COVID-19 Impact... Sharp Decline in Popularity of Airline Mileage Cards

Card Gorilla Aggregation
'Top 10 Popular Credit Cards in Q1 2020'

[Asia Economy Reporter Ki Ha-young] It has been found that the popularity of airline mileage accumulation cards has declined since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19). On the other hand, cards offering benefits for digital subscription services such as Netflix are being launched one after another.

According to the 'Top 10 Popular Credit Cards in Q1 2020' compiled by the credit card specialist site Card Gorilla on the 15th, the 'Lotte Like It Fun' card maintained its first place following last year. This result is based on the number of views and application conversions for each credit card product on the Card Gorilla website (PC and mobile integrated) from January 1 to March 31 of this year.

The Lotte Like It Fun card is a lifestyle-oriented card with an annual fee of 10,000 KRW, offering 50% discount at Starbucks, 20% on public transportation, and 50% on movies.

Second place is the 'Shinhan Card Deep Dream', which accumulates points unconditionally without monthly spending requirements or limits, and third place is the newly charted 'KB Kookmin Tantan Dero Miz & Mr Titanium Card'. The Miz & Mr Titanium Card has rapidly risen in ranking due to word of mouth as a valuable card that offers up to 70,000 KRW discount per month when meeting a monthly spending requirement of 400,000 KRW.

Fourth place was taken by 'Samsung Card Taptap O', which dropped one rank compared to the 2019 year-end summary. It offers 30-50% discounts on coffee and up to 7% discounts on shopping, with seven option packages that can be changed monthly. Fifth and sixth places were taken by unconditional discount cards without monthly spending or limit restrictions. Fifth place is 'Woori Card DA@ Card Eojeongseok', which offers a basic 0.8% discount on all usage amounts, 1.3% on lifestyle sectors, and two free domestic airport lounge visits per year. Sixth place is 'Hyundai Card ZERO (Discount Type)', which offers a basic 0.7% discount on all usage amounts and an additional 0.5% discount on essential lifestyle areas.

In this ranking compilation, cards ranked 11th to 20th changed significantly. Three airline mileage cards (Skypass The Dream Lotte Card, SC First Bank Plus Mile Card (discontinued), Asiana Shinhan Card Air 1.5) along with a total of seven products dropped out of the rankings, and seven new cards took their places. The 'KB Kookmin Tantan Dero Biz Titanium Card', which ranked 11th, is a point accumulation type credit card but was discontinued as of April 1. Other new entries into the top 20 include 'Hyundai Card ZERO (Point Type)', 'Woori Card Eojeongseok WeBe On Plus', and 'Shinhan Deep Dream Platinum Plus'.

Go Seung-hoon, CEO of Card Gorilla, said, "In December last year, Korean Air announced a reform of the Skypass system, and with the outbreak of COVID-19 earlier this year, the rankings of airline mileage accumulation cards dropped significantly. The reform reduced the value of mileage, and with overseas travel impossible for the time being, it seems that consumers shifted to general discount or point accumulation cards."

He added, "Following the government's social distancing policy, untact consumption such as online shopping, delivery apps, and digital subscription services is increasing. Newly launched cards in the first quarter tend to include benefits such as discounts on Netflix, YouTube Premium services, and easy payment discounts."