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I feel like folks like us, that never miss a payment, and max out our rewards, are net-losses for most credit card issuers. It's not clear why they don't just f

I feel like folks like us, that never miss a payment, and max out our rewards, are net-losses for most credit card issuers. It's not clear why they don't just fire us as customers.

patio11 5y ago
So credit card issuers are pretty sophisticated with regards to this, and many of them track different user personas and use them to dice up their portfolio by archetypes. The "folks like us" archetype is one which is definitely tracked and goes by different names at different places. I express no strong opinion on whether you personally are contribution margin negative for your issuer. On a portfolio level though, this is extremely well studied and extremely clear: that archetype is staggeringly contribution margin positive. It's actually one of the best performing ones at some issuers, principally because the archetype spends a lot per account, has negligible defaults for non-fraudulent users, and therefore earns lots of interchange at favorable margins. It is possible, given the design of individual products, that a user with close-to-optimal spending decisions is contribution margin negative on individual products and potentially on all accounts with a particular issuer. People outside the credit card ecosystem believe this is much more common than it actually happens. A lot of thought goes into the design of products to decrease the likelihood of adverse use, cap the damages, and encourage users who are very skilled at gamesmanship to game their way to being contribution positive.
- hammock 5y ago
  It is a tangled tangled web, but if in fact the "folks like us" are actually profitable, due to fees charged to merchants, there is disruption waiting to happen in that arena, perhaps by some huge merchant somewhere (Amazon? Walmart?)
- jonas21 5y ago
  > It is possible, given the design of individual products, that a user with close-to-optimal spending decisions is contribution margin negative on individual products and potentially on all accounts I feel like that user is typically the sort who enjoys telling anyone who will listen about how they managed to get great rewards from their card. With all that free marketing, the credit card issuer is probably happy to have them as a customer, even if they lose a little bit of money on them.
  - patio11 5y ago
    FWIW: I think technologists are far too quick to jump to "I bet they want to do it for free marketing" and far too slow to think "I bet they have a large team of people who does almost literally nothing other than study this exact question, has thought about it for hundreds of thousands more hours than any credit card user has, and has a highly developed technical infrastructure capable of authoritatively answering it." It is a curious, curious belief in the engineering community that we are better at trivial math than banks are. That is not a bet I would encourage people to make.
    - jonas21 5y ago
      Oh, I don't doubt that they have a very sophisticated model for this. I'm just saying they probably take customer acquisition cost into account in the model too. "I bet they do it for free marketing" doesn't mean "I bet they didn't do the math". It means "I bet their marketing department measures everything and is good at math too."
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      I see this pattern almost weekly with engineers (both online and offline). The hubris is fascinating. (Full disclosure: I was often guilty of this myself for the first decade-plus of my career.)
      - BirdieNZ 5y ago
        The current discussions around Covid and vaccines made me realise I am continually guilty of this hubris. I've heard people say before "whenever I see a discussion on a subject I am an expert on, HN is full of ignorant commenters", but I feel it far more viscerally now. The first stage was: these anti-vaxxers don't have a degree in immunology, what makes them qualified to even attempt to interpret scientific papers on the subject? The second stage was: wait, I don't have a degree in immunology either, why am I pretending to be "following the science" when I don't have even the vocabulary or the context to properly grasp immunology papers? Accepting that I am a functional ignoramus with regards to Covid, viruses, immunology, vaccine development etc. is very freeing. I'm basically knowledgeable on very few things, and am not an authority on (vaccines|economics|law|history|basically everything). Being good at software engineering doesn't make me an expert at everything I read two articles on.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  The term for us, who pay off their entire balance every month, is "deadbeats".
  - kgermino 5y ago
    That’s an interesting term for “profitable customer who pays their debts”
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      I'd be much more profitable to them if I didn't pay the debts, and they'd accrue the usurious interest charges. I found this out (and the term) after discovering my credit score was lower than I expected. With some investigation, it was low because it showed I had a lot of credit card debt. Paying it off each month did not factor into the credit score.
- polygotdomain 5y ago
  Having sat in data presentations from credit card companies, the extent of the data that credit card companies have is incredibly detailed. For those customers who they don't make money on from interest and fees alone, I would imagine that data more than covers the difference. These customer are still VERY desirable from a data perspective. While there are legitimate tracking concerns, the data the credit card companies capture and disseminate is incredibly fascinating. You've got spending data, layered with market segments, layered with location data (both on the cardholder and the business side), and even time of day. Overlay all that with very accessible data from the Census or ESRI, and they can really tell a significant story of how money flows through the modern economy. This is what's feeding the internal fraud detection engines (which have gotten a lot better), but there are also private institutions that are more than willing to pay the credit cards a hefty sum to get access to all this data.
- kipchak 5y ago
  >The "folks like us" archetype is one which is definitely tracked and goes by different names at different places. Out of curiosity, what names does that archetype go by?
thebean11 5y ago
Depending on the issuer, you might still be net positive as there’s a higher chance you’ll buy other products from them later. Think home loans, brokerage accounts, CDs, etc.
ishjoh 5y ago
In particular it's good to remember that for every dollar you spend on your credit card, the credit card company is charging the merchant a percentage fee, so even folks who never miss a payment and max their rewards can still be very profitable
BenoitEssiambre 5y ago
My understanding is that merchants are charged around 3% of all that you purchase in interchange/surcharge while you get only like 1% back in reward.
- alexfrydl 5y ago
  This is definitely true but just fyi by now you should be getting 2% back on everything, more if it's specific categories. If you're only getting 1% and have good credit, you need a new card.
  - jfk13 5y ago
    Note that while this may be the case in the US, where interchange fees are outrageous and therefore the cards can offer such "rewards", the relevant figures may look quite different in other places.
chrisseaton 5y ago
How do you square that with card issuers that require you to pay in full each month, like American Express?
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  Those days are long gone for American Express. Only a handful of their cards - the Green/Gold/Platinum - are charge cards, and they all now have "Pay Over Time" (allowing a month-to-month balance on charges over $100) and "Plan It" (allowing one or more charges to be put on a 3-24 month payment plan with a fixed finance fee). https://www.americanexpress.com/en-us/benefits/payment-flexibility/pay-over-time/ https://www.americanexpress.com/en-us/benefits/payment-flexi... https://www.americanexpress.com/us/credit-cards/features-benefits/plan-it/prospect-plan.html https://www.americanexpress.com/us/credit-cards/features-ben...
alberth 5y ago
Issuers get higher interchange rate for customers they deem as high-spenders. So while these high-spenders (who presumably also pay off their bills) aren't generating interest revenue for the Issuer, they are generating higher interchange revenue.
- adrr 5y ago
  But the card issuer is issuing debt for 0% to these users. Upwards of 60 days. That cost money to the card issuer.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    I take advantage of that by using the card to pay bills (that don't charge a "convenience fee" to use a CC) and try to time things to get as close to the 60 days as I can. It's just a long standing habit of mine.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      That seems like a lot of trouble compared to setting up auto pay for everything to save a few bucks.
      - WalterBright 5y ago
        Well, I did try to get my credit limit raised temporarily once so I could buy a car with the card, and get the cash back. The CC company refused. I pointed out how they'd still be making 2% net on the transaction, which would be well worth their while. This kind of pitch was above the pay grade of the phone people, and I got the "there's nothing I can do" garbage.
  - drfuchs 5y ago
    The card issuer doesn’t pay the merchant for a while, so it’s the merchant who is essentially paying the actual debt interest for a few months. Ask the owner of any small business where you use your card how long it takes for them to actually see the money.
TorKlingberg 5y ago
They are still earning interchange, and profit from foreign currency conversion rates unless you watch out for it. They can also earn money from retailers to promote them to you. Point hunters often end up spending extra to reach a rewards threshold, which can be very profitable for the retailer. It's also common to sign up for a card with great introductory rewards and then keep using it for years, because you get busy and forget to switch card every few months.
stefan_ 5y ago
They are still an oligopoly that charges ~2% on every transaction for the grand cost of maintaining a bunch of servers, plus whatever liquidity risk they take on by ignoring all security standards introduced since the magstripe? If you think you are winning on rewards, you might also believe you can win long-term playing in a casino.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  > plus whatever liquidity risk they take on by ignoring all security standards introduced since the magstripe? The card networks told merchants they are risking losing any and all chargeback for non chip purchases a few years ago. If a merchant is taking mag stripe still, that is their risk. > If you think you are winning on rewards, you might also believe you can win long-term playing in a casino. I am definitely earning more via cash back rewards than I am paying in fees. A 2% cash back card which can be had for free, gets you pretty close. At 5% cash back, you’re clearly earning more than however much prices are inflated to pay for the card processor fees. And at the end of the day, I don’t have the option of paying 5% less at most places. So any percent cash back is a win.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
vmception 5y ago
They just keep extending credit until they're right. It cost them nothing to extend you credit and pretty much one interest payment makes up for it. The perks that offset the annual fees on their fee cards are just an accounting gimmick on their end. "Oh cool Audible gets to print awesome revenue numbers while we just pay back the customer that paid who feels like it makes their annual fee worth it" and who knows what arrangement behind the scenes is, shares? More targeted customer data? And if you actually are spending, as you suggest, they make enough from the merchants who are eating the 3% transaction fee. You're the data product, like every other cool free thing over the last decade, and they have a sustainable business model. And if you ever do have a disruption in your earnings while you are floating a balance on the credit card, you've just become their whale customer that is paying for the whole operation with interest. By the time you default they really don't care about collections because they've already made so much, they're very ready to sell off the debt to some collections agency for pennies. You can be the most meticulous and responsible user of debt, and still have this happen to you eventually. They're just the house in their credit casino and all they have to do is wait.
- quickthrowman 5y ago
  > And if you actually are spending, as you suggest, they make enough from the merchants who are eating the 3% transaction fee. You mean, the customer eating the 3% fee? The merchant isn’t going to take the hit to their margins, the interchange fee is built into the price of what you are buying.
  - vmception 5y ago
    Many merchants take a hit to their margins, many dont. It doesnt really matter to the credit card company but what you said is useful to point out, my point was only that percent is going to the credit card company
pessimizer 5y ago
> It's not clear why they don't just fire us as customers. They do. When they do it aggressively, it results in bad PR, though.
mandevil 5y ago
The issuing banks have teams of people who are very smart, have extremely accurate data down to the individual transaction, access to the computers to crunch that data appropriately, and spend their (working) lives on this topic. You are a dude doing this in their spare time as a hobby, with access only to your own set of data and not even the full set of that (e.g. you don't see the interchange fees etc.) I suspect that the bank is winning much more than you think on your business, even if you are getting a good reward. They are getting other people to pay them even more than they are paying you. Maximizing credit card reward can be a hobby that leads to minor ROI- like investing in individual stocks it might be lucrative and if you enjoy it more than golf definitely pursue it. But don't think you are fleecing Bank of America or Chase or whomever.
kelnos 5y ago
I used to think that, but I'm not sure. If we're generating enough interchange/fees (or other forms of revenue that aren't so obvious) for them, it might be worth it. I pay $550 annually for one card, but I easily pay for that (and then some) through statement credit and redeeming points. The net value I get out of the card is well over $1k per year. But it's not clear to me whether or not the issuer makes that back via other means. Just they aren't making that back from me. I expect card issuers are very very much aware of customers just like me, and are able to financially justify my existence.
- criddell 5y ago
  I'm guessing your data is pretty valuable to them.
  - mst 5y ago
    The article disagrees with data sales being a relevant factor.
brummm 5y ago
Not necessarily.
downut 5y ago
We're not rich, but we are maximally financially solid and stable. I mean, I drive a 2001 truck I bought new, for cash. Better half drives a newish base Prius. House is not fancy. How on earth can it make sense for us to get issued two $95/year CCs, as happened this year. I can use the 20% AirBnB bonus to cash in $1200, each card, as happened once. We're waiting on passports for the second. Edit: I've also cashed in points for 12 transatlantic flights over the last 15 years, on other CCs. We haven't missed a CC payment in decades. I can cancel at any time. We don't have that many accounts to switch, might take an hour. We're puzzled. But ok, we do it. Edit2: Ok, after reading more comments, the profit from us would seem to come out of spend. Some more details then. We make net slightly less than 6 figures, and save 50% of that for retirement. House payment is $800, and nearly done. Travel is our vice, but we do eg a week in Paris for maybe $1500, and we do everything we want to. A big chunk of that is AirBnB, and... the CC typically pays that. I'm not denying that the super solid big spenders aren't super profitable for the issuers. I am puzzled why we get issued the cards. I mean, 2 cards from the same vendor just splits the pie between the two accounts, and increases the spend zero.
nobody9999 5y ago
>I feel like folks like us, that never miss a payment, and max out our rewards, are net-losses for most credit card issuers. It's not clear why they don't just fire us as customers. Citibank did just that with me.

I feel like folks like us, that never miss a payment, and max out our rewards, are net-losses for most credit card issuers. It's not clear why they don't just fire us as customers.

patio11 5y ago

So credit card issuers are pretty sophisticated with regards to this, and many of them track different user personas and use them to dice up their portfolio by archetypes. The "folks like us" archetype is one which is definitely tracked and goes by different names at different places. I express no strong opinion on whether you personally are contribution margin negative for your issuer. On a portfolio level though, this is extremely well studied and extremely clear: that archetype is staggeringly contribution margin positive. It's actually one of the best performing ones at some issuers, principally because the archetype spends a lot per account, has negligible defaults for non-fraudulent users, and therefore earns lots of interchange at favorable margins. It is possible, given the design of individual products, that a user with close-to-optimal spending decisions is contribution margin negative on individual products and potentially on all accounts with a particular issuer. People outside the credit card ecosystem believe this is much more common than it actually happens. A lot of thought goes into the design of products to decrease the likelihood of adverse use, cap the damages, and encourage users who are very skilled at gamesmanship to game their way to being contribution positive.

hammock 5y ago
It is a tangled tangled web, but if in fact the "folks like us" are actually profitable, due to fees charged to merchants, there is disruption waiting to happen in that arena, perhaps by some huge merchant somewhere (Amazon? Walmart?)
jonas21 5y ago
> It is possible, given the design of individual products, that a user with close-to-optimal spending decisions is contribution margin negative on individual products and potentially on all accounts I feel like that user is typically the sort who enjoys telling anyone who will listen about how they managed to get great rewards from their card. With all that free marketing, the credit card issuer is probably happy to have them as a customer, even if they lose a little bit of money on them.
- patio11 5y ago
  FWIW: I think technologists are far too quick to jump to "I bet they want to do it for free marketing" and far too slow to think "I bet they have a large team of people who does almost literally nothing other than study this exact question, has thought about it for hundreds of thousands more hours than any credit card user has, and has a highly developed technical infrastructure capable of authoritatively answering it." It is a curious, curious belief in the engineering community that we are better at trivial math than banks are. That is not a bet I would encourage people to make.
  - jonas21 5y ago
    Oh, I don't doubt that they have a very sophisticated model for this. I'm just saying they probably take customer acquisition cost into account in the model too. "I bet they do it for free marketing" doesn't mean "I bet they didn't do the math". It means "I bet their marketing department measures everything and is good at math too."
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    I see this pattern almost weekly with engineers (both online and offline). The hubris is fascinating. (Full disclosure: I was often guilty of this myself for the first decade-plus of my career.)
    - BirdieNZ 5y ago
      The current discussions around Covid and vaccines made me realise I am continually guilty of this hubris. I've heard people say before "whenever I see a discussion on a subject I am an expert on, HN is full of ignorant commenters", but I feel it far more viscerally now. The first stage was: these anti-vaxxers don't have a degree in immunology, what makes them qualified to even attempt to interpret scientific papers on the subject? The second stage was: wait, I don't have a degree in immunology either, why am I pretending to be "following the science" when I don't have even the vocabulary or the context to properly grasp immunology papers? Accepting that I am a functional ignoramus with regards to Covid, viruses, immunology, vaccine development etc. is very freeing. I'm basically knowledgeable on very few things, and am not an authority on (vaccines|economics|law|history|basically everything). Being good at software engineering doesn't make me an expert at everything I read two articles on.
WalterBright 5y ago
The term for us, who pay off their entire balance every month, is "deadbeats".
- kgermino 5y ago
  That’s an interesting term for “profitable customer who pays their debts”
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    I'd be much more profitable to them if I didn't pay the debts, and they'd accrue the usurious interest charges. I found this out (and the term) after discovering my credit score was lower than I expected. With some investigation, it was low because it showed I had a lot of credit card debt. Paying it off each month did not factor into the credit score.
polygotdomain 5y ago
Having sat in data presentations from credit card companies, the extent of the data that credit card companies have is incredibly detailed. For those customers who they don't make money on from interest and fees alone, I would imagine that data more than covers the difference. These customer are still VERY desirable from a data perspective. While there are legitimate tracking concerns, the data the credit card companies capture and disseminate is incredibly fascinating. You've got spending data, layered with market segments, layered with location data (both on the cardholder and the business side), and even time of day. Overlay all that with very accessible data from the Census or ESRI, and they can really tell a significant story of how money flows through the modern economy. This is what's feeding the internal fraud detection engines (which have gotten a lot better), but there are also private institutions that are more than willing to pay the credit cards a hefty sum to get access to all this data.
kipchak 5y ago
>The "folks like us" archetype is one which is definitely tracked and goes by different names at different places. Out of curiosity, what names does that archetype go by?

thebean11 5y ago

Depending on the issuer, you might still be net positive as there’s a higher chance you’ll buy other products from them later. Think home loans, brokerage accounts, CDs, etc.

ishjoh 5y ago

In particular it's good to remember that for every dollar you spend on your credit card, the credit card company is charging the merchant a percentage fee, so even folks who never miss a payment and max their rewards can still be very profitable

BenoitEssiambre 5y ago

My understanding is that merchants are charged around 3% of all that you purchase in interchange/surcharge while you get only like 1% back in reward.

alexfrydl 5y ago
This is definitely true but just fyi by now you should be getting 2% back on everything, more if it's specific categories. If you're only getting 1% and have good credit, you need a new card.
- jfk13 5y ago
  Note that while this may be the case in the US, where interchange fees are outrageous and therefore the cards can offer such "rewards", the relevant figures may look quite different in other places.

chrisseaton 5y ago

How do you square that with card issuers that require you to pay in full each month, like American Express?

ceejayoz 5y ago
Those days are long gone for American Express. Only a handful of their cards - the Green/Gold/Platinum - are charge cards, and they all now have "Pay Over Time" (allowing a month-to-month balance on charges over $100) and "Plan It" (allowing one or more charges to be put on a 3-24 month payment plan with a fixed finance fee). https://www.americanexpress.com/en-us/benefits/payment-flexibility/pay-over-time/ https://www.americanexpress.com/en-us/benefits/payment-flexi... https://www.americanexpress.com/us/credit-cards/features-benefits/plan-it/prospect-plan.html https://www.americanexpress.com/us/credit-cards/features-ben...

alberth 5y ago

Issuers get higher interchange rate for customers they deem as high-spenders. So while these high-spenders (who presumably also pay off their bills) aren't generating interest revenue for the Issuer, they are generating higher interchange revenue.

adrr 5y ago
But the card issuer is issuing debt for 0% to these users. Upwards of 60 days. That cost money to the card issuer.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  I take advantage of that by using the card to pay bills (that don't charge a "convenience fee" to use a CC) and try to time things to get as close to the 60 days as I can. It's just a long standing habit of mine.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    That seems like a lot of trouble compared to setting up auto pay for everything to save a few bucks.
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      Well, I did try to get my credit limit raised temporarily once so I could buy a car with the card, and get the cash back. The CC company refused. I pointed out how they'd still be making 2% net on the transaction, which would be well worth their while. This kind of pitch was above the pay grade of the phone people, and I got the "there's nothing I can do" garbage.
- drfuchs 5y ago
  The card issuer doesn’t pay the merchant for a while, so it’s the merchant who is essentially paying the actual debt interest for a few months. Ask the owner of any small business where you use your card how long it takes for them to actually see the money.

TorKlingberg 5y ago

They are still earning interchange, and profit from foreign currency conversion rates unless you watch out for it. They can also earn money from retailers to promote them to you. Point hunters often end up spending extra to reach a rewards threshold, which can be very profitable for the retailer. It's also common to sign up for a card with great introductory rewards and then keep using it for years, because you get busy and forget to switch card every few months.

stefan_ 5y ago

They are still an oligopoly that charges ~2% on every transaction for the grand cost of maintaining a bunch of servers, plus whatever liquidity risk they take on by ignoring all security standards introduced since the magstripe? If you think you are winning on rewards, you might also believe you can win long-term playing in a casino.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
> plus whatever liquidity risk they take on by ignoring all security standards introduced since the magstripe? The card networks told merchants they are risking losing any and all chargeback for non chip purchases a few years ago. If a merchant is taking mag stripe still, that is their risk. > If you think you are winning on rewards, you might also believe you can win long-term playing in a casino. I am definitely earning more via cash back rewards than I am paying in fees. A 2% cash back card which can be had for free, gets you pretty close. At 5% cash back, you’re clearly earning more than however much prices are inflated to pay for the card processor fees. And at the end of the day, I don’t have the option of paying 5% less at most places. So any percent cash back is a win.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

vmception 5y ago

They just keep extending credit until they're right. It cost them nothing to extend you credit and pretty much one interest payment makes up for it. The perks that offset the annual fees on their fee cards are just an accounting gimmick on their end. "Oh cool Audible gets to print awesome revenue numbers while we just pay back the customer that paid who feels like it makes their annual fee worth it" and who knows what arrangement behind the scenes is, shares? More targeted customer data? And if you actually are spending, as you suggest, they make enough from the merchants who are eating the 3% transaction fee. You're the data product, like every other cool free thing over the last decade, and they have a sustainable business model. And if you ever do have a disruption in your earnings while you are floating a balance on the credit card, you've just become their whale customer that is paying for the whole operation with interest. By the time you default they really don't care about collections because they've already made so much, they're very ready to sell off the debt to some collections agency for pennies. You can be the most meticulous and responsible user of debt, and still have this happen to you eventually. They're just the house in their credit casino and all they have to do is wait.

quickthrowman 5y ago
> And if you actually are spending, as you suggest, they make enough from the merchants who are eating the 3% transaction fee. You mean, the customer eating the 3% fee? The merchant isn’t going to take the hit to their margins, the interchange fee is built into the price of what you are buying.
- vmception 5y ago
  Many merchants take a hit to their margins, many dont. It doesnt really matter to the credit card company but what you said is useful to point out, my point was only that percent is going to the credit card company

pessimizer 5y ago

> It's not clear why they don't just fire us as customers. They do. When they do it aggressively, it results in bad PR, though.

mandevil 5y ago

The issuing banks have teams of people who are very smart, have extremely accurate data down to the individual transaction, access to the computers to crunch that data appropriately, and spend their (working) lives on this topic. You are a dude doing this in their spare time as a hobby, with access only to your own set of data and not even the full set of that (e.g. you don't see the interchange fees etc.) I suspect that the bank is winning much more than you think on your business, even if you are getting a good reward. They are getting other people to pay them even more than they are paying you. Maximizing credit card reward can be a hobby that leads to minor ROI- like investing in individual stocks it might be lucrative and if you enjoy it more than golf definitely pursue it. But don't think you are fleecing Bank of America or Chase or whomever.

kelnos 5y ago

I used to think that, but I'm not sure. If we're generating enough interchange/fees (or other forms of revenue that aren't so obvious) for them, it might be worth it. I pay $550 annually for one card, but I easily pay for that (and then some) through statement credit and redeeming points. The net value I get out of the card is well over $1k per year. But it's not clear to me whether or not the issuer makes that back via other means. Just they aren't making that back from me. I expect card issuers are very very much aware of customers just like me, and are able to financially justify my existence.

criddell 5y ago
I'm guessing your data is pretty valuable to them.
- mst 5y ago
  The article disagrees with data sales being a relevant factor.

brummm 5y ago

Not necessarily.

downut 5y ago

We're not rich, but we are maximally financially solid and stable. I mean, I drive a 2001 truck I bought new, for cash. Better half drives a newish base Prius. House is not fancy. How on earth can it make sense for us to get issued two $95/year CCs, as happened this year. I can use the 20% AirBnB bonus to cash in $1200, each card, as happened once. We're waiting on passports for the second. Edit: I've also cashed in points for 12 transatlantic flights over the last 15 years, on other CCs. We haven't missed a CC payment in decades. I can cancel at any time. We don't have that many accounts to switch, might take an hour. We're puzzled. But ok, we do it. Edit2: Ok, after reading more comments, the profit from us would seem to come out of spend. Some more details then. We make net slightly less than 6 figures, and save 50% of that for retirement. House payment is $800, and nearly done. Travel is our vice, but we do eg a week in Paris for maybe $1500, and we do everything we want to. A big chunk of that is AirBnB, and... the CC typically pays that. I'm not denying that the super solid big spenders aren't super profitable for the issuers. I am puzzled why we get issued the cards. I mean, 2 cards from the same vendor just splits the pie between the two accounts, and increases the spend zero.

nobody9999 5y ago

>I feel like folks like us, that never miss a payment, and max out our rewards, are net-losses for most credit card issuers. It's not clear why they don't just fire us as customers. Citibank did just that with me.