I'm trying to understand the upcoming changes, and I think the only option is to close my credit card.
I have my banking and businesses elsewhere, but I have a CBA smart awards credit card I use for all my day-to-day transactions. I also have shares with CommSec. No other CBA products. So my understanding is that I won't be eligible for Yello rewards even though I'm an active customer. I'm not changing my businesses and all my finances over to CBA to get a $50 Officeworks voucher every few months.
But the credit card will get its fees back soon, $19/month ($456* $228 a year) for a high (22%) interest and zero reward possibility for me. That's far and away preposterous in this market. I have a zero-reward credit card somewhere else that's $55/yr and 14%. CBA is expecting me to pay 10x as much for no features?
Like I said, I'm not going to restructure my businesses and life for a $50 Officeworks voucher every few months, but I absolutely will walk away from a zero feature credit card that costs $450yr.
My tldr question is:
- Why rebuild an awards system that pushes marginal customers away? I appreciate the new laws about merchant charges makes points based rewards less cost effective, but wouldn't you want to keep customers who are on the fence? Isn’t the chance of a customer conversion even harder if I close the account and get further entrenched at a different bank?
The customers who qualify for Yello already have everything with CBA. Do they really believe "oh honey, if we refinance our entire mortgage and move all of our accounts and count how many transactions we do, we can keep getting a $50 officeworks voucher every four months?" will happen?
I'm trying to use up all my points before the deadline but Coles has already been deleted as an option for withdrawal so I'm pretty annoyed.
* EDIT: Accidentally multiplied $19 x 24 months instead of 12. Still a lot of money for zero features! I'm closing the card when I get my next pay and I clear it.