Originally Posted by
phltraveler
Again I'm rambling, but a la carte benefits on card charges are not going to work. Part of what makes the benefits cheap is that most benefits are insurance policies subsidized by people who rarely or never claim. Which is not that different from health insurance in the US at large employers, where large health plans have cheaper premiums than individually purchased ones.
Right - I was being facetious there. Could never work. But to some extent, a lot of us on FT already do operate this way a bit. We charge flights on one card, groceries on another, and hotels on a third, etc. all for the specific benefits they provide (even though many are overlapping).
But if/when we are presented with "Press OK to acknowledge the 3.24% fee to use your Acme Card" at checkout, we will weigh whether we need x or y benefits or whether we are earning enough z rewards to compensate for the fee.