Originally Posted by
Air Koryo
The Infinite was launched so CIBC Visa can charge a higher % merchant fee for the premium cards, and the initial marketing rollout implied that this was an exclusive product.
Prediction: the AG Infinite will replace all Aerogold cards in short order and the ‘eliteness’ of Infinite will be nothing more than what Aerogold is now, albeit at a higher cost to the merchant. Visa Canada tried to emulate the cachet of the Amex Centurion but dropped the ball by issuing an Infinite card to anyone who asked, and even to some who didn’t.
The only real difference is that, as noted above, the infinite card costs the merchants more to accept (additional 0.2% of spend for Canadian merchants, up to 0.97% more for international merchants):
http://www.visa.ca/en/aboutcan/media...ange-Rates.pdf
Any marketing pap about cachet and exclusivity is strictly aimed at merchants (the argument being that higher-quality customers charge more, justifying the higher rates). Banks have no intention of actually making the infinite cards more exclusive - the more cards they issue the more money they make.