The underlying issue is the capping of interchange fees on credit cards in Europe. The interchange fee is the fee that is paid to the issuing bank (i.e. the bank of the credit card holder) but ultimately charged to the retailer via the card network (visa, mastercard). In North America, these are not capped. Therefore, it is in the interest of banks to issue as many credit cards and get their customers to use them so as to generate substantial fees for themselves via interchange fees. Merchants have to pay those fees and reflect them in their prices. Interchange fees, therefore, tend to be ultimately detrimental to consumers but in an indirect way which is largely invisible to consumers. For this reason, those interchange fees are capped in Europe to prevent banks from profiteering from them, with the consequence that it becomes far less attractive for banks to attempt to bribe customers to sign for new cards with various perks as they are not going to generate anywhere as much income from those cards as their US counterparts. Hence why you do not see the mega sign-up bonuses and other credit card perks in Europe that you see in the US.