Citibank readyCredit - Give yourself a present this xmas
Citibank readyCredit - Give yourself a present this xmas.
Discuss Citibank readyCredit - Give yourself a present this xmas, on the CitiBank Rewards Program forum of FrequentFlyer.com.au, the home of frequent flyers.
Welcome to Australia's leading independent Frequent Flyers resource! We hope you find the information useful and decide to join our online community. Its free to join, simply click on the register link. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.
The offer is for every $500 you spend they will credit back $20. Offer runs until the end of the year. Now be interesting if it works on credit balances
Looks like I won't be getting one of those letters to say pay the $160 fee.
Sponsored Links
Registered Users have the option of
removing this and all other advertisements.
More
The letter indicated since I haven't used it much lately so I'm guessing it's targeted marketing.
Goes back to one of the earlier posts about businesses screwing their best customers.
I have a large outstanding balance on the ready credit account and probably use it at least once a month. Yet if you hardly use it you get offered $20 back for each $500 spent. I can really see the logic in that. :?
They know they have me because of my large outstanding debt but send out marketing promotions to try and keep customers who hardly use the card and more than likely will not use the card that often and pay off the balance in full anyway when it is due. :?
Member of: AA Exec Plat; QF LTG; PC Plat; HHonors Gold
Posts: 9,988
Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnK
They know they have me because of my large outstanding debt but send out marketing promotions to try and keep customers who hardly use the card and more than likely will not use the card that often and pay off the balance in full anyway when it is due. :?
This promo is not to try to keep existing low volume customers. They don't have to worry about losing those customers since there are no fees, so no need to cancel a lazy card.
The incentive is for low volume users to use their account more, and hence permit CB to collect more merchant fees and interest from accounts that would otherwise be idle. Makes good business sense to me. Incent the behaviour you desire to see in your customers.
The incentive is for low volume users to use their account more, and hence permit CB to collect more merchant fees and interest from accounts that would otherwise be idle. Makes good business sense to me. Incent the behaviour you desire to see in your customers.
Don't disagree with you just would be nice if it included people that use the card frequently as well.
Dangle the carrot in front of a loyal customer as well not just someone who hasn't used their card in 6-12 months.
Sponsored Links
Registered Users have the option of
removing this and all other advertisements.
More
Member of: AA Exec Plat; QF LTG; PC Plat; HHonors Gold
Posts: 9,988
Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnK
Dangle the carrot in front of a loyal customer as well not just someone who hasn't used their card in 6-12 months.
It might be a nice gesture, but could be a waste of a carrot if the customer is already loyal and likely to remain so. The trick is to know when someone is likely to switch from being loyal to you to being loyal to some other supplier. And if you believe the customer perceives value in your product, you may consider their loyalty assured. So it may be a better investment to use your limited number of carrots to incent a behaviour change rather than incent a status quo that is likely to remain without the additional supply of beta carrotone.
It might be a nice gesture, but could be a waste of a carrot if the customer is already loyal and likely to remain so. The trick is to know when someone is likely to switch from being loyal to you to being loyal to some other supplier. And if you believe the customer perceives value in your product, you may consider their loyalty assured. So it may be a better investment to use your limited number of carrots to incent a behaviour change rather than incent a status quo that is likely to remain without the additional supply of beta carrotone.
I think it would be a nice gesture.
Your points are quite valid but somehow I don't quite agree with clever marketing gimmicks that target specific individuals at the expense of loyal customers.
We can keep going around with this in circles but is still doesn't change the fact that only certain people have been targeted by the promotion. Doesn't help me but good luck to any that have received this promotion.
I got this letter - $20.00 for every $500.00. As I have stated in the other thread, I believe it is for customers like me who has a large debt at 4.9%. By getting me to spend money and collect 20.00 for every $500.00 until Christmas, effectively they will be getting us accumulate debt at $17% (or 18%). All repayments will go to settle the 4.9%. It is a technique to convert the low interest debt to high interest.
To be honest, with the current minimum repayment, I can take up to 5 years to pay my balance at 4.9% interest. As this is even lower than my homeloan rate, I am in no hurry to pay this off.
In the mean time, has anyone checked the T&C regarding their right to introduce fees midway like this. I do not want to call and start an argument as I am not prepared to cancel this facility and repay the full amount.
I'm like Arun - I have a large debit balance for which I'm paying 4.9%. Even with the new $160 fee, I'm still better off with the ReadyCredit loan as opposed to drawing down on the home loan (@ about 6.5%) to pay it off. But the benefit in keeping the ReadyCredit loan is getting marginal. If I didn't have a large ReadyCredit debit balance @ 4.9% I would be cancelling my ReadyCredit asap.
Two questions for the ReadyCrediters amongst you:
1. Is the new $160 fee an "annual" fee? Citibank describe it as a "facility fee" and tell you the date on which it will be charged - Citibank don't say they will keep on charging it each year. Or am I being naive here?
2. In terms of the "cash back" arrangement, available until 31 December, where you are credited with $20 for every $500 worth of spend - does that mean we can write a cheque to ourselves (as NM suggests on another thread) for the full account limit, repay it the next day, and Citibank will pay us $20 for every $500??
For example, for a ReadyCredit account limit of $25,000 with a zero ReadyCredit balance, you pay $25,000 from ReadyCredit into another account by cheque. You BPay it back to ReadyCredit the next day (although it may take 3 days or so for the cheque to clear). You pay interest at 15.75% on $25,000 for 1 day ($10.78, or say $32.36 for 3 days). Citibank then gives you cash back equal to $20 for every $500 of spend, which for "spend" of $25,000 equals $1000 (ie 20 x 50). Surely that can't be right? :? I have never heard of a bank being that generous. Am I missing something??? Writing a cheque like that and repaying the balance a few times between now and 31 December would be significantly more advantageous then keeping a large ReadyCredit debit balance @ 4.9% for life.
Linear Mode
