When I went to pay my monthly balance I saw on the splash page that they have 27 different freakin’ cards! I took a casual look and they do indeed seem to be different, at least in name. I note that ten of them are cards they underwrite for other businesses like Macy’s and Home Depot. But still, 17 cards is a lot.
There are also the cards affiliated with airlines and hotels. The world has dozens of hotel chains and dozens of airlines. You know each airline has at least one card provided by some bank. Why not Citi? heck, American Airlines alone has 5 different flavors of Citi card. They (Citi) are in the business of creating credit cards. Mo’ kinds of cards are mo’ bettah for them.
They’re all the same basic credit product if you back off a few hundred feet; each just with a different assortment of “coupons” attached.
And there are cards for business, not consumer. And ,and, and.
I just checked. Chase offers 42 kinds. And each airline they work with has 3 or 4 or 5 kinds. Some hotel chains have 4 kinds too. It multiplies up quickly.
I guess I just find it surprising anyone is surprised that the largest banks in the country offers lots of kinds of affiliated credit cards.
Did you think Citi Bank only had two or three cards? They have a marketing department/organization that spends countless hours trying to find new ways to lure in new customers. Each card has slightly different perks, and some people are attracted by one perk but not another. They interview lots of people and find out what they are interested in in terms of features and perks and design a new card to suit them and others just like them. It obviously costs them something to launch a new card, but if they can get enough new customers it’s more than worth it considering what they charge for interest on unpaid balances. To put it bluntly, they wouldn’t have so many credit cards if it didn’t make smart financial sense to do so.
My airline card was just bought and transferred over to Citibank; still debating whether I’m gonna close it and jump ship somewhere else or not.
My Citi credit card was originally my Sears card. At some point the Sears card became Citi. I just went with it.