topic Re: CapOne upgrade to World Elite Mastercard - does it really matter? in Credit Cards

CapOne upgrade to World Elite Mastercard - does it really matter?

MileHigh96 — Mon, 26 Jun 2023 14:35:38 GMT

Just got this email this morning concerning my QS card. I mean, okay, it's an upgrade, but does it really matter in the grand scheme of things? Just looking at the benefits they're pushing, they really are meaningless to me. I don't travel, which those benefits seem to favor, so what really do I get out of this upgrade, and why did they even bother with the upgrade? I guess I just don't see the point. And this upgrade shows up a couple of months after I pretty much stopped using this card as my go-to 1-1/2% daily use card, I use my NFCU card for that now.

Re: CapOne upgrade to World Elite Mastercard - does it really matter?

GZG — Mon, 26 Jun 2023 15:00:12 GMT

Congrats on the upgrade!!

I just got the same email for my QS as well.

It was my understanding they like to issue these upgrades because they can charge more merchant fees for this type of MC as opposed to the platinum version.

I wonder if this impacts PC possibility to the Savor One

There are the other benefits as you said, but they aren't likely to be things that get used. Have a look at the full benefits PDF, there might be something in there that the original email didn't mention?

Re: CapOne upgrade to World Elite Mastercard - does it really matter?

StephenH — Mon, 26 Jun 2023 15:04:21 GMT

I don't think there's much of an added benefit, specially if you had a world mastercard which just got upgraded to WEMC.

I think this is a repeat of last years WEMC upgrade wave...and I don't think it will have an impact on S1 upgrade eligibility.

Re: CapOne upgrade to World Elite Mastercard - does it really matter?

SouthJamaica — Mon, 26 Jun 2023 16:56:18 GMT

@MileHigh96 wrote:
Just got this email this morning concerning my QS card. I mean, okay, it's an upgrade, but does it really matter in the grand scheme of things? Just looking at the benefits they're pushing, they really are meaningless to me. I don't travel, which those benefits seem to favor, so what really do I get out of this upgrade, and why did they even bother with the upgrade? I guess I just don't see the point. And this upgrade shows up a couple of months after I pretty much stopped using this card as my go-to 1-1/2% daily use card, I use my NFCU card for that now.

I never use those kinds of benefits. I don't even pay attention to them. Maybe I'm wrong to be that way, but they just seem meaningless to me.

Re: CapOne upgrade to World Elite Mastercard - does it really matter?

Zoostation1 — Tue, 27 Jun 2023 04:02:19 GMT

@StephenH wrote:
I don't think there's much of an added benefit, specially if you had a world mastercard which just got upgraded to WEMC.

I think this is a repeat of last years WEMC upgrade wave...and I don't think it will have an impact on S1 upgrade eligibility.

I'm curious as to how they have determined when and which cards to upgrade to WEMC. I've yet to see any V1 cards get upgraded to WEMC even though new approvals are often issued as WEMC.

Regarding S1 upgrades I agree and there's at least one DP of someone with a card that was still plat upgrading to S1 (it became WEMC upon the PC).

Re: CapOne upgrade to World Elite Mastercard - does it really matter?

CatsFaninLex — Tue, 27 Jun 2023 03:28:41 GMT

I also received this email this morning. It seems like a big batch of us did.

Re: CapOne upgrade to World Elite Mastercard - does it really matter?

Anonymous — Tue, 27 Jun 2023 04:48:08 GMT

@GZG wrote:

It was my understanding they like to issue these upgrades because they can charge more merchant fees for this type of MC as opposed to the platinum version.

Basically this, a higher swipe for a higher-tier card and very little use of the benefts, so really all upside for the issuer (this is how $500 WEMC became a thing). And if a benefit such as cell phone protection starts costing them too much, no problem, they can just opt-out of that benefit, while still keeping the enhanced swipe fee.

I assume there must be SOME restraining force somewhere, otherwise all issuers would make all cards premium, although it sounds like that is almost happening with some.

The justification behind the higher swipe fee is that premium cards belong to premium customers who are going to spend more. With the complete breaking of this model, I would think merchants would try to rebel. "Why I am paying top fees for a group of cards with often $500 CL and almost no MC benefits??" Of course, most merchants who aren't on credit card forums might not realize that standards have changed so drastically.

Re: CapOne upgrade to World Elite Mastercard - does it really matter?

NoMoreE46 — Tue, 27 Jun 2023 17:03:07 GMT

@Zoostation1 wrote:

I'm curious as to how they have determined when and which cards to upgrade to WEMC. I've yet to see any V1 cards get upgraded to WEMC even though new approvals are often issued as WEMC.

Regarding S1 upgrades I agree and there's at least one DP of someone with a card that was still plat upgrading to S1 (it became WEMC upon the PC).

Aren't all of the Venture suite cards on Visa?

Re: CapOne upgrade to World Elite Mastercard - does it really matter?

Anonymalous — Tue, 27 Jun 2023 17:30:36 GMT

I thought all the MasterCards were upgraded last year. But since that's not the case, I'm also wondering about the criteria. They're clearly not aiming at the more premium tranches first -- I was bucketed at $300 when they upgraded my QS Platinum to a WEMC. Though if it's based on credit score at the time of the upgrade (as opposed to the profile at time of application), I did have pretty high scores.

Re: CapOne upgrade to World Elite Mastercard - does it really matter?

Anonymalous — Tue, 27 Jun 2023 17:44:30 GMT

@SouthJamaica wrote:
I never use those kinds of benefits. I don't even pay attention to them. Maybe I'm wrong to be that way, but they just seem meaningless to me.

The Cap1 WEMC benefits amount to a fairly broad range of travel and purchase protections. Combined with the no FTF, it becomes a decent basic travel card. Not something someone with a dedicated travel card with an AF would typically care about, but it provides a bit of a safety net to those who don't. The purchase protections are also decent for relatively high value/high risk purchases, like a new laptop.

Re: CapOne upgrade to World Elite Mastercard - does it really matter?

Zoostation1 — Wed, 28 Jun 2023 00:05:01 GMT

@NoMoreE46 wrote:

Aren't all of the Venture suite cards on Visa?

Venture and VX are Visa, while VentureOne is MC. IIRC, at one time 10+ years ago V1 was Visa, and my understanding is only some really old cards and downgrades from Venture are. New approvals are WEMC and there's a significant number that are platinum as a result of a PC from QS1.

Re: CapOne upgrade to World Elite Mastercard - does it really matter?

GZG — Thu, 29 Jun 2023 05:18:40 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@GZG wrote:

It was my understanding they like to issue these upgrades because they can charge more merchant fees for this type of MC as opposed to the platinum version.

Basically this, a higher swipe for a higher-tier card and very little use of the benefts, so really all upside for the issuer (this is how $500 WEMC became a thing). And if a benefit such as cell phone protection starts costing them too much, no problem, they can just opt-out of that benefit, while still keeping the enhanced swipe fee.

I assume there must be SOME restraining force somewhere fraud maybe? perhaps they have some way to exploit those benefits so they only want to give them to accounts they think are legitimate?, otherwise all issuers would make all cards premium, although it sounds like that is almost happening with some.

The justification behind the higher swipe fee is that premium cards belong to premium customers who are going to spend more. I find this weird, because it's not like merchant agreements allow them to discriminate between the types of MC/Visas they are allowed to accept right? Merchants can't say "i'll accept Visa, but only debit visa and visa sig, not Visa Infinite" right? With the complete breaking of this model, I would think merchants would try to rebel. "Why I am paying top fees for a group of cards with often $500 CL and almost no MC benefits??" Of course, most merchants who aren't on credit card forums might not realize that standards have changed so drastically.

personally, the fact that they didn't go out of their way to send out new cards is just a giant 'we're doing this for our benefit, not yours, you're not even worth shipping out a card it took us 50 cents to produce and 50 cents to ship'

Re: CapOne upgrade to World Elite Mastercard - does it really matter?

GZG — Mon, 03 Jul 2023 22:23:17 GMT

@GZG wrote:
personally, the fact that they didn't go out of their way to send out new cards is just a giant 'we're doing this for our benefit, not yours, you're not even worth shipping out a card it took us 50 cents to produce and 50 cents to ship'

got my replacement card today, and it seems somebody had it out for me and proceeded to use about 7x the amount of glue needed to attach the card to the paper

funny, but the card is much nicer looking and less rebuilding looking to carry around with it being a WEMC and having the silver MC logo

Re: CapOne upgrade to World Elite Mastercard - does it really matter?

cyberbuilder — Tue, 04 Jul 2023 21:27:32 GMT

I had been notified that my Quicksilver Student card was upgraded to WEMC on Monday. It's interesting timing considering I had requested a CLI on it since it's been 11 months since I was given a paltry $300 SL... CLI was denied but I was approved for a SavorOne with a $10k CL the day after being denied the CLI. Very interesting business decisions going on over at C1.

Considering this high SL (over 50% of my reported AGI) on my new SavorOne but no CLI for the QS Student, I'd bet with everyone elses' idea that this is a strategy to get higher swipe fees in addition to making more money on balance-carrying accounts.

Re: CapOne upgrade to World Elite Mastercard - does it really matter?

elboullee — Tue, 04 Jul 2023 21:36:26 GMT

@cyberbuilder wrote:
I had been notified that my Quicksilver Student card was upgraded to WEMC on Monday. It's interesting timing considering I had requested a CLI on it since it's been 11 months since I was given a paltry $300 SL... CLI was denied but I was approved for a SavorOne with a $10k CL the day after being denied the CLI. Very interesting business decisions going on over at C1.

Considering this high SL (over 50% of my reported AGI) on my new SavorOne but no CLI for the QS Student, I'd bet with everyone elses' idea that this is a strategy to get higher swipe fees in addition to making more money on balance-carrying accounts.

You've no obligation to respond of course but I have to admit that I'm curious about your DPs in going from a student QS with a $300 limit on one day to a SavorOne with $10K limit the next.

Re: CapOne upgrade to World Elite Mastercard - does it really matter?

cyberbuilder — Wed, 05 Jul 2023 22:13:43 GMT

I'm being completely truthful about that. Never exceeded the CL on the savor, and hasn't been used for most of the months I've had it. Only activity is UberOne subscription on that card. It feels incredibly irresponsible to hand out a 10K limit to a college student with exactly 11 months of credit history. Not complaining though! As a consideration though, I believe C1 uses demand deposit balances in underwriting. I could've sworn there was an authorization or notice, etc. during the app process. My checking acc with C1 is sizable, and large transactions are frequent on debit. Another consideration is that I was an authorized user on a card since a few months after I was born. Still trying to get my HTML signature updated here

DPs:

Reported AGI - (edited: between 12k and 15k)

First card (QS Student) in Aug '22.

EX8: 743 as of today.

Re: CapOne upgrade to World Elite Mastercard - does it really matter?

elboullee — Sat, 08 Jul 2023 05:31:07 GMT

@cyberbuilder wrote:
I'm being completely truthful about that. Never exceeded the CL on the savor, and hasn't been used for most of the months I've had it. Only activity is UberOne subscription on that card. It feels incredibly irresponsible to hand out a 10K limit to a college student with exactly 11 months of credit history. Not complaining though! As a consideration though, I believe C1 uses demand deposit balances in underwriting. I could've sworn there was an authorization or notice, etc. during the app process. My checking acc with C1 is sizable, and large transactions are frequent on debit. Another consideration is that I was an authorized user on a card since a few months after I was born. Still trying to get my HTML signature updated here
DPs:
Reported AGI - (edited: between 12k and 15k)
First card (QS Student) in Aug '22.
EX8: 743 as of today.

I wasn't questioning whether or not you were being honest.

I was just genuinely curious about your data points.

Re: CapOne upgrade to World Elite Mastercard - does it really matter?

binaryhermit — Sat, 08 Jul 2023 22:26:34 GMT

@elboullee wrote:
You've no obligation to respond of course but I have to admit that I'm curious about your DPs in going from a student QS with a $300 limit on one day to a SavorOne with $10K limit the next.

Capital One is notorious for bucketing their accounts based on your creditworthiness when you applied for the card due to the way they package accounts as asset backed securities. Look up the "Capital One Multi-asset Execution Trust" or "COMET".

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/General-Credit-Topics/Credit-Card-Asset-Backed-Securities-ABS-and-why-some-subprime/m-p/5083619

Re: CapOne upgrade to World Elite Mastercard - does it really matter?

galahad15 — Mon, 24 Jul 2023 04:10:12 GMT

@NoMoreE46 wrote:
@Zoostation1 wrote:
I'm curious as to how they have determined when and which cards to upgrade to WEMC. I've yet to see any V1 cards get upgraded to WEMC even though new approvals are often issued as WEMC.

Regarding S1 upgrades I agree and there's at least one DP of someone with a card that was still plat upgrading to S1 (it became WEMC upon the PC).

Aren't all of the Venture suite cards on Visa?

IME, I have a MC-based Venture.

Re: CapOne upgrade to World Elite Mastercard - does it really matter?

Drew1980 — Wed, 09 Aug 2023 06:33:09 GMT

Yep it's all a scam. All credit card companies are scammers. They just know how to bundle up the BS in a way we will eat it up but that's for another thread. The only useful benefit, I feel, are the hotel offers: Visa signature hotels, fine hotels and resorts, etc.