American Express Membership Rewards - Amex Card Issuing Alliance w/ Citibank - Could MR Pt. Transfers to AA Be Far Behind?

AMERICAN EXPRESS ANNOUNCES CARD ISSUING ALLIANCE WITH CITIBANK

NEW YORK, December 13, 2004 -- American Express today announced that it has reached an agreement for Citibank to issue credit cards in the United States that will be accepted on the American Express global merchant network.
American Express anticipates that the new credit card products developed by Citibank will be available in late 2005.

Citibank will be responsible for issuing the cards, managing the customer relationships, providing service, billing and credit management and designing the card product features. American Express will process transactions on its global merchant network.

Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

“As one of the world's most prestigious financial institutions, Citibank is a tremendous addition to the American Express network,” said Kenneth I. Chenault, Chairman and CEO of American Express. “We are committed to working with outstanding partners like Citibank and the premiere customer experience they provide.”

These deals will be interesting, because AmEx doesn't have anything to pin its brand on except for service. They've got a much smaller merchant network, you get bullied by merchants for trying to use AmEx's all the time, MR is a pretty crappy program, etc.

The only thing the can say is "we provide good service." Of course, that's often not the case. But now with these new deals where Citibank, etc., are going to be providing the customer service, I wonder what the benefit of signing up with AmEx via Citibank is?

Citibank does a decent job at customer service, {though it took a month for me to get a replacement credit card after mine was stolen (in which time I had personally found the crook and had him arrested, and he was prosecuted and began his sentence whilst I was still waiting for Citibank to get me a new card)} so what's the point of me getting the Citi AmEx and sacrificing the size of the merchant network over MasterCard?

I'd like to see an AA alliance; that would be big. But I don't want to have to get another credit card. If they could turn my existing AmEx into an AA AmEx (which they can't), then it would be good. But where's the benefit of me getting another AmEx card?

It's unlikely the deal would result in a way to transfer membership rewards points to AA. Its my understanding the deal is just between the Citibank and Amex to allow Citibank to issue cards on the American Express network. Its more likely Citibank will issue an AA card with an Amex logo on it.