Originally Posted by
friedablass
Yes, charge cards are mass market cards and are pushed by bloggers when there's enough money for them to make via referral/affiliate link. Which card are you referring to that's now available as a credit card? The Plat card is a charge card and AFAIK is only available as such; I would be interested to know which version, if any, is now a credit card.
Interesting. Best info I could find indicates that charge cards make up less than 10 percent of the US card market, but I am not an expert and I don't know how "mass market" is defined. So I suppose that small part of the market could still be described as "mass market". At the same time, I would imagine that this smaller set of the market for cards which must be paid in full every month likely skews (or historically used to skew) toward those who don't need credit and spend more -- so that could be the reason (or one of the reasons) why Amex has been able to extract favourable terms from merchants for this card.
Originally Posted by
diesteldorf
They may be referring to Amex' Pay Over Time feature. I believe all Amex charge cards allow you to now carry a balance, so many of these cards that used to be charge (pay balance in full) cards are now a charge/credit card hybrid.
Yes, exactly. Although I haven't ever used that feature, I wonder if this cheapens the appeal of the card from the merchant perspective, as then I suppose someone could describe it as a credit card dressed up to look like a charge card. And in the UK, for example, it is my understanding that Amex has stopped issuing charge cards to new customers and only offers credit cards to new customers (just one example -- not sure about other markets). So I wonder if this also cheapens the appeal of Amex from the merchant perspective. Interesting point that
friedablass brings up!