Late to understanding VX to AS changes
Jul 14, 2017, 1:51 pm
#16
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 1999
Location: Ewa Beach, Hawaii
Posts: 10,909
Costco is a hybrid between the 2 scenarios I mentioned above.
On the old Costco Amex, the issuer was Costco. But Costco is not a bank (can't offer a revolving credit balance) and didn't have things like "cc fraud prevention". Thus they contracted with Amex for network AND financial services. Credit requests were done by Amex on the behalf of the issuer (Costco). When the issuer changed to a different network/financial services provider, they (via their new provider) swapped out your old card for a new one. While this resulted in a change to the acct number (so that the various networks know to route Costco credit requests to Citi instead of Amex), the physical issuer did not change.
For the VX cc, the network is Visa, the issuer is Comenity and Virgin America is a (dying) marketing partner. The AS cc is another issuer, so Comenity can't simply "transfer your acct". You will need a new cardmember agreement with the AS cc issuer (BoA). Having said that,it would not surprise me if BoA makes a sweet deal to purchase names/addresses of VX card holders from Comenity, then reach out to those folks to try and secure their business.
On the old Costco Amex, the issuer was Costco. But Costco is not a bank (can't offer a revolving credit balance) and didn't have things like "cc fraud prevention". Thus they contracted with Amex for network AND financial services. Credit requests were done by Amex on the behalf of the issuer (Costco). When the issuer changed to a different network/financial services provider, they (via their new provider) swapped out your old card for a new one. While this resulted in a change to the acct number (so that the various networks know to route Costco credit requests to Citi instead of Amex), the physical issuer did not change.
For the VX cc, the network is Visa, the issuer is Comenity and Virgin America is a (dying) marketing partner. The AS cc is another issuer, so Comenity can't simply "transfer your acct". You will need a new cardmember agreement with the AS cc issuer (BoA). Having said that,it would not surprise me if BoA makes a sweet deal to purchase names/addresses of VX card holders from Comenity, then reach out to those folks to try and secure their business.
