Originally Posted by
ZenFlyer
Yes, I understand that the restaurants are (presumably) not absorbing any extra monetary expense. My point was that some of them are potentially absorbing some extra aggravation, given the small dollar amount needed to trigger the bonus and people splitting purchases among multiple eligible cards. I don't fault cardholders for taking advantage of the terms as they are offered; they are entitled to do that.
I was simply pointing out that this particular offer has some perhaps less than desirable consequences for the merchants involved.
But in seems in any event that there has been no grand rollback of the offer, so we can all return to eating happily and cheaply.
I honestly could not think of ANY
"less than desirable consequences for the merchants involved." Isn't the merchant fee is a % of the transaction amount?
Most people seem to use the offers at fast foods / reloading their Starbucks, Chick fila, Chiptole, etc Just HOW these merchants would suffer when you pay each reload with a different CC. or buy a McD meal one at a time?
Plus, the offer disappearance DEFINITELY would not be due to Merchants' complaints as you speculated. It is a system glitch now we can conclude, but I would not rule out 100% that the Chase marketing dept might suddenly realize they have set the targets too loosely, i.e. lots of cards saw the offer. But NO WAY merchants would even know such offer exists, let alone complain to Chase ... Sometimes I am amazed by some strange logic people have as the premise / assumption, are completely not able to stand analysis.
What Chase should do is, have a finite number of an offer - once the enrollment reaches that finite number, the offer disappears from your online account IF you haven't added it the first time you see it. That is HOW AMEX OFFERS WORK.
Some truly popular offers such as Lowes, Staples, $ off on booking cruises, statement credit on insurance ... just off the top of my head, could disappear within one to two days ... sometimes literally within the same day when someone reported such offer.