@iced wrote:
@jdbkiang wrote:While it's true that most people have 3-5 cards max, there's also plenty of savvier people who aren't necessarily as extreme as we are but still open a new card or two every now and then. On top of that, how we feel about 2/24, while not a large percentage of the population, is still important since we are a disproportionately influential population group. One of us with 20 cards affects banks overall much more than the average guy with 5 cards. Even though there may only be one percent of us overall, I'm sure that we hold faaaar more than 1% of all cobranded travel cards.
It's not about how many cards one holds, but how profitable they are to be influential with a bank. Being savvy doesn't make the card issuers more money; in fact, it probably makes them less money. Shrewd is a synonym of savvy, after all. The 20-card crowd are only going to use said card if it's going to earn them a maximum personal return. That scenario is very likely to also be the least profitable for the bank (though still profitable).
A customer who goes to a store once every other month and pays full price is going to yield a better profit long-term over one who shows up every other week but always uses a coupon or only buys something on clearance. Or, for a travel analogy, a traveler who stays at a Marriott 20 nights a year but books on marriott.com and pays the normal rate is a better customer in Marriott's eyes than one who stays 50 nights via Priceline. There's a good reason the latter type of bookings don't earn status nearly as easily.
Sorry, but people in the 20 card demographic just aren't that important and their influence is limited to forcing banks like Chase to create rules like 5/24 in the first place.
I never said we were profitable, but you're ignoring the fact that, #1, we DO travel more than most customers and therefore will use the cards more often, and #2, they care about numbers too. If you took everyone who has 10+ cobranded/travel cards away, banks would lose a huge number of cards being issued. Regardless of if they're profitable or not, there is value to them in issuing more cards and their quarterly/annual reports to have issued a set amount of cards. Why do you think Citibank kept the graavytrain going for so long? In addition, like I mentioned above, those who have a large number of travel cards actually do tend to travel more and are typically more financially "fit."
Anyway, I'm not saying that those with 20+ cards are more important. I'm just saying they are more important than this thread indicates. While we might not mean much population-wise, when it comes to cards issued, we are a sizable percentage. There's a reason Chase is 5/24, not 1/24. There's a reason Amex has the 5 credit/10 charge card rule, not a 2 credit/2 charge card rule.
[2/2019]
@iced wrote:
@jdbkiang wrote:I never said we were profitable, but you're ignoring the fact that, #1, we DO travel more than most customers and therefore will use the cards more often, and #2, they care about numbers too. If you took everyone who has 10+ cobranded/travel cards away, banks would lose a huge number of cards being issued. Regardless of if they're profitable or not, there is value to them in issuing more cards and their quarterly/annual reports to have issued a set amount of cards. Why do you think Citibank kept the graavytrain going for so long? In addition, like I mentioned above, those who have a large number of travel cards actually do tend to travel more and are typically more financially "fit."
Anyway, I'm not saying that those with 20+ cards are more important. I'm just saying they are more important than this thread indicates. While we might not mean much population-wise, when it comes to cards issued, we are a sizable percentage. There's a reason Chase is 5/24, not 1/24. There's a reason Amex has the 5 credit/10 charge card rule, not a 2 credit/2 charge card rule.I heard similar arguments from the hardcore mileage runners when airlines started adding dollar-based qualification and modified mileage earning to ticket price instead of miles flown. The airlines were making a mistake and were going to miss them when they were gone, too.
I'm not saying we matter enough to completely change the way banks operate, but there are enough people who travel frequently to still be profitable and maximize rewards. Again, if it weren't for this group of people, I'm sure Chase would have gone to 2/24 a long time ago, but they haven't. The fact that they've left it 5/24 or even decided on 5 cards to be the threshold actually shows that they do at least care a little bit.