Some Credit Card Rewards are Shrinking…

We have some credit cards with rewards, and we have some that we could redeem. I haven’t done it yet – I was thinking of doing it as a celebratory measure once our credit card debt was paid off. But this article at Yahoo Finance made me wonder if we should cash out while the gettin’ is somewhat still good.

Citibank’s move is just the latest in a flurry of reward program cutbacks. Nearly every major issuer has altered their reward offerings over the past year in some way: attaching more strings to membership, limiting cardholders’ earning ability, scaling back reward offerings or inflating redemption levels.

Via Yahoo Finance Article

We don’t have too much that we can redeem for. We have used our cards quite a bit, but some of them were used before a reward system was in place. But anything back from our credit cards is better than nothing so I’ll be doing some rewards shopping this weekend.

Posted by Tricia on March 6, 2009 at 11:11 PM in Credit Cards | 6 Comments »
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HS@ Our Debt Blog responded:
Posted: March 7th, 2009 at 3:07 am
Discover has also made changes to their rewards program, from now on you have to wait until you reach $50 to cash out instead of $20, otherwise the only choice is gift cards.

HS
Nate @ Debt-free Scholar responded:
Posted: March 7th, 2009 at 9:18 am
I read about another guy yesterday who got more rewards from his credit card company. They raised his spending limit. Wasn’t that nice of them. They gave him an opportunity get more in debt to them. Ha, Ha!

Thanks,
Nate
The Weakonomist responded:
Posted: March 7th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
I hope chase is listening. You cut my cashback I cut your card. There are still companies out there offering good deals that would be happy to pick up my business.
MrPlasectomy responded:
Posted: March 8th, 2009 at 8:04 am
They cut limits, cut rewards, raise rates, double monthly minimum amounts and expect people to continue to use their cards?
Mar responded:
Posted: March 8th, 2009 at 11:17 pm
I received the letter form Citibank telling me about the card changes. I cashed out most of the points the next day for a $25 Walmart gift card. Presuming there aren’t any problems, I’ll be cashing out the remaining points and the ones I earn this month for a Starbucks card for my daughter. After that, the Citibank card is going in a drawer and we’re going to a cash only basis for good.
New Edge Credit responded:
Posted: April 23rd, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Not only rwards are shrinking but credit limits are being lowered. I have great credit and my credit limit has been lowered on 3 popular credit cards I carry. I also run a financial website and I am even seeing consumers with good credit being turned down for new cards, this is definately tough times for the credit industry.