This has been so blown out of proportion, it's ridiculous. CDC requires something like a 7.3% mortality rate for something to be considered an epidemic and yet, at 3.4%, this is being claimed to be an epidemic. The flu is being estimated to kill between 20-52k in the u.s. alone this season, yet nobody is batting an eye. Just like they don't every year.
@ACW3rdIM wrote:If I may ask this here (mods, if I should post this as its own thread, I'm happy to delete this and repost elsewhere), out of curiosity, do credit card companies adjust their approval/rejection criteria or algorithms or whatever based on what's happening in the news? I wouldn't be surprised if the number of applications for more travel-oriented cards and/or the co-branded airline and hotel cards among the various issuers was about to hit an all time low, or if the number of applications for cards geared more toward day-to-day use on things like groceries was surging.
My favorite avaition and travel podcasts I listen to have all opined over the last several days that the coronavirus will be catastrophic for the travel industry, and that we're already seeing airlines and cruise operators start to panic because sales are WAY down. Just made me wonder if card issuers might, in the upcoming weeks to months, be BEGGING people to apply for, say, the high annual fee airline card (because absolutely nobody is gonna want to fly) and it'll therefore be easier to acquire one if you need it, but at the same time they WON'T want to be approving a lot of zero- or low-AF cards with multipliers on stuff like gasoline and groceries (including toilet paper and hand sanitizer).
Or I may have it backward. Anyone?
I wouldn't say it's the "news," per se that FI policies are adjusted as result, but "financial climate." The international market reaction to the corona has been brewing, and is here, but strongly considers the future/projected profit or loss. I feel that, for credit issuers, an adjustment is being made to more conservative policy due to lowering interest rates, Brexit/political climate yada yada, and people are predicting a recession at varying degrees.
Corona is a factor, the travel FI community is being affected as we speak, and there are talks of tax relief or something of the like so that these companies feel it less. Ticket prices dip a bit and travel deals due to supply and demand? Probably. As for credit card approvals? My answer is "maybe," but I do not feel it will be as specific as you're thinking. "The only thing that stays the same is that everything changes," and while this is indeed a big "news" story, a lot more goes into CC policy than epidemic to create an instant response as clear as "push higher AF travel cards for quick profit margins." I would say this would trade one financial disaster for another, if those who normally would not qualify are approved and then default for example.
As said on here often, those of us that have such a keen interest in credit and maximizing CC value are a small sample of the FI world overall. And these FI's don't have all their eggs in one basket, not these days. But! if the repercussions of "news" like this were predictable then we would all be comfortably retired!
As technology increases the perceptive size of the world decreases, it's absolutely a valid question!
I studied Ebola back in the 90's, and up until the most recent outbreak nobody knew that Reston, Virginia had and suffered from it's very own strain of the virus way back when, the animal of information is completely different now even compared to the SARS times. Information is a blessing and a curse. It's tough to know what media outlets to trust (probably none), what people who influence the FI's will do, and other repercussions (oil today, yikes). Will they ever declare a pandemic a "natural disaster" or "act of God" in financial terms, interesting to ponder!
