Consumers Unhappy With Card Perks and More

[FireMedic1]

Cracks Are Starting to Appear in Consumer Spending, Warns Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser. And the Worst May Be Yet to Come.

Credit Card Losses Are Rising at the Fastest Pace Since the Great Financial Crisis

Supreme Court Takes the Case Against Credit Card Swipe Fees

Is This the Number 1 Biggest Risk for Both Visa and Mastercard?

Citi Launches BNPL Option for Costco Anywhere Visa Cardholders

American Express Is Bringing Back Member Week

https://www.forbes.com/sites/billhardekopf/2023/10/05/this-week-in-credit-card-news-consumers-unhapp... 

[MarkintheHV]

I hope I am wrong here, but, I bet they get that bill passed, and watch all the rewards go away or annual fees will be increased.  Look what happened back in 2010ish when they did this with debit cards.  You used to be able to earn rewards from your debit cards, and once they mandated the changes to the swipe interchange fees, those rewards disappeared.  

I for one am becoming dissatisfied with some of my rewards out there (specifically with Amex).  It seems like they are moving the goal posts for rewards levels while increasing annual fees.  Just look at the Platinum and Delta cards.  The platinum now is $195 per authorized user vs. the previous $175 for three authorized users.  That in itself told me it was time to downgrade my Amex platinum to green because I can now no longer justify the annual fees vs the benefits I receive.  Delta has an uprising on their hands (so bad they are rolling some of the changes they made back) due to the major changes to the Skymiles/Lounge access program.  I think they underestimated the amount of customers closing their skymiles credit cards (yes, mine are being closed as the annual fees get charged).  I suspect that the cashback cards will suffer a long with the other rewards programs.  Makes me wonder how my beloved NFCU Flagship card will fare.

I have decided that my Amex lineup with shrink to a green charge card (need to do this to keep the age of my platinum card), and will probably downgrade my BCP to BCE (keep this one alive for the age as well) once the annual fee posts.  I will keep my Citi/American alive since I travel a lot between NYC and Texas and this card does a lot for me.  NFCU is golden with me, never a complaint and they have always treated me well.  The rest of the trash cards in the sock drawer are going to be closed.  I think I have enough avaiable credit in my wallet, and with my scores running between 790-810 I really dont need to do anything.

We are in for some changing times myFico'rs

[Thomas_Thumb]

I'm ok with reduced rewards on no AF cards. Swipe fees need to be held in check. Many merchants are now adding a 2% surcharge for credit card use to offset card fees or refusing to take high fee cards.

I don't like that trend. Do you want to go back to checks, cash or direct withdrawl from accounts to avoid merchant surcharges?

I certainly don't want to be forced into paying annual fees on my no AF cards. Those with lower spend levels get hurt the most when annual fees are imposed on their cards.