Sounds like what often happened in my grad school meetings with my advisor.

Restricted card use within a single brand can greatly reduce profitability for issuers. Notably, restricted use persists even if issuers set very competitive rewards outside their co-branded cards' featured brands. We discuss managerial implications for credit card co-branding partnerships. 🧵5/5

Second, even if one knows that their Best Buy Visa offers the best reward on something outside Best Buy (e.g., 3% back on gas, for real!), the Best Buy brand on the card makes off-brand purchases feel like a bad “fit” with the card. 🧵4/5

First, people may think, for example, “Best Buy Visa’s rewards are obviously for Best Buy,” and so they pay less attention to its actual reward terms because they think they already know what the rewards are about. 🧵3/5

Co-branded credit cards can be used everywhere and usually offer competitive rewards outside their featured brands. However, we find that people are reluctant to use them more widely.

Why? We identify two psychological mechanisms. 🧵2/5

At the CredibilityLab (currently hosting Aspredicted and Researchbox) we have a new platform in the works, AsCollected, that will help with this. We welcome input from experienced parties.

Signup for alpha or beta testing or announcement of release at AsCollected.Org

I check out when I want a receipt from smaller indie hotels. Sometimes they don't respond to email requests.