa weirdness

redheadtempe36 — Wed, 24 Feb 2016 01:09:38 GMT

Thanks all and I have to admit, not my card or wallet. . Just found the image on Google (though the card looks identical). Card worked fine today. I only asked because twice in the past 6 months I have had a merchant take an imprint of my card (1 cab and one resturant whose machine was down) and the embossed numbers on this card probably aren't "high" enough to "read".

Re: New Mileage Plus Visa weirdness

UncleB — Wed, 24 Feb 2016 02:34:57 GMT

@redheadtempe36 wrote:
Thanks all and I have to admit, not my card or wallet. . Just found the image on Google (though the card looks identical). Card worked fine today. I only asked because twice in the past 6 months I have had a merchant take an imprint of my card (1 cab and one resturant whose machine was down) and the embossed numbers on this card probably aren't "high" enough to "read".

That's the only down-side to the 'flat' cards... if there ever is a need for an impression from an old-time imprinter, you'll be out of luck.

When I got my first QS1 which was also 'flat', I was very interested in how a situation like that would be handled, however unlikely, so I looked up the merchant information on the MasterCard site. The language from MasterCard stated that if a customer presents a 'flat' card and an imprint is required for whatever reason, the merchant is allowed to ask the customer to use a different MasterCard... not exactly a solid outcome for the customer. (I didn't check the Visa sight, but I assumed the language is the same).

Honestly, the chances of this happening are slim, and like you mention, it's pretty specific situations where it would ever come up, anyway. I still kept this in the back of my mind back when the 'flat' QS1 was my only card, though. The ironic part is, not only was it never a problem, I actually had just got to really liking the card being flat (they stack easier) when Capital One decided to switch back to the old, embossed cards <sigh>.

Now I have a wallet filled with a very diverse card collection... some are flat, some embossed, one is clear, and one has the info on the back - so no matter what comes up, I've likely got one that will work. LOL

Re: New Mileage Plus Visa weirdness

Anonymous — Wed, 24 Feb 2016 03:37:00 GMT

Love Bellroy's hide and seek wallet.

Re: New Mileage Plus Visa weirdness

Anonymous — Wed, 24 Feb 2016 07:20:36 GMT

@UncleB wrote:
@redheadtempe36 wrote:
Thanks all and I have to admit, not my card or wallet. . Just found the image on Google (though the card looks identical). Card worked fine today. I only asked because twice in the past 6 months I have had a merchant take an imprint of my card (1 cab and one resturant whose machine was down) and the embossed numbers on this card probably aren't "high" enough to "read".

That's the only down-side to the 'flat' cards... if there ever is a need for an impression from an old-time imprinter, you'll be out of luck.

When I got my first QS1 which was also 'flat', I was very interested in how a situation like that would be handled, however unlikely, so I looked up the merchant information on the MasterCard site. The language from MasterCard stated that if a customer presents a 'flat' card and an imprint is required for whatever reason, the merchant is allowed to ask the customer to use a different MasterCard... not exactly a solid outcome for the customer. (I didn't check the Visa sight, but I assumed the language is the same).

Honestly, the chances of this happening are slim, and like you mention, it's pretty specific situations where it would ever come up, anyway. I still kept this in the back of my mind back when the 'flat' QS1 was my only card, though. The ironic part is, not only was it never a problem, I actually had just got to really liking the card being flat (they stack easier) when Capital One decided to switch back to the old, embossed cards <sigh>.

Now I have a wallet filled with a very diverse card collection... some are flat, some embossed, one is clear, and one has the info on the back - so no matter what comes up, I've likely got one that will work. LOL

I used to work retail (middle mgmt), and we had a long discussion about this when the flat cards first appeared. It was decided (as we always type in the numbers as soon as the system comes back up) to just write down the numbers on the standard manual imprint form.

Also, I just got my new Cap1 QS card today, and it's switched back to the embossed numbers. I really liked the flat card.

Got the new card today, and will be getting the new picture card in a couple of days. Not the all black card I wanted to try to design, but almost as cool.

Re: New Mileage Plus Visa weirdness

UncleB — Wed, 24 Feb 2016 07:36:00 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@UncleB wrote:
@redheadtempe36 wrote:
Thanks all and I have to admit, not my card or wallet. . Just found the image on Google (though the card looks identical). Card worked fine today. I only asked because twice in the past 6 months I have had a merchant take an imprint of my card (1 cab and one resturant whose machine was down) and the embossed numbers on this card probably aren't "high" enough to "read".

That's the only down-side to the 'flat' cards... if there ever is a need for an impression from an old-time imprinter, you'll be out of luck.

When I got my first QS1 which was also 'flat', I was very interested in how a situation like that would be handled, however unlikely, so I looked up the merchant information on the MasterCard site. The language from MasterCard stated that if a customer presents a 'flat' card and an imprint is required for whatever reason, the merchant is allowed to ask the customer to use a different MasterCard... not exactly a solid outcome for the customer. (I didn't check the Visa sight, but I assumed the language is the same).

Honestly, the chances of this happening are slim, and like you mention, it's pretty specific situations where it would ever come up, anyway. I still kept this in the back of my mind back when the 'flat' QS1 was my only card, though. The ironic part is, not only was it never a problem, I actually had just got to really liking the card being flat (they stack easier) when Capital One decided to switch back to the old, embossed cards <sigh>.

Now I have a wallet filled with a very diverse card collection... some are flat, some embossed, one is clear, and one has the info on the back - so no matter what comes up, I've likely got one that will work. LOL
I used to work retail (middle mgmt), and we had a long discussion about this when the flat cards first appeared. It was decided (as we always type in the numbers as soon as the system comes back up) to just write down the numbers on the standard manual imprint form.

Also, I just got my new Cap1 QS card today, and it's switched back to the embossed numbers. I really liked the flat card.

Got the new card today, and will be getting the new picture card in a couple of days. Not the all black card I wanted to try to design, but almost as cool.

+1 and +1!

My last retail job we had the exact same discussion... and 'off the record' came to the same conclusion. I didn't mention it here first since writing an entire account number down by hand is a bit more 'taboo' now than it was then, but if you're taking an imprint you're collecting the entire number anyway. We also used the imprinter for off-premise sales to company employees, and any card that wasn't able to leave an imprint always got recorded by hand on the imprint slip, and as far as I know no one ever objected.

Like you, we would promptly key the transaction when the system came back up, and it was processed as if the card didn't swipe. The low-dollar sales weren't a concern, and with high-dollar sales we knew quite a bit about the customer, so fraud/chargebacks weren't a problem. Also, since this was only necessary when the POS was down, it was rarely done to begin with.

I also grew to love the flat QS card... I suspect at some point more issuers will be changing over to that format, and perhaps Capital One will even change the QS back to the 'flat' style!