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Bonus offers on cards to lure new customers

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Banks are throwing their hat into the ring and willing to go great lengths to ensure they get the large share of customers in the market, especially the ones with excellent to good credit scores. As the competition heats up the number of bonus offers coming into play are increasing, with some of them being highly lucrative, but reserved for low risk customer group most of the time.

Four complimentary nights at Marriot coupled with 2 round trip tickets to California or $200 cash for filling up the application form is just one of the many irresistible offers doing the rounds today. The founder of one of the leading credit card websites, Curtis Arnold, said that the bonus offers today are juicier than they were ever before. He said that one of the recent offers he received was from American Express for their Express Business Gold reward card which offers $500 gift card if he spends $2000 on this card within the first 90 days of obtaining it. The lender is also waiving off the annual fee of $125 for the first 12 months. With recession quickly becoming a thing of the past, banks are now opening up and reaching to customers more aggressively.

The proof for this is the number of solicitations that are being sent out to customers on a daily basis. Mintel Comperemedia, a firm based in Chicago, has revealed that the number that stood at 551 million in the year 2009 rose steeply to 1.4 billion in the last quarter of 2010.