Rewards Credit Cards May Not Be Used At All Stores

[wendow]

I was eyeing the sign-up info the last time I was at Costco, and I might jump on it. I drive a Traverse, and the gas mileage is terrible.

For no annual fee, I think the costco citi card is highly underrated! I hold this card and use it for Costco purchases and gas (when Freedom isn't a 5% category).

 

[Kingdome8]

My question is how would they know if it was a ‘rewards’ cc or not?

PLUS - a lot of Banks’s are offering rewards for using your debut card - so aren’t they also going to restrict debit cards?

The retailers know because the fee they pay back to visa or the issuing bank is a higher percentage on rewards cards.

Banks love when u get a rewards card.

 

[Judique]

I was eyeing the sign-up info the last time I was at Costco, and I might jump on it. I drive a Traverse, and the gas mileage is terrible.

You could also have Costco look at your overall spending to determine whether an executive card would save you additional money. They did this for me a few years back and now I collect 2 checks each year minus my annual fee for Costco membership. I'm going to use Costco anyway due to proximity and without any extra effort I usually have quite a lot in rewards. When I say 2 checks, I mean a rewards certificate, but it's easily converted into cash. I used it to buy 10$ worth of water last time and the remainder was given in cash right at the register.

Drop the cash in your bank account and then pay again with your credit card to keep your rewards flowing.

 

[Anthony1971]

As of now... The rules are if you accept Visa you accept all same for each. You can also offer a cash discount which you could not in the past to discourage the use of credit cards.... you would NEVER see it from large retailers as they would have the merchant number suspended and not be able to accept credit cards and possibly be liable to compensation to the credit card companies as per the contract you sign.
The first numbers on a credit card are actually an identifier saying what type of card Visa, MC, Amex ETC what bank and what type of card rewards etc. It is a very long story and process of how a card is authorized when you make a purchase and how the money actually gets transferred as there are multiple hands in the pot and they all get paid . Amex by far is not the most expensive in fact being they released their network as in previously you had to have a separate account with Amex and a separate merchant number from Visa/MC-- there are others like Discover that were the same -- now you have one merchant number and you can accept all cards. A merchant is charged a different amount for Many cards -- you could have hundreds of different rates-- and the merchant will pay a considerably higher fee for a rewards card as opposed to a non rewards card.. if you are a high end retailer it is just the price you pay as most of the customers have rewards cards lower end not so much. I can only speak of our rates and overall we pay about 3% -- there are other fees you pay which make it higher but not by a significant amount. not to go into much detail but online is higher depending upon the processor as there is a surcharge for credit cards that are not swiped which can be as high as 1% which is why Square and such which claim a certain overall percentage do not work for most retailers. Also returns with Square still incur the fee but a return you are not charged a % on, with a true point of sale system this is not the case but you still pay some fees including a swipe fee...
To touch on HD etc people will walk on and charge 5 dollars-- just swiping a card you pay .25 for the logo to V/MC etc other swipe fees plus the % based on the card so your fees can easily be 10% on a small transaction... this is where Square would work better but only if you had all small transactions as when you average it in general the smaller purchases cause little change.... I could write a book and more but lets just say yes rewards cards are expensive to take and they can be identified and blocked (as above you can not do so now) and that includes debit cards as they fall into the same category these days there is little difference in the fees other than the retailers funding is more secure -- another part of the story as getting a merchant number as business requires a lot of information as there is fraud on a business end as well. Could a large company or a number of large companies force V/MC or Amex to change this...well if they all stop taking Visa I would believe there will be a compromise and it could be an up fee for you to use that card at retailers or an option for them to charge a fee and it would simply be added on to the purchase price on the back end no need for an employee to do anything.. as above a fee can be charged now but cleverly worded as a cash discount. BTW all people pay the fees for a retailer to accept credit cards it is built into the markup.

 

[scrapquitler]

On Monday, I went to a local pastry shop and they had a sign that they do not accept any credit cards that offer rewards. Had to pay with my debit card and will likely not be back there, since they were way overpriced anyway.

I've got 4 different credit cards. Discover, two MC and one Visa. Each and every one of them has some sort of reward program. (Discover Cash Back, one gets Thank you points, one gets cash back, one gets Southwest points.
I don't think you can even GET a credit card that doesn't offer some sort of rewards program these days. I think even almost every debit card offers rewards at this poing (I don't know because I don't have one of those).

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I've got 4 different credit cards. Discover, two MC and one Visa. Each and every one of them has some sort of reward program. (Discover Cash Back, one gets Thank you points, one gets cash back, one gets Southwest points.
I don't think you can even GET a credit card that doesn't offer some sort of rewards program these days. I think even almost every debit card offers rewards at this poing (I don't know because I don't have one of those).

Yeah it's actually kinda funny.

I've had my bank CC since 2006. Sometime last year THEY rolled my credit card into a cash back one. Same CC, same account, same CC number, same everything as before but my bank is the one who added the cash back. It's a Visa CC.

My husband actually just got a Discover debit card that comes with cash back. It's not a CC, it's a debit card.

 

[afan]

I've got 4 different credit cards. Discover, two MC and one Visa. Each and every one of them has some sort of reward program. (Discover Cash Back, one gets Thank you points, one gets cash back, one gets Southwest points.
I don't think you can even GET a credit card that doesn't offer some sort of rewards program these days. I think even almost every debit card offers rewards at this poing (I don't know because I don't have one of those).

I think it's becoming a bit more common for debit to have rewards but they don't all have them. My mom's with BofA doesn't and mine with a credit union doesn't either. I'd rather have free checking than a debit that gets rewards anyway. I don't use my debit that much, but I also don't see the credit union going to a reward card. They do offer a reward CC but it's not very good compared to what else you can get.

 

[disneysteve]

I went to a local pastry shop and they had a sign that they do not accept any credit cards that offer rewards.

I believe this violates their merchant agreement with the card companies. If you want to be a pain, report them.