Request for Information about Credit Card Affinity Payments
To work through my bankruptcy posts, I would like to learn the following from anyone who might happen to know:
What percentage of charged dollars does a credit-card company’s affinity partner typically get?
An English translation of the question:
If you charge $100 using a co-branded credit card, such as the Ebay MasterCard or the American Airlines Visa, the merchant usually has to pay about 2% (so let’s call it $2) to the credit card issuer. How much of that $2 does the affinity partner (the one that isn’t Visa or MasterCard) typically get? $1? 50 cents?
Getting a handle on this could go a long way towards explaining why certain groups you would expect to be opposed to Bankruptcy Reform are totally missing in action. Attempts to get this information from credit card issuers have been futile thus far (no surprise there).
If you know a general answer, or have a specific answer about a credit-card program you are familiar with, I would appreciate hearing from you at biz@bizzyblog.com.
UPDATE: Without getting anything tied to a specific card program, I have learned from one of the major card issuer’s call centers that affinity partners can get up to 1% of the amounts charged (i.e., up to $1 for every $100 spent on the card). I hope to learn about a specific affinity program or two shortly.
UPDATE 2: I just got the broad outline of a school-related program and feel comfortable that a typical arrangement is anywhere from 0.8%-1.0%. Let’s just say: That’s a lot of moolah. I’ll be commenting about this in the coming days.
