Amex claims they are going to crack down on gaming credit cards

[red259]

The article says it all. I'm not sure what Amex needs to do with churning. As it is, in most cases at least, you can only get the signup bonus on an amex card once in a lifetime. I think the more interesting question is how they plan to retain the customers they want. This leads me to wonder if what they have in mind is doing away with large signup offers and try to structure the signup offers and benefits in a way to encourage spend over a longer period of time. The everyday preferred was an interesting approach with the needing of 30 transactions to trigger the bonus points.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-08/amex-seeks-to-weed-out-credit-card-churners-chasi...

[sarge12]

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@red259 wrote:

The article says it all. I'm not sure what Amex needs to do with churning. As it is, in most cases at least, you can only get the signup bonus on an amex card once in a lifetime. I think the more interesting question is how they plan to retain the customers they want. This leads me to wonder if what they have in mind is doing away with large signup offers and try to structure the signup offers and benefits in a way to encourage spend over a longer period of time. The everyday preferred was an interesting approach with the needing of 30 transactions to trigger the bonus points.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-08/amex-seeks-to-weed-out-credit-card-churners-chasi...

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This is actually quite funny...the credit card issuers offer these attractive bonuses to draw new customers, their competition does the same...what would they think would happen. IMHO, they should not offer a bunch of cash as a bribe, then get mad because people take it.

[austinguy907]

They've already been tinkering with bonuses over extended periods.  Last summer/fall there was one where you got 25K points after X spend and anniversary of 10K points or something along those lines on ED/P IIRC.  They  also do the BCE promo and then after you're still around they'll offer an additional upgrade bonus with X spend for an upgrade.  I don't really see AMEX as a CHURN target anyway with how things are already structured.  Maybe I'm wrong since everyone around here seem to have 4-6 of their cards in their signature

[red259]

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@austinguy907 wrote:

They've already been tinkering with bonuses over extended periods.  Last summer/fall there was one where you got 25K points after X spend and anniversary of 10K points or something along those lines on ED/P IIRC.  They  also do the BCE promo and then after you're still around they'll offer an additional upgrade bonus with X spend for an upgrade.  I don't really see AMEX as a CHURN target anyway with how things are already structured.  Maybe I'm wrong since everyone around here seem to have 4-6 of their cards in their signature

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I don't know if I would call it churning but people certainly signup for the high signup offers than ditch the card on some of their premium offerings like the plat card. The only cards I have left to get with amex are the business plat and the delta cards. Pretty much I will wait on all those cards until a high signup offer comes out though. That being said my amex business spg card and my everyday card get a lot of spend from me through out the year, so I think amex does alright with me as a customer.  

[Anonymous]

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@red259 wrote:

The article says it all. I'm not sure what Amex needs to do with churning. As it is, in most cases at least, you can only get the signup bonus on an amex card once in a lifetime. I think the more interesting question is how they plan to retain the customers they want. This leads me to wonder if what they have in mind is doing away with large signup offers and try to structure the signup offers and benefits in a way to encourage spend over a longer period of time. The everyday preferred was an interesting approach with the needing of 30 transactions to trigger the bonus points.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-08/amex-seeks-to-weed-out-credit-card-churners-chasi...

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Lots of new things they can do:

Treat branded cards as same product? 

Sprinkle lots of FRs and point freezes to warn people that AMEX is not the one to mess with?

Better detection of MS and agreements with partners to clawback points from even your SPG or Delta account?

Continue to crank down on "air incidental credit", including gift cards?

Bar amazon reloads from count as 30 transactions/month?

And at the end of the day many wouldn't care or even notice these.

[red259]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@red259 wrote:

The article says it all. I'm not sure what Amex needs to do with churning. As it is, in most cases at least, you can only get the signup bonus on an amex card once in a lifetime. I think the more interesting question is how they plan to retain the customers they want. This leads me to wonder if what they have in mind is doing away with large signup offers and try to structure the signup offers and benefits in a way to encourage spend over a longer period of time. The everyday preferred was an interesting approach with the needing of 30 transactions to trigger the bonus points.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-08/amex-seeks-to-weed-out-credit-card-churners-chasing-rewards

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Lots of new things they can do:

Treat branded cards as same product? 

Sprinkle lots of FRs and point freezes to warn people that AMEX is not the one to mess with?

Better detection of MS and agreements with partners to clawback points from even your SPG or Delta account?

Continue to crank down on "air incidental credit", including gift cards?

Bar amazon reloads from count as 30 transactions/month?

And at the end of the day many wouldn't care or even notice these.

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Yea well if they started using FRs to harrass people or whatever I would close all my accounts with them. That would be a good way to kill their business off. I don't even know what you mean with the amazon reloads but if I needed 30 transactions it wouldn't be difficult since I tend to go to the store everyday vs people in rural areas who may shop oince a week in bulk. 

[Anonymous]

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@red259 wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@red259 wrote:

The article says it all. I'm not sure what Amex needs to do with churning. As it is, in most cases at least, you can only get the signup bonus on an amex card once in a lifetime. I think the more interesting question is how they plan to retain the customers they want. This leads me to wonder if what they have in mind is doing away with large signup offers and try to structure the signup offers and benefits in a way to encourage spend over a longer period of time. The everyday preferred was an interesting approach with the needing of 30 transactions to trigger the bonus points.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-08/amex-seeks-to-weed-out-credit-card-churners-chasing-rewards

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Lots of new things they can do:

Treat branded cards as same product? 

Sprinkle lots of FRs and point freezes to warn people that AMEX is not the one to mess with?

Better detection of MS and agreements with partners to clawback points from even your SPG or Delta account?

Continue to crank down on "air incidental credit", including gift cards?

Bar amazon reloads from count as 30 transactions/month?

And at the end of the day many wouldn't care or even notice these.

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Yea well if they started using FRs to harrass people or whatever I would close all my accounts with them. That would be a good way to kill their business off. I don't even know what you mean with the amazon reloads but if I needed 30 transactions it wouldn't be difficult since I tend to go to the store everyday vs people in rural areas who may shop oince a week in bulk. 

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Agreed about it being the worst they could do in general, but with sufficient data indicating that customer X is of "low quality" (such as, only ever shops in best reward category and carries no balance thus incurs a net loss for AMEX year after year?) anyways it might make sense to just scare customer X off.

While using credit card 30x/month is not hard, I wouldn't image many being able to naturally hit that amount in supermarkets and gas stations alone (only bonus categories for EDP) consistently whether they live in an urban or rural location, especially when you consider that there are potentially other cards to choose from (such as right now there's 5x UR for freedom and 5% for discover at gas stations). Thus some need to use 'amazon reload' if they don't want to use EDP at 1% locations when they could have used a 3% or 3x card, which, of course, is not great for AMEX as the point of 30x/month is to force people to use EDP at 1% locations, and not for $0.5 per transaction.

[sarge12]

I hope that if credit card issuers read this they get a good understanding of how I, and many others feel. My brother was a struggeling photographer who unfortunately had a negative net worth and owed about 15k on credit cards...which he made the monthly payments on like clockwork. About 12 years ago, at 49yo he had a heart attack and died. There was not enough assets to bury him, and my then 77 year old mother had to withdraw from her savings to do that. Me and my sister were appointed executors of his estate by the probate court. He was barely buried before the credit card issuers were calling multiple times a day, wanting their money. They even went so far as to say that us and our mother would dishoner his memory if we did not pay...and we were crooked. Nobody in the family signed these credit apps except him. How dare they try to browbeat my mother who was having a hard time with the loss. I gave them his current address of the cemetary and told them they could feel free to go discuss the debt with him, but they had better leave my mother alone. So excuse me if I feel no loyalty to any credit card issuers....you are not my friends, you will not be there if I get hospitalized. You are a business relationship...and that is all. Just giving me rewards will not make me feel I should be loyal when another issuer offers a better deal...sorry!!!!

[blondy250]

Credit card rewards are somewhat a recent phenomenon of the last 25-30 years. The CC companies loyalty is to there investors (as it should be) so if the return on rewards don't result in positive returns then its totally understandable for the companies to drastically scale them back.

[sarge12]

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@blondy250 wrote:

Credit card rewards are somewhat a recent phenomenon of the last 25-30 years. The CC companies loyalty is to there investors (as it should be) so if the return on rewards don't result in positive returns then its totally understandable for the companies to drastically scale them back.

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I agree...the credit card issuers are only loyal to their stockholders, and their customers should only be responsible for their selves and family. The credit card issuers should not be surprised when after getting a 150 dollar bonus, their customers choose to use a 2% cash back card as opposed to their 1% cash back card. The card giving 2% cash back should also not be shocked when their customers temporarily stop using their card to get some 150 dollar bonus from a new card. They can call this gaming the system all they want, I just see it as people doing what is in their own best interest...nothing dishonest or wrong about it. The credit card industry is a business...not a friend.