We all love credit card rewards, no matter if they’re coming from cash back credit cards or as travel rewards, but how many of you know that in order to fully benefit from them, you also need to spend pretty big?
For example, take the latest version or premium card, Citi Prestige, released by Citigroup Inc.
Made out of metal, the card can offer free nights at hotels or even $250 per year, in air travel credit, as well as a sign-up bonus of $75,000 points. The latter, according to Citigroup, is worth $935 in air travel! However, there’s a big catch on this…
Are banks following a trend?
In order to earn the entire amount of points, anybody who decides to sign-up for this card should spend $7500 in the first three months. And this isn’t the only case…
Even though at first the offer sounds good, it’s actually worse that last year, when the Prestige card was requiring holders to spend just $4000 in the same time frame. But again, this is a general trend!
Citi, which is now the world’s largest issuer of credit cards, according to Fortune, isn’t the only bank that makes it harder for clients to qualify for sign-up bonuses!
American Express Co. is another great example, as back in March, when they launched their Platinum card, increased the minimum spending requirement from $3000 to $5000!
What about younger possible clients?
The idea is that as long as you are a real globe trotter, who spends thousands of dollars per month, you can qualify for these bonuses immediately – and this type of users are targeted by premium cards – but younger customers have been staying away from such cards lately.
“It’s going to considerably shrink the size of the audience that would be receptive to that card,” Matt Schulz, senior analyst at CreditCards.com, said. “That’s probably the point.”
When contacted, Citigroup declined to comment on their new spending requirements for the Prestige card.
For the moment, we hope that not ALL banks will follow this trend, since it will make premium rewards cards basically impossible to afford by all population categories.
