The Seattle Times (via reddit) is reporting that Costco will be delaying the switch from American Express to Visa until June or Mid-Summer. Costco originally planned to start accepting only Visa cards on April 1st and the Citi co-branded cards to launch officially on the same date. It looks like this extension is due to the complicated nature of the switch between Citi & American Express as they are still ironing out the specifics of the deal. Richard Galanti, Costco’s chief financial officer said that they plan to extend the transition for at least a few months and that negotiations between American Express & Citi are fluid and that’s why they didn’t have an exact date yet.
My guess is that this is because Citi want to purchase the back book from American Express, meaning that existing cardholders would be automatically converted to the new card offered by Citi and will keep their account age and credit lines. We previously thought that this wouldn’t be happening and that current cardholders would be converted to an American Express Blue Cash Card and would need to apply for the Costco card again.
Other Costco/Citi/Visa/American Express posts:
- New Citi Costco Visa Personal & Business Card Reviews
- Amex Costco Cardholders Transition Offers + No Hard Pull
- American Express, Costco Partnership to End Next Year
- Costco Strikes Deal with Visa, Citi
- Leaked Letter Regarding Costco, Citi, American Express & Visa Partnerships
- Leaked Details on Costco-Citi Credit Card Rewards
