That’s the subject line of the email I received from Citi just over a week ago. As you can guess, I was pretty excited when I read that subject line and immediately clicked into the email.
I’ve had the Citi ThankYou Premier card for about 2 years now. I got the card when I downgraded my Citi Prestige card after Citi and American removed the Admirals Club benefit from the card. I downgraded my account rather than closing it outright as I wanted to keep the account active, but also because the Citi ThankYou Premier card, in it’s own right, it a pretty decent card. At the time, I wasn’t ready to give it up.
Citi ThankYou Premier Card Benefits
I won’t go into a ton of detail about the card as I’ve covered the benefits extensively before. It’s a great card that offers some decent bonus point earning potential for just a $95 annual fee.
For that fairly reasonable annual fee, card holders receive 3X ThankYou points on Travel (including gas), 2X points on dining and entertainment, and 1X points on everything else. I can’t think of any other $95 annual fee card with better point earning potential. This card is especially perfect for anyone who spends a decent amount of money each year on gas.
While the benefits from this card are great, they haven’t changed much in a few years… So, when I received the email from Citi I was excited to say the least. I thought, “4X points on dining!?” “5X points on travel!?.” Sure, these would be extreme for a $95 annual fee card, but did you see the subject line!?
Citi’s “Great News”
No, it was nothing like that, the news was that the Citi ThankYou Premier card is going contactless…
The email introduces the new contactless Citi ThankYou premier contactless card and continues with some information on how contactless-chip enabled cards work or and where you can use them.
Now, don’t get me wrong, this is definitely news, but “great news”? I’m not so sure getting a card with fairly old technology is “great,” but that’s just me…
The Current State Of Contactless In the U.S.
See, I actually do consider this “fine,” “average,” “decent,” “etc.” news. I love contactless cards… when they work. Contactless cards are great because they are just so much quicker and easier than putting the card in the chip reader. I’m still confused why the U.S. decided to move toward chip-sign cards when the rest of the developed world was going contactless.
The issue with contactless cards however, is that they don’t work 100% of the time. In fact, I’d say that they only work about 60% of the time. A lot of places don’t have contactless card payment setup. So, you put the card down and the terminal returns an error. They then have to restart the payment process and you have to use the chip card. On other occasions the contactless reader works, but the employee has never seen it before and doesn’t believe it will work.
Basically, contactless cards are great, they just aren’t mainstream yet in the U.S. I suspect this is changing with the addition of the contactless American Express Gold card, but it’s changing slowly. Chase for example, still does not provide contactless cards to all customers. Only a few Chase cards are just now starting to become contactless.
Final Thoughts
Again, I’m actually pretty excited about Citi transitioning to contactless payment cards in the United States. When contactless works I much prefer it to the traditional chip or swipe methods used today. However, I still think it’ll take some time for rest of the U.S. to transition. So few merchants properly accept contactless payment today that it’s often frustrating trying to use. That being said, I imagine as the major issuers (Chase, Citi, Discover, etc.) transition to contactless the transition will accelerate.
Finally, I want to reiterate a point I made in an earlier post about contactless cards. I personally think with the adoption of contactless cards the form factor of a credit card will change entirely. There’s no doubt that mobile payments will take off and physical cards will eventually become obsolete, but in the interim I wonder if card issuers will begin to experiment with other materials, sizes, and shapes once they are no longer bound by a magnetic strip or a chip. I guess only time will tell. Anyone remember the Bank of America keychain credit card?
