[ozstamps]

Not sure if this has been mentioned before here? Apologies if it has and I missed it.

I have advocated for many many years taking the $87 ANZ Gold standard VISA card as it gives free travel and medical insurance. Many here also use it for the same reason.

I also keep an ANZ Qantas Gold card to help accrue QF miles.

This week I got an offer from ANZ to roll the 2 into one Platinum card:

Credit Cards & Visa Debit - Platinum Privileges

Seems like there is zero extra cost and I get purchase insurance free as well.

I had JUST been charged for the $87 annual Gold fee in Nov. Phoned and they re-credited that, and COMBINED both existing limits to about $35,000 which seems pretty silly to me but who argues.

As far as I can see I am $87 in front, and get extra bennies. (And a double credit line, not that it is of any practical use.)

Win, win, win it seems. Any comments?

[one9]

Originally Posted by ozstamps

Not sure if this has been mentioned before here? Apologies if it has and I missed it.

I have advocated for many many years taking the $87 ANZ Gold standard VISA card as it gives free travel and medical insurance. Many here also use it for the same reason.

I also keep an ANZ Qantas Gold card to help accrue QF miles.

This week I got an offer from ANZ to roll the 2 into one Platinum card:

Credit Cards & Visa Debit - Platinum Privileges

Seems like there is zero extra cost and I get purchase insurance free as well.

I had JUST been charged for the $87 annual Gold fee in Nov. Phoned and they re-credited that, and COMBINED both existing limits to about $35,000 which seems pretty silly to me but who argues.

As far as I can see I am $87 in front, and get extra bennies. (And a double credit line, not that it is of any practical use.)

Win, win, win it seems. Any comments?

It is in the best interest for banks to provide Platinum cards rather than Gold cards, because they receive a higher merchant fee/commission from each sale.

Recently, National Bank (and likely other banks) have started charging merchants (shops) a higher charge to accept Platinum cards than standard cards.

I was in a meeting a month ago about whether or not we should charge a surcharge to customers who use Platinum cards. We decided against it (as these are the customers we want), but I would not be surprised if in the future, a very small number of businesses charged a surcharge (or a higher surcharge) for Platinum cards as opposed to standard cards.

[oz_mark]

Originally Posted by one9

It is in the best interest for banks to provide Platinum cards rather than Gold cards, because they receive a higher merchant fee/commission from each sale.

Recently, National Bank (and likely other banks) have started charging merchants (shops) a higher charge to accept Platinum cards than standard cards.

I was in a meeting a month ago about whether or not we should charge a surcharge to customers who use Platinum cards. We decided against it (as these are the customers we want), but I would not be surprised if in the future, a very small number of businesses charged a surcharge (or a higher surcharge) for Platinum cards as opposed to standard cards.

I am a little surprised by this. On what basis can the banks justify charging extra for using a platinum card? If it does happen though,the signage could get quite interesting - a whole list of cards and the corresponding fee!

[alect]

Originally Posted by oz_mark

I am a little surprised by this. On what basis can the banks justify charging extra for using a platinum card? If it does happen though,the signage could get quite interesting - a whole list of cards and the corresponding fee!

Yeah I am floored by this if true. I cannot imagine the nightmare this would cause for businesses who accept cards. I don't understand the logic either from the banks point of view - they have already presumably charged the card holder a larger annual fee, why would they also try to charge the merchant a higher fee?

Ofcourse I live in the land of all cards being platinum and each one trying to out-platinum the others Some of the cards don't even remotely look platinum, but just say they are - which in reality doesn't mean a thing.

[Dave Noble]

Originally Posted by alect

I don't understand the logic either from the banks point of view - they have already presumably charged the card holder a larger annual fee, why would they also try to charge the merchant a higher fee?

Umm. Because the card company wants to make even more money than they do by convincing the saps that they are special and that they deserve to pay large amounts for a pretty coloured card. Charging the merchants more is the icing on the cake

Dave

[alect]

Originally Posted by Dave Noble

Umm. Because the card company wants to make even more money than they do by convincing the saps that they are special and that they deserve to pay large amounts for a pretty coloured card. Charging the merchants more is the icing on the cake

Dave

Yeah I'm not sure what I was thinking using "logic" in my post

[Dave Noble]

Originally Posted by alect

Yeah I'm not sure what I was thinking using "logic" in my post

Ah, you were ignoring the aspect that the Debt Card issuers want to make as much money as possible. They have already managed to get people to take out cards that can run to several hundred $ ( e.g. $250 for Citibank , $900 for AMEX Platinum and (iirc) around $2500 for a AMEX Black ) by making them feel that they are special having been invited to get one and allow them to try n get an ego boost by presenting their pretty coloured cards at shops.

Now that they have enough people with these cards, then why not up the merchant fees for these "special" customers. The basis of how AMEX used to try to justify their high fees and were selective over what companies they permitted to accept AMEX was that they had better value customers than the Visa n Mastercard companies. This seems to be a v similar situation .

Dave