Credit Card Issuers and “Affluent Cardholders”

Since the beginning of the "credit crunch", times have been hard for consumers and credit card issuers alike. For this reason many U.S. consumers have not only dramatically decreased their spending but also seem to be charging less to their credit cards for their daily necessities. There is however, one group of people that have actually been spending more and card issuers are now looking towards them to shore up their sagging bottom line. This group is known as the "affluent cardholders".

With credit card issuers, "affluent" consumers are those people earning at least $100,000 a year or above. These consumers typically are not affected as much by economic downturns and have statically shown to continue making purchases of higher priced goods whether times are good or bad. So far in 2009, researchers have seen the overall spending on luxury goods and services rise dramatically from the second quarter to the third quarter. This is a trend that is expected to continue not only throughout the forth quarter but into 2010.

While issuers such as Chase (Sapphire Card) and Barclays (Visa Black Card) have offers geared specifically for wealthy consumers, it seems that American Express has control of the market. This is largely due to the fact that they are the largest credit card company by purchases, and offer numerous charge cards that seem to be the type of card preferred by these consumers.