World Elite Master Card

[RWebb]

or some such high falutin' BS like that...

- anybody know what is up with this?

My MC is an AT&T thing - free for life, etc. which AT&T then sold to CitiBank.

Citi is now "upgrading" my card (w/o asking my permission) to this World Elite thing.

maybe it is not an upgrade or maybe there is a Catch-22

I don't trust 'em, so thought I'd ask if anyone knew what is going on.

Their position is I have to call them and cancel the upgrade (negative option) or they do it anyway.

[Embraer]

AMEX did a free, automatic "upgrade" to Platinum.....and then i realized that it automatically enrolled me in some credit protection plan BS...for added cost.

had to call to get it removed.

[Por_sha911]

Any time my credit card companies announce a "new and exciting" upgrade they usually are trying to sneak in a fee or kill a award benefit I now have. I recently had one try to "improve" my rewards card by charging me an annual fee to keep the same rewards I had for free. Naw, but nice try.

[aigel]

Two words:

Credit Union

I have had the same CC for a decade and nothing has changed.

George

[Bill Douglas]

Visa.

[EdT82SC]

I found the Schwab Visa last year. 2% cash back on all purchases. No annual fee. The only catch is you have to open a Schwab brokerage account. But that is free to do, and they don't require you actually use it, though they hope you will

[GH85Carrera]

I had an AT&T card and was a "charter" member. They kept raising the credit limit to insane levels. Then right before the laws changed they decided they would charge a yearly fee if I don't charge a certain amount each month, and they decided that 21% interest rates sounded good if I leave a balance. And they would charge a $35 late fee is a payment was late. 21% is insane when CDs are getting 2 % if you are lucky.

I told them I would not agree to those changes and canceled the card.

[Z-man]

Speaking of credit cards and interest rates: recently, we called up all our credit card companies, and strongly requested that our interest rates be lowered. At first, most places said that can't be done. But we were persistent and they all lowered the interest rate.

Now typically, we are not concerned about the interest rate, since we pay off our credit cards 99% of the time. It's just that 1% of the time that I'd rather pay 9% vs. 21%!

I also request to lower my credit limit on the cards -- if I want to spend over $10k, I am better off taking on a low interest home equity loan at my bank.

Oh - and I don't pay any annual fee on my credit cards. The minute they try that crap on me -- I'm outta there, and onto any of the other thousands of credit card companies that will grant me a cc for no annual fee.
-Z-man.

[Cdnone1]

It depends on what you are going to be using the card for.
I use to travel a lot and carry an American Express Platinum card. It has an expensive yearly fee ($475) but offers so many travel "benefits" from automatic upgrades on cars, hotel rooms to suites, first class lounge access, fine hotel dinning, personal travel agent milage plan, etc that for a frequent traveller it is well worth the money to me.
If I was just looking for a no frills, no fee, low rate card I would not even consider it.
Steve

[RWebb]

I'm suspicious b/c this is happening right before they get regulated (or am I wrong re that?); also they may be able to slap higher fees on the merchants with this thing (I like the small biz's I frequent and see no reason to help a cc suck more $$ from them). also suspicious b/c why would they move people over in a big recession? has to be a way for them to make bucks in there somewhere.

I don't care about interest rates as I always pay it off (I do get winged by them every decade or so tho).

I also am not a luxo-traveler so that's no help. My idea of fun travel is backpacking or car camping, and the bears don't take credit cards.
I have a free Gold AMEX thru my Fidelity brokerage acct. and I use it 1x a year just to give them something to do.

My main concern tho is that they may have some big fees my old AT&T card did not have.

Not excited by the idea of spending hours reading their fine print (Tho I have the professional equipment to do that pretty well -- lawyah card and an air hammer), so I think I will just tell them to buzz off.

[silverc4s]

Originally Posted by Cdnone1

It depends on what you are going to be using the card for.
I use to travel a lot and carry an American Express Platinum card. It has an expensive yearly fee ($475) but offers so many travel "benefits" from automatic upgrades on cars, hotel rooms to suites, first class lounge access, fine hotel dinning, personal travel agent milage plan, etc that for a frequent traveller it is well worth the money to me.
If I was just looking for a no frills, no fee, low rate card I would not even consider it.
Steve

A German National that I did some business with a few years back, had the only American Express Black card that I have ever seen, or heard of. This was a fairly wealthy person, not dependent on any specific salary to pay his bills, etc..
He apparently had pretty extraordinary perks with AMEX..
Has anyone else seen this card??

[Embraer]

Originally Posted by silverc4s

A German National that I did some business with a few years back, had the only American Express Black card that I have ever seen, or heard of. This was a fairly wealthy person, not dependent on any specific salary to pay his bills, etc..
He apparently had pretty extraordinary perks with AMEX..
Has anyone else seen this card??

my ex has one. you are only invited to get one...you dont apply. you have to spend over 250k on it a year. hers was made of titanium, but appeared black.

[Cdnone1]

It's a very cool card and opens a lot of doors. Last time I asked my friend I think he said it was $3,000.00 a year to carry.
And it's true. You can not apply for one you have to be asked. AMEX is actually having a problem trying to keep it exclusive. They will only issue so many and believe it or not more people want to pay 3K a year for one than AMEX want having one
This is also the first year AMEX is getting stiffed for big ticket items from their big ticket card members. ie private jet rentals etc
Steve
Steve

[silverc4s]

In Japan they have Johnnie Walker BLUE label Scotch... a big notch above JW Black, never see it here in USA.

[Embraer]

Originally Posted by Cdnone1

It's a very cool card and opens a lot of doors. Last time I asked my friend I think he said it was $3,000.00 a year to carry.
And it's true. You can not apply for one you have to be asked. AMEX is actually having a problem trying to keep it exclusive. They will only issue so many and believe it or not more people want to pay 3K a year for one than AMEX want having one
This is also the first year AMEX is getting stiffed for big ticket items from their big ticket card members. ie private jet rentals etc
Steve
Steve

the card has a yearly fee, plus the 250K minimum charge per year. it does open a lot of doors...literally. my ex would spend (at a minimum) 10K per day on clothes and accessories. her black card got her private access to certain high end stores in nyc, la, paris, etc. ....think private, not-for-the-public areas of gucci, louis vuitton, etc, with personal shopping assistants.

i always thought it was funny to buy like $10 items on the card. 20-something year old cashier girls would see it, and their mouths would drop. dumb.

(this is the same ex who bought a 599GTB Fiorano, because it's "cute")