topic Re: World MC vs Regular MC? in Credit Cards

World MC vs Regular MC?

Anonymous — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 05:27:07 GMT

Can anyone explain the difference between the World MasterCards and the regular MasterCards?

Are they different tiers? Are there other tiers?

Re: World MC vs Regular MC?

Anonymous — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 05:34:47 GMT

World MCs have no preset spending limit. Most of them don't report a CL. Many of them also come with a concierge service, and many issuers have a minimum CL for World MCs (like $5K or so).

The equivalent Visa product type is called a Signature Visa.

That's about it, as far as I know.

Re: World MC vs Regular MC?

Anonymous — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 12:59:40 GMT

You can check out some of the differences between MasterCards at--

http://www.mastercard.com/us/personal/en/aboutourcards/credit/index.html

watchnerd, if I recall correctly, you have a few Bank of America cards. Most of Bank of America's no pre-set spending limit cards (with the exception of their Alaskan Airlines card) do report credit limits accurately to the 3 CRAs.

Re: World MC vs Regular MC?

Anonymous — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 13:25:25 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
You can check out some of the differences between MasterCards at--

http://www.mastercard.com/us/personal/en/aboutourcards/credit/index.html

watchnerd, if I recall correctly, you have a few Bank of America cards. Most of Bank of America's no pre-set spending limit cards (with the exception of their Alaskan Airlines card) do report credit limits accurately to the 3 CRAs.

My Visa Signature certainly doesn't report a credit limit accurately; is the Alaska Airlines card also a Visa Signature?

My Accolades Amex card reports a limit. To try to clarify the situation. I called up BofA CSR and asked if the Accolades Amex had a hard limit or not. She gave me some bizarre answer like "Because you are a longstanding Bank of America customer in good standing, you can exceed the limit on all your cards, provided you pay the overage at the end of the billing cycle."

Not sure I believe her....

Message Edited by watchnerd on 04-12-2008 06:25 AM

Re: World MC vs Regular MC?

Anonymous — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 17:26:35 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

@Anonymous wrote:

You can check out some of the differences between MasterCards at--

http://www.mastercard.com/us/personal/en/aboutourcards/credit/index.html

watchnerd, if I recall correctly, you have a few Bank of America cards. Most of Bank of America's no pre-set spending limit cards (with the exception of their Alaskan Airlines card) do report credit limits accurately to the 3 CRAs.

My Visa Signature certainly doesn't report a credit limit accurately; isn't the Alaska Airlines card also a Visa Signature?

My Accolades Amex card reports a limit. To try to clarify the situation. I called up BofA CSR and asked if the Accolades Amex had a hard limit or not. She gave me some bizarre answer like "Because you are a longstanding Bank of America customer in good standing, you can exceed the limit on all your cards, provided you pay the overage at the end of the billing cycle."

Not sure I believe that....

My parents have a BoA Visa Signature with WorldPoints that does report a credit limit accurately. I believe the Alaskan Airlines card is a Visa Signature.

What type of BoA Visa Signature card do you have?

Message Edited by psychic on 04-12-2008 10:26 AM

Re: World MC vs Regular MC?

Anonymous — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 13:59:26 GMT

The benefit of the World Card or Signature card is you can spend over the preset limit without penalty. For instance, you have a $30,000 World Card M/C or Signature Visa. You and your significant other travel to Italy and spend $35,000 on the card. When the statement comes out you automatically have to pay the $5000 overage on the spot plus your regular payment. NO over-the-limit fee is assessed.

As far as reporting the limit to the CRA, whatever the highest charged amount to the card is the highest credit limit reported to the CRA. Some people will take a cash advance out and payback immediately to take advantage of the reported limits. Others have called the issuer and asked them to report the preset limit as the credit limit.

Message Edited by FaircreditguyFL on 04-12-2008 06:59 AM

Re: World MC vs Regular MC?

Anonymous — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 14:47:37 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

My parents have a BoA Visa Signature with WorldPoints that does report a credit limit accurately. I believe the Alaskan Airlines card is a Visa Signature.

What type of BoA Visa Signature card do you have?

Really? Any idea how they got it to do that?? Which ones is it?

I've got the unaffiliated black BofA Visa Sig, the one shown here:

https://wwwa.applyonlinenow.com/USCCapp/Ctl/entry?sc=FAB798&adlink=000009029ao30000j125

At least for me, it definitely doesn't report its 'soft' credit line on credit reports, showing instead the highest credit line ever used.

Re: World MC vs Regular MC?

Anonymous — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 17:25:46 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

@Anonymous wrote:

My parents have a BoA Visa Signature with WorldPoints that does report a credit limit accurately. I believe the Alaskan Airlines card is a Visa Signature.

What type of BoA Visa Signature card do you have?

Really? Any idea how they got it to do that?? Which ones is it?

I've got the unaffiliated black BofA Visa Sig, the one shown here:

https://wwwa.applyonlinenow.com/USCCapp/Ctl/entry?sc=FAB798&adlink=000009029ao30000j125

At least for me, it definitely doesn't report its 'soft' credit line on credit reports, showing instead the highest credit line ever used.

My parents have the same black card. They did not contact BoA or any of the CRAs to insure the credit line reports. In fact, in late January, I checked their 3 reports and saw the credit line properly reporting.

This is perplexing.

Re: World MC vs Regular MC?

Anonymous — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 17:38:29 GMT

Did they perhaps upgrade or convert to a Visa Signature card from a more normal card?

Perhaps that would have had that effect?

Re: World MC vs Regular MC?

Anonymous — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 17:51:15 GMT

watchnerd wrote:
Did they perhaps upgrade or convert to a Visa Signature card from a more normal card?

Perhaps that would have had that effect?

Most of their accounts are older accounts. Given that Signature/World cards haven't been around that long, I'm going to assume that somehow the card was converted from some another type of Visa card. I know that my parents don't ever contact credit card companies for product changes, so the conversion must have been automatically performed by Bank of America.

Re: World MC vs Regular MC?

Anonymous — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 19:33:32 GMT

psychic, perhaps I'm inferring too much, but is the World MC that you were referring to as reporting a CL correctly to the CRAs also one of your parents?

Or were you thinking of some different examples?

Re: World MC vs Regular MC?

Anonymous — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 23:54:38 GMT

My parents don't have a the World MC. The reason I mentioned the BoA World card was that I assumed since other members weren't having reporting problems with their BoA Visa Signature cards, that BoA World MC cardholders also wouldn't be experiencing problems. In fact, I can't recall any forum members posting about BoA World MCs not reporting credit lines. However, I could be mistaken. I also recall a member stating that they were told by a BoA customer service rep that most of their Signature and World cards do report credit lines accurately, as "revolving," to the CRAs.

With regards to the BoA Signature Visa card, I did find this post--

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/fico/board/message?board.id=creditcard&message.id=11756#M11756

Re: World MC vs Regular MC?

Anonymous — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 00:09:21 GMT

So continuing to get off topic, but, hey it's my own thread, so what the heck:

I called BofA today and talked to a woman in the credit department, not regular frontline customer service. She said it's normal and expected for no limit cards like the Visa Signature to not report a credit line to the CRAs. I didn't ask her about the World MasterCards.

So, psychic, whatever allowed your parents to have the best of both worlds seems to be a happy accident, not the norm.

Re: World MC vs Regular MC?

Anonymous — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 02:58:15 GMT

It appears that BoA is being more cautious about their pronouncements regarding Signature/World cards.

Your post is important because given we've had generally positive feedback regarding BoA Signature/World cards reporting credit lines accurately. We now have to change the way we look at this issuer's cards. In fact, in July, I'm planning to do a product change from a BoA WorldPoints Visa to a BoA World MC with WorldPoints. Now, I'm having second thoughts.

Message Edited by psychic on 04-12-2008 07:58 PM

Re: World MC vs Regular MC?

Anonymous — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 00:37:00 GMT

Well, before you have second thoughts, I didn't ask her about the World MC. I was asking her about the Visa Sig.