According to a new report released today Chase credit card spending decreased by 40% during March and early April compared to spending last year during the same period. The majority of the spending decrease was attributed to spending on non-essential goods and services such as retail, restaurants, and entertainment. Households with income of less than $39,000 reduced spending by 38% whereas households with incomes of more than $92,000 reduced spending by 46%. In addition spending on groceries and healthcare initially increased by 20% but that has now dropped.
I don’t think any of this is particularly surprising. I imagine that the increase in grocery and healthcare spending was due to households stockpiling goods. It’s also not a surprise that households with less income have seen a lower percentage drop than households with more income, if anything I would have expected that to have been a bigger difference.
But you can get a CSR AF refund within the first 30 days after the AF posts right?
Amex came out with a few new benefits due to Covid-19, but Chase has not. I’d like to see something from them.
I’m enjoying the new (temporary) 5x grocery category on CSR! Also Walmart is included in that for CSR, unlike the usual on Freedom. Would be nice to see some preemptive AF credits or rollbacks though.
I haven’t tried the local Walmart to see if it’s included (small grocery section — does that matter?). Anyone happen to know if Walmart.com qualifies? Thank you!
Well, the real question to the readers of this website is: Does Chase see the drop of MS?
Why would MS drop? If anything real spend drops, MS stays constant since no real money is used
Those of us who were responsible enough to not make unnecessary trips during this time. I went from 30k-40k per month in ms down to nothing in the last 8 weeks.
I’ve not only spent less on my credit cards since the start of the pandemic, I’ve also cancelled several trips which left me thousands of dollars worth of refunds on my cards. I’m working on spending the negative balances on my credit cards right now.
You could ask the banks to cut you a check for the negative balance or transfer to a checking/savings account
Some cards will send you a ach for the negative balance.
I’ve had Chase and Amex issue me checks on my credit card travel refunds instead of having to spend through it.
Here’s a link to the actual full report: https://institute.jpmorganchase.com/institute/research/household-income-spending/initial-household-spending-response-to-covid-19
The bigger question is by how much the defaults are growing.
Yup, although I think we will see that ramp up in the next six months.
I wonder what Amex’s number looks like. Perhaps their Q2 earning will shine some light on this.
AMEX numbers must be skewed by the Amazon 20% off points promos. I know my AMEX spending has.
Blame DoC. /s
Unlikely. A targeted promo isn’t going to move the needle that much in the big scheme of Amex’s numbers. And for the last few years they’ve run these 20% promos several times a year, e.g. Prime Day (Q3) and around the holidays (Q4).
Doesn’t “/s” mean he was being sarcastic?
Almost all of my MS dried up that’s for sure.
Mine has been spread out a lot by limiting it to normal shopping trips.
Talking about Chase, am I the only one having issues with their Chase Travel department? They unilaterally issued credits for cancelled flights to Europe (TAP airlines) and told me that it was the airline decision but when I contacted the airline they said that they issued a refund, not credits, that was their official response even when responding a complaint I submitted to US DOT…. Now I’m between both arguments, I’m documenting everything to file a complaint again to US DOT but now against Chase Travel.
Any suggestions?
I’m in the same boat, except with Swiss.
I dont even get a credit, with Swiss. Actually nothing comes back after Chase chat reps set up TWO cases some 3.5 weeks apart. Nothing.
Groceries with Chase have always been a weak compared to Amex. The fact that they’re only running the 3x and 5x bonuses on groceries until June 30th is telling.
I don’t disagree. The addition of Walmart into grocery category on CSR/CSP is nice though. (I understand that is YMMV, but has been working for me).
However, I never got the email notification of the grocery addition, so that’s another tip to the weak side.