Troopers

I received an email stating:

tmiw

Was mentioned in this thread earlier today. I guess Chase saw enough people requesting the cards after they announced their availability such that they decided to reissue all of them right away (instead of doing it as needed)?

Honestly, I'm still kinda surprised Chase bothered issuing them at all. They could easily have continued with the "they failed in the US the first time" thinking that other issuers seemed to have.

Troopers

Thanks. The post in the other thread refers to the Freedom. I wonder why I got the FU, and not for the Freedom?

mia

What are the expiration dates of your existing cards?

Troopers

CF exp 11/19
CFU exp 10/20

mia

I expect they will also send you a contactless Freedom when it is scheduled to be replaced later this year. I further expect that the new cards will have a ~4 year expiration/replacement cycle.

tmiw

I requested replacement contactless versions of CFU/Freedom back in November and their expiration dates are 11/2023 (5 years).

mtftw

.....

tmiw

From what I remember, Chase was initially planning on replacing them as they expired (or earlier if requested or if the card's lost/stolen). Them proactively replacing the cards is new.

ESpen36

Doesn't everyone use digital wallets these days with the exact same NFC functionality? (and a lot safer, since digital wallets generate one-time secure tokens that cannot be hacked easily, and the actual account number is never shared with the merchant during the transaction)

tmiw

Not really. Or well, not growing as quickly as the banks and Apple/Google would have liked anyway.

As for safety, contactless cards are no worse than chip and signature IMO. And might have a decent shot at being used, too, especially at those merchants in the US who don't offer any customer facing terminals (such as restaurants).

christianj

I think it's stupid of Chase to run a new commercial with Kevin Hart using his contactless FU card when the majority of cardholders don't even have the cards.

tmiw

CS agents will send out new cards with contactless (not to mention the people who apply for it for that feature) so I'm not sure if that's really an issue. Granted, I haven't seen that commercial.

ajeleonard

In the UK where more than half of card transactions are contactless, tapping the physical card is far more popular than using the Apple/Google pay on the phone. It's only anecdotal, but it shows greater consumer acceptance of contactless using a card

tmiw

I'm not sure that can be extrapolated to the US market for a few reasons. One reason is that Apple Pay and the like effectively came first for most people (yes, there were contactless cards before but they never became common). As a result, contactless is typically referred to here as Apple Pay--meaning that store clerks and customers will likely insert by default without significant marketing and education on the part of merchant processors and issuers. Not to mention contactless cards themselves becoming more common.

Another reason is that the perception of the chip being slow is gradually going away as more and more merchants support Quick Chip and get rid of signature requirements. That itself will likely add significant headwind towards contactless adoption since chip is "fast enough" for most people. Of course, that doesn't mean that it'll be a flop, but it may mean that it takes much longer to reach 50%+ like it has elsewhere.

In short, I guess we wait and see.