5 ms·

> Enough of them wind up over-extending and paying interest to make it lucrative. Yes. I understand this. I'm asking, why do they keep the others' accounts ope

> Enough of them wind up over-extending and paying interest to make it lucrative. Yes. I understand this. I'm asking, why do they keep the others' accounts open? > I'm also not aware of any across-the-board 5% rewards cards I'm not either, but many people just rotate to a different card instead of using the same card for less cash back. And who never miss a payment or rack up interest. Meaning they always use those cards at a loss for the company. I'm asking why do these peoples' accounts get kept open.

kccqzy 7y ago
> why do they keep the others' accounts open? It's a loss leader.
- mehrdadn 7y ago
  Even for people who have years of history showing they have no intention of taking the bait?
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    I suspect you're overestimating how many of those there are.
    - mehrdadn 7y ago
      I suspect you're underestimating? A lot of people (around half of Americans if not more) don't carry a balance. I don't know what fraction of them try to extract the most from their cards, but judging from the sheer number of websites that explain what card you should get to maximize which reward and bonus, I'm skeptical that the number of people who pay attention to this is negligible enough that it'd cost companies more to simply close their accounts than to let them go on.
      - ceejayoz 7y ago
        My explanation seems more likely than the credit card companies acting as a money-losing charity towards rewards maximizers, doesn't it?
        mehrdadn 7y ago
        Yes, but my original explanation seems far more likely than both? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20805156 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20805156
        ceejayoz 7y ago
        If an individual's data was worth $500+ annually like that, Intuit would be realizing substantially more revenue from Mint.com.
        mehrdadn 7y ago
        It's not the same data? Mint doesn't know where you made each purchase and for how much.
        ceejayoz 7y ago
        The only thing Mint's lacking is the geolocation of the individual merchants - something they can garner in a lot of cases from the merchant name. The grocery store I frequent includes a store number in the transaction name, for example. (Mint definitely has the "how much" bit - they've got each transaction individually, including the amount.) On the flip side, Mint has all the rest of the credit card data for the person (across potentially many different cards and card networks), savings and checking accounts, brokerage accounts, mortgages, car loans, student loans, and tax returns if you use TurboTax. I think that balances out the equation pretty handily - that amount of linked, collated data should easily be worth more than a single CC can garner.
        mehrdadn 7y ago

kccqzy 7y ago

> why do they keep the others' accounts open? It's a loss leader.

mehrdadn 7y ago
Even for people who have years of history showing they have no intention of taking the bait?
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  I suspect you're overestimating how many of those there are.
  - mehrdadn 7y ago
    I suspect you're underestimating? A lot of people (around half of Americans if not more) don't carry a balance. I don't know what fraction of them try to extract the most from their cards, but judging from the sheer number of websites that explain what card you should get to maximize which reward and bonus, I'm skeptical that the number of people who pay attention to this is negligible enough that it'd cost companies more to simply close their accounts than to let them go on.
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      My explanation seems more likely than the credit card companies acting as a money-losing charity towards rewards maximizers, doesn't it?
      - mehrdadn 7y ago
        Yes, but my original explanation seems far more likely than both? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20805156 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20805156
        ceejayoz 7y ago
        If an individual's data was worth $500+ annually like that, Intuit would be realizing substantially more revenue from Mint.com.
        mehrdadn 7y ago
        It's not the same data? Mint doesn't know where you made each purchase and for how much.
        ceejayoz 7y ago
        The only thing Mint's lacking is the geolocation of the individual merchants - something they can garner in a lot of cases from the merchant name. The grocery store I frequent includes a store number in the transaction name, for example. (Mint definitely has the "how much" bit - they've got each transaction individually, including the amount.) On the flip side, Mint has all the rest of the credit card data for the person (across potentially many different cards and card networks), savings and checking accounts, brokerage accounts, mortgages, car loans, student loans, and tax returns if you use TurboTax. I think that balances out the equation pretty handily - that amount of linked, collated data should easily be worth more than a single CC can garner.
        mehrdadn 7y ago