ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT THURSDAYAPRIL 5, 2012

Credit card cash reward programmes o! er card-holders a chance to earn money back on credit card purchases. This is a

review of the top cash reward cards.

The evolution of technology and trends toward convenience con-tinue to drive the growing use of credit cards and electronic forms of payment. The media portrayal of consumer debt, excessive inter-est rates and hidden fees has given credit cards a negative reputation. However, credit cards can provide tremendous bene" t when used re-sponsibly. Besides convenience and consumer protection, credit cards often offer reward pro-grammes that provide additional economic bene" ts to the cardhold-er.

Choosing a credit cardWhen selecting a credit card,

potential cardholders should con-sider a number of factors including promotional o! ers, interest rates, credit limit, reward programmes, lifestyle and how or where they plan to use their card. Although many credit cards o! er reward programmes in the form of cash, points or airline travel miles, this article will speci" cally examine the credit cards that o! er the best direct cashback reward pro-grammes.

Cardholders that would bene" t most from these credit cards are

those individuals that frequently use their credit card as the primary form of payment for many types of purchases, charge a high amount on their card, have excellent credit, desire cashback as a form of re-ward, and pay their balance o! in full with each billing cycle. Carry-ing a balance and paying interest can negate the cashback bene" ts provided by these cards. In addi-tion, these cards are a good choice for cardholders who want a conve-nient rewards programme that does not require additional enrol-ment or a complex point redemp-tion process.

Taking you the extra mileThese days, it’s not unusual to

have at least one credit card that earns point or miles. Points can be redeemed for free merchandise, travel or even cashback. Under-

standing how credit card points and miles work is critical to maxi-mising the value of your credit card accounts. However, there are a wide variety of rewards pro-grammes out there. Terms and conditions, as well as how points are earned and redeemed, change quickly. Even di! erent cards from the same credit card issuer can have widely di! erent rules and point values. The " rst step to get a grip on these programmes is un-derstanding how credit card points and miles work.

History• During the days of the credit

boom, credit card companies were looking for a way to improve the value of their o! erings. Annual fees were dropped to zero on many cards, and interest rates were set at historic lows. However, since many credit card issuers used these tactics, something else was needed. Credit card reward pro-grammes that had once been used only on certain specialised cards for niche markets such as frequent # yers were expanded. Even credit cards without individualised, brand name rewards programmes were added to generic pro-grammes such as Visa Signature Rewards, which is o! ered on cred-

it cards issued by numerous banks.

Signi!icance• Credit card rewards are a way

to increase the value of a credit card to the customer. However, running these programmes is not free. The money earned by each card has to cover the expenses it generates to make a pro" t. While some rewards are either purchased at a discount from the supplier or made pro" table via another ar-rangement, the overall cost of run-ning the programme must be cov-ered by revenue generated from the cards. Cardholders not taking

full advantage of their credit cards reward programmes are paying for something they are not using.

Size• Credit card points and miles

are earned whenever the credit card is used. The standard model is that for every $1 spent on the card, one point or one mile is earned. However, some cards have special provisions that allow addi-tional points to be earned in cer-tain situations. Branded cards may o! er more points for purchases made from that company.

For example, a credit card asso-ciated with a particular airline or hotel will o! er more points for each dollar spent directly with that airline or hotel. In addition, some credit cards o! er di! ering point earnings based upon certain cate-gories of spending, such as o! er-ing more points for each dollar spent at gas stations or grocery stores.

Bene!its• Points and miles that are

earned may be redeemed for re-wards. Rewards also vary greatly from one card to the next. Cards may o! er free travel as one of their rewards. Redeeming points or miles for a free airline ticket is a common use of reward points. Some programmes have a # at re-demption table in which a certain range of total miles # own, or a cer-tain price range of tickets, can be purchased with a speci" c number of miles. Redeeming 30,000 miles for a round-trip ticket within the US is one common o! er. Other re-wards are based upon the price of the item, such as 1,000 miles for every $1 the ticket costs.

Some cards allow points and miles to be redeemed for cashback or statement credits. Again, some programmes have flat fee re-wards.

Yoghurt is a delight to the skin, body and health

Cashback reward programmes are designed in attractive formats to grab consumers’ attention and it is essential to know a bit about how they work to help you choose one with the best options

Points and miles that

are earned may be redeemed for rewards. Rewards also vary greatly from one card to the next. Cards may o! er free travel as one of their rewards

» TURN TO PAGE III

Air Miles is a leader in customer loyalty pro-gramme and one of the earliest and most well known in the UAE and the region. How did you make it so? What is the secret of your success and leadership in the loyalty card segment?

Air Miles has the " rst mover advantage in the region and laid a foundation that our strong partnerships continue to build upon. The secret is we provide a unique service to our partners and members with a strong coalition of brands. This allows us to provide information to our partners on a wide range of consumer spend behaviour and allows members to very quickly convert their spend into enough Air Miles to reach the point of redeeming a reward.

Unlike many stand-alone programmes that restrict members to one set of stores or one set of rewards our programme o! ers unique vari-ety and our “any airline, anywhere anytime” o! er cannot be replicated by the single airline o! ers.

As we are part of worldwide loyalty leader, Aimia, we also have access to the best Loyalty services in the world — a support base that no other local o! erings can match. Since Air Miles has been in the region for over a decade, it has the advantage of time — to build up a strong membership base of over $%& million members and also time to forge strong bonds with over $'( partners across the UAE, Bahrain and Qa-tar, ensuring there are plenty of places for our members to collect Air Miles and reach their rewards targets faster.

We have also made various changes to our programme over the years, which have re" ned what we o! er in order to suit our members’ needs. For instance, we o! er vouchers that you can use at Spinneys, Rotana, Adidas and Bin Sina and now o! er in-store redemptions with our various partners including consumer elec-tronics giant, Emax, Damas and Pan Emirates, which allows much more choice and # exibility when our members decide it’s time to redeem their Air Miles. This increased choice is never more apparent than with our # exible # ight re-wards o! ering, which — thanks to our unique setup up as a coalition loyalty programme — means our members are not tied to certain air-lines or destinations and can get great deals if they book well in advance of their time of trav-

el. Since the new # ights system was imple-mented in July '($$, over one billion Air Miles have been redeemed by members on # ights.

How do you draw on your global expertise including Aimia to enhance Air Miles loyalty programme in this region?

We constantly bring expertise to the region and, through our cutting-edge systems, we are also able to let partners see the next generation of loyalty in action when they visit our world-wide network. For instance, in terms of train-ing, we recently brought international teams out to train our customer service centre team and our service level feedback has been out-standing ever since. One of the main ways Air Miles separates itself from potential competi-tors is by leveraging the experience on o! er from being part of Aimia — a global leader in loyalty management. The level of support from this organisation, which has blazed a trail across the world in terms of loyalty manage-ment, is immense. This ranges from cutting-edge marketing techniques, strategies and ex-perience, through to accessing groundbreaking technology on o! er from Aimia’s various part-ners and a) liations, including loyalty analytics and innovation in the emerging digital and mo-bile spaces. To put Aimia into perspective, the organisation has over &*+(( employees in more than '( countries around the world and runs the global successful programmes such as Aeroplan in Canada, Nectar in the UK, Italy,

Chile and Club Premier

What are the latest exciting rewards await-ing customers that you would like to talk about? Are these rewards the same all over the region or county speci!ic? Are more shopping rewards for customers and incen-tives for businesses in the pipeline?

Air Miles Middle East has delivered over a million rewarding experiences to its members since launching in '(($ and we are always looking to improve our range of rewards and provide our members with exclusive ongoing promotions. Our latest rewards developments have been o! ering in-store rewards through Emax, with over '(*((( electronic products to choose from; and our # exible # ights, which simply put means no blackout dates and free-dom of choice.

How is technology (internet, mobile com-munication platforms etc.) being utilised by Air Miles to provide a better customer expe-rience?

The results from our recently implemented dynamic pricing for # ight purchases has al-ready impressive people booking earlier at bet-ter rates and having the # exibility to choose which airline has resulted in members making more bookings for the same number of Air Miles. We have invested heavily in technology, with our website www.airmilesme.com under-going a major redesign last year, which has been hugely popular with our members as it’s even easier and quicker to " nd what you need – whether it’s information on collecting, spend-ing or any other questions on the programme. Further developments will continue to appear throughout '($', with us leveraging our “best in class” technology solutions from Aimia. Al-most everything can be done online now, but, if there’s ever a problem, then we haven’t for-gotten the personal touch. Our customer ser-vice centre is extremely e) cient and our cus-tomer service representatives pride themselves on the high level of training they have received. Furthermore, Air Miles Middle East employs over '( nationalities, helping the organisation truly understand its multi-cultural member-ship.

Is Air Miles expanding further into more countries in the Middle East? What is your expansion plan?

Air Miles outlets are present in each of the top $( UAE malls and we also have a strong presence in Bahrain and Qatar, which we are currently consolidating and improving in terms of partners we have on board. However, we are always looking at opportunities in di! erent countries throughout the Middle East and North Africa due to unquestionable demand for the Air Miles coalition loyalty programme — hopefully have more news on this in the near future.

CASH BACK REWARDSTHURSDAY, APRIL 5, 2012 KHALEEJ TIMES / ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENTII

Dubai First always aims to build sustainable long-term value with its customers by harnessing a genuine service experience. Its success is based on two basic principles; simplistic and value-added products, and transparen-cy. Its rewards and loyalty pro-grammes are testament to its reputation in the UAE market, since inception only in '((,. The company likes to refer to itself as engineers in loyalty and cash-back programmes, and is truly dedicated to continuously raising the bar.

The rewards and cashback pro-grammes are provided courtesy of its premium-range credit cards, the “Emirati Card” and the “Titanium Life” cards. The Emi-rati Card, a breakthrough in the world of credit cards, upholds the pride of the Emirati identity for nationals, and attends to the unique requirements of Emiratis. This card boasts the “Al Imtiaaz Rewards” programme where cus-tomers can receive amongst the highest cash rewards of up to " ve per cent for every dirham spent with the card and bonus rewards of up to '%- per cent for super-market and international spends. The bank’s Titanium Life card on the other hand is designed to be a “life-enabler” in every sense. It is a very progressive credit card with its set of o! erings blended with a groundbreaking, and al-ready popular cash-back loyalty programme. This card guaran-

tees $( per cent cashback on duty free purchases and exclusive bo-nuses on weekend spending, util-ity bill payments, overseas pur-chases, Loan-on-Phone and balance transfers. Also, as part of its investment to a customer’s loyalty, based on a minimum an-nual spend criteria, Titanium Life guarantees a free annual airline ticket to more than .- destina-tions. Other unique facilities are also provided by both respective cards, including the regular card essentials. Both cards and their programmes were designed to guarantee up to Dh$'*((( in savings per year.

Its success in cashback rewards and loyalty programmes is attrib-uted to the fact that it embraces the customer touch points and understands the value of being agile, # exible and thus, adaptive when seeking loyalty, which it is genuinely passionate about. Dubai First understands that cus-tomers are always looking for the most sensible and beneficial cards and programmes to incor-porate in their daily lives. They seek the value-added yet re" ned experiences; they want to break out of the limitations of the typi-cal credit cards and programmes promoted by ambiguous market-ing messages. Dubai First o! ers what the customer wants, plain and simple.

Go to www.dubai" rst.com to understand how Dubai First can add value to your life.

Engineers in loyalty and cashback programmes, Dubai First is dedicated to continuously raising the bar in this !ield

Access to the best loyalty servicesAir Miles provides a unique service to partners and members through a strong coalition of brands. Mark Mortimer Davies shares his views with Khaleej Times. Excerpts from the interview:

Get more from life with Dubai First credit cards

Mark Mortimer Davies

AIR MILES

DUBAI FIRST

CASH BACK REWARDS KHALEEJ TIMES / ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT THURSDAY, APRIL 5, 2012 III

Is your outstanding credit card bal-ance causing you pain? Are you suf-fering from a severe case of ‘card ache’? RAKBANK has just the rem-edy. Transfer your balance from other bank credit cards to your RAKBANK credit card at zero per cent interest for three months, plus customers keep saving month after month even after the interest-free period with an interest rate of just two per cent per month. Moreover, by transferring the balance, cus-tomers stand a chance to win Dh$ million every six months with RAK-BANK MasterCard. You get one chance for every Dh-(( you trans-fer, so the more you transfer the more chances you get. Balance transfer is easy — customers just need to call (.-'$&/((/(( or send in a request using RAKBANK On-

line Banking to apply or SMS BT to ,($(.

When evaluating reward pro-grammes, it is important for cus-tomers to make a distinction be-tween a credit card promotion, which is a temporary time-bound bene" t, and a product feature, or a loyalty programme such as RAK-BANK’s ‘Cashback’, which is a more enduring and rewarding ben-e" t. Based upon the bank’s cus-tomer feedback, cashback is the most valuable return customers can get for using their cards, as it o! ers greater savings to customers and gives them the liberty to choose how they would like to ben-e" t from it.

RAKBANK o! ers its cashback feature on all its Visa and Master-Card credit and debit cards with

rates up to " ve per cent for credit cards and two per cent for debit cards when they are used for inter-national retail purchases, including online transactions, and for inter-national cash advances. The bank also o! ers up to three per cent cashback on all domestic retail pur-chases for holders of the premium Titanium credit card and one per cent cashback for holders of all other RAKBANK credit and debit cards.

RAKBANK credit cards are ‘free for life’ and come with no annual fee ever. They also o! er lifestyle privilege bene" ts from more than ,- outlets and a chance for Master-Card cards to enter a millionaire draw that takes place every six months. RAKBANK o! ers six cred-it cards — Titanium MasterCard,

RAKBANK MasterCard, Visa Clas-sic Card, Visa Gold Card, NMC Master Co-branded Card and RAKBANK Géant La Carte and two MasterCard debit cards.

As RAKBANK is dedicated to constantly providing its customers with innovative and value-added products, the bank recently launched its latest online platform, www.rakbankdeals.ae, the " rst of its kind in the banking industry which provides the bank’s card cus-tomers with exclusive weekly deals o! ering discounts of -( per cent and more at their favourite out-lets.

It’s raining great deals for RAK-BANK cardholders, so apply now for a RAKBANK card and enjoy zero per cent interest on balance transfer and exclusive rewards.

Balance transfer o" er from RAKBANK gives customers a three-month interest-free o" er alongside cashback rewards and a chance to nab Dh1 million

A rewarding experienceRAKBANK

RAKBANK o! ers its cashback feature on all its

Visa and MasterCard credit and debit cards with rates up to "ive per cent for credit cards and two per cent for debit cards when they are used for international retail purchases, including online transactions, and for international cash advances

Considerations• In an e! ort to distinguish one

programme from the next and in an attempt to hide how one re-ward programme compares to an-other, credit card issuers often change how points are earned, as well as how those points may be redeemed for rewards. One pro-gramme may o! er two points for each dollar spent, but then charge 20,000 points for $100 cashback reward. Another programme may o! er just one point for each dollar spent but o! er the same cashback

reward for just 10,000 points. In effect, this makes both pro-grammes the same for that par-ticular reward.

Warning• Beware of creating additional

spending in order to generate ex-tra points or miles. This extra spending can lead to increased interest payments or larger bal-ances, both of which will cost more than the points will ever be worth. Only use credit cards that o! er rewards points and miles to buy what you would normally buy.

» FROM PAGE I

An eye out for the best returns

The National Bank of Abu Dhabi 0NBAD1 recently launched the co-branded NBAD GEMS MasterCard Titanium Credit Card in partner-ship with GEMS Education.

NBAD’s aim in introducing this card is to o! er a helpful and conve-nient tool for parents. The NBAD GEMS Card o! ers parents a dis-count of up to $$ per cent on school fees at their GEMS school. In addi-tion, parents can bene" t from zero per cent interest Easy Payment Plan for up to $' months for tuition payments. This basically means that parents can pay the full aca-

demic year fee using the NBAD GEMS Co-brand Card allowing them up to $$ per cent discount and then pay it in $' equal monthly instalments without any interest.

Since this card is to meet the needs of parents, NBAD felt it was vital that the card also provides special o! ers at retail outlets rele-vant to their needs. As a result, the bank partnered with some of the leading eateries and family enter-tainment venues across the UAE, such as Atlantis, Magic Planet, Ski Dubai, Al Sayegh Brothers Group, Café Ceramique, Sega Republic,

iFLY Dubai, and many other lead-ing merchants.

This card is truly designed to support parents in providing qual-ity education to their children. So when it comes to your children’s education, the NBAD GEMS Cred-it Card o! ers ample " nancial sup-port to see them through to gradu-ation. Should an unfortunate event take place for a nominal charge of Dh'+ a month per child, the NBAD GEMS Credit Card covers each child for Dh-(*((( a year 0up to Dh-((*((( for $( years1, with maximum coverage of Dh' million per parent for four children.

Teaching children the value of money helps them grow to become " nancially responsible individuals. This is why we designed a special NBAD GEMS Student Prepaid

Card with no annual fees made es-pecially for the young ones that parents can manage. This handy little card allows them to make pur-chases in and outside of school. The NBAD GEMS Student Prepaid Card is also completely safe since it allows parents to set a daily spend-

ing limit and it cannot be used for cash withdrawals. We have enabled SMS alerts on cards so you can be informed of all spending done with the card. The NBAD GEMS Stu-dent Prepaid Card is a fun way to turn your kids into responsible spenders. Reloading the prepaid card is very convenient with mul-tiple options, such as through SMS using NBAD Arrow service, load-ing through any UAE Exchange or Al Ansari Exchange branch, any NBAD Branch, NBAD CDM 0Cash Deposit Machine1 and even through

NBAD Online Banking. In order to ensure that the card

o! ers a responsible solution from all angles, the card is made from $(( per cent biodegradable mate-rial, which is the " rst of its kind in the UAE. We also chose to include children in the project. An art com-petition was conducted across GEMS schools, where the partici-pants used their creative talents to explore the beauty of our world and the importance of protecting it. Their insightful work was so well crafted that the winning piece is the face of the NBAD GEMS Cred-it Card — a card made for them, by them.

This card also rewards the credit cardholders with $%- NBAD Stars for every Dh$ of purchase made using the card that can be re-deemed at any of NBAD’s exciting list of retail partners including Sky-wards and # ydubai.

This card comes packed with nu-merous other o! ers as well, such as complimentary Emergency Road-side Assistance, free purchase pro-tection, extended warranty, Credit Shield Plus cover and many more. To top it o! , this card comes with no annual fee.

Card to support parentsNBAD GEMS Co-brand Card is the !irst education linked credit card that o" ers parents a discount of up to 11 per cent on school fees at GEMS schools

Collinson Latitude’s

multi-channel products, which include an online merchant funded reward platform, can be seamlessly integrated into a "inancial service provider’s existing environment

IV

Sustainable solutions are the key to sustainable revenues. Short, one-o! campaigns tend to involve costly marketing activities and produce short, one-off results. Long-term cashback programmes, however, can build long-term rela-tionships both with consumers and merchants and be seamlessly inte-grated into a " nancial service pro-vider’s existing environment.

Targeting is key to ensure imme-diate appeal to particular customer groups and the importance of rel-evance cannot be emphasised enough. A " nancial institution that recognises the importance of pro-viding a value-based transaction model from merchants, who are handpicked according to a cus-tomer’s pro" le, will do very well to sustain loyalty and generate incre-mental revenue.

Collinson Latitude’s multi-channel products, which include an online merchant funded reward platform, can be seamlessly inte-grated into a " nancial service pro-vider’s existing environment. Capitalising on the proven and growing popularity of online shop-ping in the Middle East is a par-ticularly strong route to customer retention.

“RewardAll”, for example, is a merchant-funded online shopping and rewards programme that brings together over &*((( diverse online merchants globally so that each time a customer makes a pur-chase through the client- branded “RewardAll” portal, they can earn cash-back which is paid directly into their bank account. From Qa-tar Airways and BHS to Thomas Pink and Saville Row, banks can provide a bespoke programme ac-cording to their customer segment and give their customers cashback at no cost to the bank. It’s a win solution for the customer, bank and merchant with cash-back lev-els ranging from one per cent to '( per cent.

It’s a well-known fact that mer-chants have higher margins 0de-pending on merchant sector1 than what a bank alone can o! er to its customers, so innovative and cre-ative ways of increasing a mer-chant partners’ market share need to apply to remain competitive. Discounts and upgrades have their place but cash will always remain king to many consumers and mer-chants shouldn’t underestimate the power of cash-based incen-tives. A $( per cent discount and erosion on tight margin or $( per cent cash-back?

‘RewardAll’, is a merchant-funded online shopping and rewards programme that brings together over 3,000 diverse online merchants globally

Merchant funded cashback

CASH BACK REWARDSTHURSDAY, APRIL 5, 2012 KHALEEJ TIMES / ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT

NBAD GEMS Student Prepaid

Card is a fun way to turn your kids into responsible spenders