Visa Black Card Comes With A Sense Of Self Importance, $495 Annual Fee
Two different readers recently received an application for the Visa Black Card from Barclays. With its "patent pending carbon" material and "exclusive rewards program," it's not for everyone. With its $495 annual fee (plus another $195 per each authorized user), it's not for anyone, not even the supposed 1% of the population Barclays says they're marketing it to. We take that back—if Gob Bluth could get his own credit card, this would be the one he'd sign up for. C'mon!
Surely such a luxurious card must have some kick-ass benefits, right? Here are the terms and conditions so you can decide for yourself:
Stephen notes,
It seems a bit like trying to sell those ‘Who's Who in American High Schools' to people- asking a lot of money for some meaningless bit of data. I can't quite figure out what justifies such a high price tag, other than the thrill of conspicuous consumption or in being slightly more unique than the other hundreds of customized credit cards out there.
(Congratulations to Stephen and Todd for being in such an exclusive percentile!)
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Comments:
I also got offered one of these. I have no idea why, or why anyone would actually want such a card.
I'm from Iowa, so the minimum finance charge is on 50¢. SIGN ME UP!!
Sounds more like "elusive rewards program" to me...
They are trying to be similar if not complete with Amex Black. That card is "Not for everybody" and people kill to have it.
It ain't easy being white.
Am I the only one having an epileptic fit over the $195 per authorization charge??
oh, snap! my citi diamond rewards card (I know, right? Diamond? it's not even a great card... talk about card material inflation) that I've had for over a year looks a lot like this. Come to think of it, I have been noticing more people faint at the mere sight of it lately.
I have a feeling anyone who can afford this now would have their full-time mail screenerl throw it out before it ever reaches their mid-morning tea office.
Now, a Colbert Platinum card, on the other hand...
meh.
You get a free tshirt with a Southwest Airlines Visa Card.
It seems as though they're marketing this card at the wrong time. Maybe they should spend money on better things, like non-outsourced customer service...
I really think it'd be more of a Lindsay thing.. I mean, come on, diamond cream? It has a million f*cking diamonds!
Can I put "Owner of Visa Back Card" on my resume?
@Franklin Comes Alive!: Oh goddamn you, that song is going to be stuck in my head all day. And of course I'm doing something monotonous like moving, and not a regular day at work.
As long as the limit is high enough for the 18 grand needed for the Aztec Tomb, I don't see how it's a bad option.
Just about everyone is getting these Black card invites. Not so exclusive anymore.
Are the tax payers paying via the bailout for that marketing?
My husband just got a Black Card invitation and now I'm wondering why. We have good credit but are far from wealthy. Part of the reason we have good credit is that we don't jump at random credit card offers no matter how fancy the packaging...and this packaging is fancy.
Black envelope with the words BLACK CARD in all caps across the flap. Impressive. But not impressive enough for us to bite.
Try again, Visa!
I've received more random compliments for my AMEX Blue Cash card than possibly anything else I've ever owned.
@Yossarian: It's not even quite that. I think I remember reading their rewards promo crap when it first came out, and it said it gives you two complimentary airline club visits; after that, you have to pay for the airline clubs.
Gotta love cheap knock-offs...
Wow, the terms are insanely uncompetitive, across the board. Looks like Visa Black is for the elite all right: Elite suckers!
Is it just me, or do you get every single one of these benefits with a Visa Signature card, without the annual fee? Their site suggests that they have some travel insurance coverage available for free, but I have an REI Signature card which gives me that. Even better, I have a Schwab Visa which has double the cash back, and no foreign transaction fees. Both have a concierge service, although I've never put it to the test.
Visa is getting beat out by their own product.
@Trai_Dep: Does the poly-carbonate, resin fiber reinforced, gritty black scheme suggest it's especially manly, or simply the card to take while on a week-long coke/crystal meth binge?
What's the limit? For those kind of fees I better be able to buy a new yacht with one.
It is so exclusive everyone is getting one! Be in the in crowd uh just like everyone else. Plus a 13% apr? I would hope anyone who actually has money could get a better rate than that. I think there are still some cards running under 10% apr if you can obtain them.
The competitive advantage of most of the upper-tier cards like the AMEX Platinum are concierge customer service, event invitations, and the like. Visa isn't offering anything like that here, just an artificial status totem to whip out of one's wallet.
But the larger problem is that status is afforded to one's credit card's appearance and terms. Perhaps I don't understand the social pressures of being rich that well, but it strikes me that people this foolish with their money won't understand those pressures for long either. The day the right to pay 14% interest becomes worthy of $495 a year is the day that aspirational luxury has completely dominated the American psyche.
So whats the big racket over Vias Black, save for their swanky color job (I'll take a can of Krylon plastic paint and do mine white, nyah!) and semi attractive APR.
Remember what P.T. Barnum said, folks...
I pay $450 a year for my Amex Platinum, but, atleast I get airport club access,,, NO Finance charges,, and concierge and the like behind it... Granted my Plat isnt made out of carbon fiber, but, thats another issue for another day!
I got the offer too, and laughed when I saw the fee plus the interest rate. Stupid.
I can't imagine many takers.
I saw the web site for this a few weeks ago and made a fool of myself laughing out loud at work before I got angry about how stupid it is, but then I thought about it more -- I hope they fleece people self-important enough to sign up for one of these for everything they can get. I'm usually all for protecting people from their own stupidity, but if someone really thinks they're "special" because they pay more to have a fancy credit card, it serves them right. "Oh, I'm special, I have a carbon credit card -- it even has my very own name on it!".
Damn, now I'm angry about it again.
Does this card come with a complimentary kick in the groin? With a $500 annual fee, it should at least come with a complementary punch in the face.
I have to say, the perks offered by cards like the Amex Plat. or Black outweigh this card ten fold. If you travel alot then the Amex Platinum is actually a big time money saver, since you then don't have to pay for the world clubs in airports (trust me, it's a necessity to keep your sanity). My dad had one when I was younger, between the world clubs and the concierge service, it's worth the money. This card on the other hand...
@LegoMan322: Haha, you're right. I worked with a guy who was pretty rich, but "not-quite-there" as far as AMEX Black went. He got on the horn with them and basically ended up begging for the thing. In front of everybody in the office. And got negged. In front of everybody. We made sure that the humbling nature of this event was fully understood by him.
@Wuhao: The travel insurance benefits on the Visa Black card are a joke. My $50/year Citi AAdvantage card has far better insurance benefits (4x the travel accident insurance, 5x the lost luggage insurance). And my Schwab Visa Signature (which I think has similar if not identical travel insurance benefits to the Black Card) has 2x the cash back rewards with no annual fee at all.
The one thing this card has that a standard Visa Signature or World Mastercard doesn't have is Priority Pass, which gets you into certain airline lounges. That's what lets them charge the annual fee and what makes it competitive with Amex Platinum (not Amex Centurion). I'm not sure what level of Priority Pass this includes, but you may actually be able to buy a Priority Pass membership directly for less than the cost of the annual fee on this card.
I'll stick with my Citibank cards. 3.25% APR plus 1% cash back ain't too bad. Unfortunately, it's sort of silvery and plastic. Waaaaah!
@lpranal:
Is it the black one? I got the card a few years ago when it was silver and they just sent me a new, black variant. I thought it of too when I saw this story because I remember thinking it was sorta neat. But the rewards are crap so I took out a different one.
@icruise: My mother received one and ripped it up almost immediately, haha. Guess you guys are elite!
@backbroken: I see no reason why not. Unless, of course, such an action is prohibited in the fine print of the card's terms and conditions. Presumably Barclay's might claim that you do not actually "own" the credit card, but in the grand scheme of things, I doubt they'd really be too terribly concerned.
My question is: do you believe adding this information to your resume would improve your career prospects? I'd be leery of hiring anyone to manage my company's books who felt that paying $495 for a run of the mill credit card with "patent pending carbon material" was a sign of prestige.
On the other hand, if I needed a lackey who I felt I could convince to work lots of unpaid overtime, simply by offering him an "executive level salary." which might or might not be the same the average hourly base rate in the a given field, then sure, telling me about your Black VISA card might be just the ticket to landing you the job!
@Red_Eye: CapitalOne already offers the Black Card. Someone I know has received an offer identical to that from them.
I threw away all my platinum cards. I got a Uranium card.
Quick someone paste that image into a CapitolOne Card maker!