FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - USA EMV cards: Availability, Q&A (Chip & PIN -or- Chip & Signature) [2012-2015]
Old Jun 29, 2014, 11:19 pm
  #5271  
STS-134
 
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: SF Bay Area
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Posts: 6,600
Originally Posted by LETTERBOY
For some people, it may actually be a big deal. There are people who don't share your views regarding FTFs. They may be in the minority (at least on this board), but they exist.

Furthermore, if the banks thought FTFs were costing them money, they'd disappear rather quickly. Since there are still a lot of cards that have FTFs, we can reasonably conclude that FTFs are not costing the banks a significant amount of money.
But the bean counters never look at things the right way. For example, the bean counters can easily calculate the money that FTFs make for their banks, but they can't easily calculate the money that FTFs lose for their banks (due to people paying with competitor banks' cards).

It's the same reason why airlines can easily calculate the money that they make from TOD upgrades (the extra revenue they take in) but it's a lot harder to quantify the money they lose from those upgrades (elites get fed up with not getting upgraded, decide it's not worth it, and become kayakers, or become elites at a competing airline, which forces the airline to lower seat prices across the board).
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