Supplementary Credit Card

I just had my wife's supplementary credit card canceled. When the credit card company first offered me a supplementary credit card, they waived the membership fee for 1 year. But now that the membership fee is no longer waived, the supplementary credit card became a non-essential expense and therefore canceling it is an opportunity to save some money.

When you look closely, there are similar products out there which offer similar marketing strategies. The free 5-day trial for a premium membership website. The free workout session to checkout a gym membership. The idea is you will like the product or service and you won't mind paying later. So you quickly sign up and enjoy the promotion. But you soon forget that there is a catch and you will end up still paying the price.

But are you really willing to pay? In my case, I guess I'm not.

Next day update: The Credit card company already canceled my wife's supplementary credit card after the customer service agent spent several minutes trying to convincing me not to. They also refunded me the membership fee for the supplementary card. I hope this becomes a lesson for me that I need to be careful in accepting these kind of promotions.

I still have my primary credit card active and I still want to keep it for my online transactions and for emergency needs when I do not have the cash. But now I'm also having second thoughts on this as well, since the annual membership fee might still be too heavy for my pocket...

What do you think I should do?


photo credit, SqueakyMarmot