Some thoughts on new benefits for Visa U.S Credit Cardholders

Per Visa:

Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) today announced the addition of Shipt, Skillshare and Sofar Sounds – as exclusive benefits – for Visa’s U.S. Consumer Credit cardholders. Eligible cardholders can now get a free Shipt membership to receive free same-day delivery on groceries and household essentials on orders over $35; boost their creativity through Skillshare’s online learning community; and get access to presale tickets plus be eligible for a free concert ticket while discovering Sofar Sounds’ global community of music lovers.

Specifically, the benefits vary from one product to another. Signature/Infinite credit cardholders will be able to enjoy more benefits from Visa than other cardholders:

	Shipt	Skillshare	Sofar Sounds
Infinite	Up to three years of free Shipt membership (normally $99  per year)	Free membership for three months plus 30% off annual renewals	Seven-day Visa Exclusive Presale to Sofar-presented events, plus a free ticket with each purchase of one or more tickets to a show during the presale window
Signature	Three months of free Shipt membership, then nine months of membership at 50% off	Free membership for three months plus 20% off annual renewals	Same as Infinite
Others	One month of free Shipt membership, then three months of membership at 50% off		Same as Infinite but limit two free tickets per year

You may wonder now if you are qualified for Infinite or Signature benefits. Infinite cards are typically high-end premium cards with a significant annual fee such as Chase Sapphire Reserve or U.S. Bank Altitude Reserve Visa Infinite Card. Hence, if you are already paying in the hundreds of dollars a year for a credit card, chances are that you have an Infinite card.

It’s a bit easier to get a Signature card. Every year, issuers have campaigns to increase credit limit for qualified customers. There are two reasons for it: 1/ a higher credit limit can stimulate more spend from customers and 2/ a Signature card earns an issuer more interchange revenue than a Classic card. One of the key criteria for an upgrade is that customers must have less than $5,000 in credit limit, which is the threshold for a card to be considered by Visa to be Signature. After an upgrade, a Signature card will have more than $5,000 in credit limit.

Therefore, if you have a good credit history and standing, ask your issuer to increase your credit limit to above $5,000. Do check with them if it means you are getting a Signature card. Each issuer will have a different set of criteria to look at, in addition to credit score, to see if they will upgrade your account. There may be a hard/soft credit pull involved and as a result, your credit score may take a hit. However, if your monthly balance doesn’t change, a bigger credit limit means that your utilization would be lower and hence, your credit score would bounce back soon.

I don’t know the exact agreement between Visa and these companies, but if I have to guess, it won’t be Visa that subsidizes these benefits. Visa only earns a tiny piece from every transaction (like 0.2% give or take). The maths don’t add up for them to subsidize these benefits. On the other hand, the likes of Shipt, Skillshare and Solar Sounds have a perfect partner in Visa to market their services and acquire new users. Visa is the biggest card network in the world and in the U.S. It will be highly challenging to find an issuer that doesn’t have a Visa product. After this announcement, issuers will include the new benefits in their marketing: social media, direct mails, emails or websites. Credit card is a highly competitive and fragmented business. Every player pours millions of dollars into marketing and user acquisition every year. Hence, the names of Shipt or Skillshare will be more popular. I also think they will get more new users to the door. The difficult part is to make them stay. But hey, if you want to keep someone close, they have to be familiar with you first. This is about it.

For Visa, this is a good move to deepen their moat. Not only does the network have the biggest pool of merchants AND consumers in the U.S, but they also have the same advantage globally. While powerful, this moat doesn’t guarantee future successes. Visa has competitors circling. Apart from the traditional competitors such as Discover, Mastercard or American Express, there are new challengers on the horizon such as this startup Banked from the UK as well as alternative payment methods such as BNPL via ACH. This new slate of benefits is a plus for consumers as well as card issuers, at no additional cost. It is aimed to acquire new cardholders and keep them on the network as long as possible.