Credit Card Companies Reward You For…Not Using Your Card?
The fight for your spending on credit cards has never been more intense. With the consolidation of credit card issuers into the big banks, there is a greater to maximize revenue on existing accounts particularly since it takes an average of 5 years for a credit to break-even after the initial acquisitions cost.
This explains why I received the following pieces of mail from CapitalOne and Citi:
Essentially the banks are offering me unspecified bonuses just for not using their card. The data analysis on your personal spending behavior is becoming increasingly sophisticated. Based on experience the banks will assess your recent behavior to past behavior to determine how valuable you are to them and based on this valuation they will associate how lucrative an offer you will receive upon getting this notice.
For example, if you frequently carried a balance and paid finance charges you will be given a lower APR, more points, or a balance transfer just to use their card again.
To be more customer-centric, no specific offer is given but an invite to call into an inbound channel. The customer service representative will assess what is the best offer for you through a standard dialogue and give you an offer that is predetermined. To test this out, I called CapitalOne and to my dismay got only a 6.99% APR balance transfer. What a joke. However, this is probably due to the fact that I almost never use their card and didn’t have a high valuation. In turn, I called Citi and received a 2.99% APR balance transfer on my PremierPass Elite Card.
If you want to take full advantage of this offer, stop using a credit card that you normally spend on and typically they will compare your sales over the recent 2-3 months against the average sales over the last 12 months. If this shows a deviation, the bank should typically have an offer at your door in approximately 3-4 months after you stop using your credit card.
Please give me a shout if you give this a try with stories of success or failure. It worked for me but may not for everyone else.
Tags: Help, Rewards, Low APR, Advice, Balance Transfer, Banks, Interest Rates, Credit Cards
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