I am wondering how these new ranges of VISA cards which I expect will be open to Australians soon will go? Here is one such card.
As it is only available to residents of the United States, so you will not see many of them right now.
One problem with the current VISA/Mastercard point system is they basically work on frequent flyer points which to a significant percentage is of minor interest as you need to buy a lot over a long time to get a reward. These cards most compelling feature is often the discounts of the services on offer; for example, this card offers a 4 percent rewards rate on dining out. Now if that is Ubereats and its restaurants that could be huge for many. I know of millenniums that use Ubereats almost every night. Another plus for these millenniums is with these cards they can get 2% back on such products like Amazon, Best Buy, Netflix, Apple Music, etc.
The problem from physical merchants is they can in Australia only charge fees based on VISA and Mastercard as a group. Not that it matters as there is no way of knowing in advance that it is a premium card often we do even have a card, just a mobile and all we get back electronically is very general details, e.g. VISA or MasterCard. What is going to happen is that the rate on regular cards is going to go up as these premium cards rate goes up. Then these fees will go up for everyone. This is going to put pressure on merchants.
This problem needs to be addressed soon as already. I hear that Facebook announced that it is going to soon really push these cards.
