flyer4512

I love this change, Amex is basically no longer churn able ( except business every 24 months) while Visa has cards with almost every major hotel and Airline.

I currently make the spend on many of my cards buying $1K Costco Cash cards online using Visa.

pugsley21

Although I don't have any Citi cards, I am so glad they will be accepting VISA. The majority of my wallet is VISA. I am going to take joy in earning all those UR points!

rgAAFT

Why not get a few Citi cards? They are the best bank in my opinion on multiple fronts in my opinion... Chase on the other hand is downright cheap, they will chew the life ott of you for every single dollar they can get away with, in case you ever do have problems with even minor charges. Downright disgraceful, Chase is

yugi

Buy a visa gift card at a drugstore with Amex BC (5% cashback) and use it in Costco. I do this all the time. Either this or Amex GCs.

jn in ca

I have no insider info, so take this with a grain of salt, but I know a lot about this deal, and about last year's deal for Canadian Costco to switch to Capital One. So let me throw out 2 quick comments:

1 - What will the new rewards program look like? When Cap 1 took over from AmEx in Canada, the new rewards card was almost identical to the old one. I strongly doubt that the new Citi/Costco card will have better rewards than Amex/Costco. Costco simply isn't giving them enough of a profit margin to make the rewards more generous.

2 - What will happen to all the existing Costco/AmEx cardholders? Wouldn't we all like to know. Read the fine print: The deal with Citibank is contingent on Citibank buying the existing Costco credit card portfolio.

Do you think AmEx wants to lose these members? At some point, AmEx is going to make a move to try and keep their customers. For all the commenters writing things like "adios AmEx. I'm dumping you," the joke is on them. They are going to miss out on the deal AmEx is going to offer cardholders to get them to stay.

Dude, Visa beating MC is the overlooked part of the deal. Citibank was one of the first banks to sign up with Mastercharge back in the day. They have always stayed a MC shop overwhelmingly, even today. Plus, Costco would have a reason to go with MC to keep from causing a huge headache for their Canadian customers coming over the border. (Believe me, April 1st 2016 is going to be a massive headache for Costco employees.)

For Visa to win an exclusivity deal at Costco is a big win. It's little discussed among the civilians, but in the card industry, Visa beating MC at Citi & Costco is raising eyebrows.

cotr

I think it would awesome for Citi Costo to be a Double Cash card with Visa Sig.

AAdmiral

What will be interesting is if Visa deal with Costco is for only the Visa Card and debit cards like Amex had with Costco. Since the deal is with Visa and the issuing bank is Citi I wonder if Citi will now have to offer MC branded cards with the Visa brand as well. I have 4 Citi branded credit cards and only 1 is a Visa card. Citibank issues mostly Mastercard products. The Citi Prestige is only MC and the Citi AAdvantage Executive World Elite MasterCard is also a MC. I wonder if these will be offered in a Visa version or if they will offer a Visa off the same credit line like Citi had with the AAdvantage Amex & Visa card sharing the same account.

mia

Once upon a time Citi was the largest issuer of VISA network cards, but a dispute over card branding caused them to change their emphasis to MasterCard. I don't think the Costco contract will have any bearing on which network Citi uses for other cards. I expect Citi will continue to issue Amex-network, MasterCard and VISA products, and that they will continue to play the networks against one another. (Card issuers receive incentive payments from the networks based on number of cards issued and transaction volume.)

AAdmiral

Correct, I remember the tag line, "Not just VISA, Citibank VISA"

My point is that I have a Citi Prestige & Citi AA Executive WE both MC and considered to be Citi's flagship credit cards and if they are not excepted at Costco then Citi risks alienating some of their best customers. It will be interesting if Citi will offer these two products in VISA flagged products as well due to the Costco deal.

rgAAFT

+1
I was just thinking of this as well.. Lucky I still have a Visa branded AA platinum card, but would much rather have a way to use my AA executive card (which for me is primary- which at this point is only offered as a World elite MasterCard. What if, there is a provision in the deal that says something like
"only visa cards maybe used at Costco, however if your issuing bank is Citi, then any card can be used regardless of network". That would be relatively easy to implement and would fix the issue

Tim O'Brien

1.5 UA miles on the Chase MileagePlus Club Visa may be more attractive than 2% cash back

pugsley21

I've had 2 Chase cards for a year now (Freedom and CSP). We've had nothing but great experience with them. My husband is military so we get waived AF on the CSP, which is nice. Also, I had an uninsured driver hit my rental car last year and the CSP card paid the $3k damage bill.

I haven't eliminated the thought of Citi.

mia

Citi is not sufficiently concerned about this to offer an Amex-network version of these cards, which they have the ability to do, to enable their cardholders to shop at Costco. Banks focus on getting an additional card in your wallet, not on giving you one card for all purposes.

Why would VISA agree to this dilution of their exclusivity? Costco has entered into two agreements, one with VISA to process their transactions. Another with Citi to issue their co-branded membership/credit card. Costco will accept any VISA card. It's up to Citi to sell customers on the merits of carrying the Costco card, rather than carrying a membership card plus another VISA.

AAdmiral

I think for VISA this is going to be a win win. Costco will now only accept VISA after the2016 change over date and this might push Citi to go back to VISA as its primary branded credit card. Citi would be foolish not to offer either duplicate offerings of their current MC branded cards or change them from MC to VISA like JP Morgan Chase is transitioning from MC to VISA on many of its products. Seems to me since most JPM Chase cards are VISA they will be a big winner as well. It will be interesting if from now until Costco accepts VISA if Citi will start to push VISA over MC branded cards going forward.

eajusa

Perhaps Citi wants to distinguish between it other cards and their new Costco card for the very sake of encouraging Customers to use their Costco Visa and not some other Citibank issued card.