Shell Credit Card - Cashback cutback

JohalaReewi

In the post today, new T&Cs for the Shell credit card cashback.

Cashback in Shell garages down to 1%
Other cashback down to 0.25%
Max annual cashback £120

Starting 1st October.

bignick_3

Got the same letter this morning. Time for a new CC me thinks.
The Tesco one has always seemed a good deal, I wonder if that is still the case with double points on in the stores?

Nick

hasdogs

Shame, apart from some stupidity getting the online stuff set up I have been pretty happy with the card. Nice simple paper-free statements and zero hassle using the card online. I was already buying enough Shell petrol to get the cashback.

Any suggestions for a replacement?

JimBoB_5

I got a similar letter today - just been accepted for an egg money card. It's 1% everywhere, including shell stations - I can't get the Amex cashback card for some reason, they keep declining me....

THRIFTY_GIRL

Another one bites the dust.....I will have to think about which one to go for now. Amex is 0.5%, and Tesco isn't bad if I use the points for double up or reward (I already have these, though don't really use them at the mo because Shell was so much better).

I will have to think about the Egg one, just hope they don't withdraw it soon too.....

CannyJock

hasdogs wrote: »

Shame, apart from some stupidity getting the online stuff set up I have been pretty happy with the card. Nice simple paper-free statements and zero hassle using the card online. I was already buying enough Shell petrol to get the cashback.

Any suggestions for a replacement?

Egg Money (now with a £1 monthly fee) works for me. 1% on all cashback, maximum £200.

Full lis at: http://www.stoozing.com/cashback.php

NonGeographicalMan

JohalaReewi wrote: »

In the post today, new T&Cs for the Shell credit card cashback.

Cashback in Shell garages down to 1%
Other cashback down to 0.25%
Max annual cashback £120

Starting 1st October.

I have also received this letter in the post from Citi today and have to say how very unhappy indeed I am with what I see as being this crazy customer crunching decision by Mr John Jones (Head of Cards) and his undoubtedly equally overpaid and out of touch fellow directors at Citi (including in particular Citi Financial and Egg Money CEO Mr Bert Pijls). Whilst the 3% cashback on petrol was undoubtedly an unusually good deal and perhaps some reduction could be expected I don't see why 2% wasn't sustainable and I see no reason at all for the cashback on other goods to be slashed by 75% to 0.25% when several other cashback cards pay 1% and there is more than enough margin in the normal 2% commission on a credit card to pay this cashback.

I had transferred all my spending on to the Shell Citi Mastercard card a few months in addition to just the Shell petrol that I had previously always used it for. My reason for this was I was getting the 1% cashback straight away (as I always bought enough petrol to use up the cashback) instead of having to wait 12 months and Egg Money refused me a card limit increase and my limit on the Shell City card was more than double what it was on Egg Money.

I previously had nothing but good feelings about Citibank and my Shell Citi Mastercard card every time I used it at a Shell petrol station but now all I feel is anger towards them for behaving so stupidly and offering something apparently unsustainable as a come on to join only to then take it all away. To my mind it seems that the ghost of Sir Fred Goodwin still lives on at Citi as this is not the way to build a loyal customer base. With Egg Money Citibank had the excuse that they had just inherited the product but here it was their own product on which they had set the cashback so they have no excuse for cutting it so quickly and so drastically. My view was that if Citi were passing back most of their 2% commission on the Shell petrol spend and Shell were also providing 1% of the cashback that it was a perfectly sound business model and I don't see anything about the credit crunch that has changed that. In fact Shell and the other oil companies are now doing better than ever as far as I am aware. They just seem to think that the dumb customers will sit down and take it using the excuse of the credit crunch while Citi's directors no doubt go on getting the same enormous salaries and bonuses.

I should add that I had also not taken up motor legal insurance with my car insurer in the last two years because this Shell Citi policy was in place so all in all I feel like I have been stabbed in the guts by Citi and now have nothing but the greatest possible contempt for the school of lure you in and then kick you in the face school of marketing from which Mr Jones and Mr Pijls and their colleagues seem to come. I should add that I had been repeatedly encouraging my mother to take out this card as there are large Shell petrol stations at both ends of a long journey she regularly makes but she was cynical that the cashback would last and so didn't follow my advice. Although I am normally cynical about most aspects of big business I really did think this deal would last as if Citi and Shell split the cost on the petrol discount it was affordable.

If they had just cut the petrol cashback from 3% to 2% but left the other cashback at 1% and the motor legal insurance in place then I would have been upset for a while but still gone on using the card. But this stupid behaviour by Citi has made me very angry and I want to punish them by taking all my business away if possible. I should add that I also have a sizeable sum in an Egg Money Savings account so this behaviour by City does seem very short sighted indeed to me. Also unacceptable was that whilst Mr John Jones harped on about their new condition on your personal information not being harmful to your interests at great length in his letter he just didn't apologise for or explain the other massive worsening in the card's benefits at all. At the very least the man should have had the guts to try and justify why the change was necessary.

Anyone who feels as upset about this as I do might like to email those most responsible for the decision. There is no point at all in speaking to the call centre jockeys in India as they clearly have no control over this decision and had nothing to do with it.

The people to vent your spleen on are as follows:-

John Jones - [EMAIL="john.jones@citi.com"]john.jones@citi.com[/EMAIL] -- Head of Cards

and

Bert Pijls - [EMAIL="bert.pijls@citi.com"]bert.pijls@citi.com[/EMAIL] - CEO of City Financial Europe and Egg

Of if you want to try and catch them on the phone then call 01332 335127 and ask for the switchboard in Derby to put you through.

flyingscotno1

Gutted to hear it, I haven't got the letter but it was a brilliant card, but well outperformed others on the market (ASDA was cut too) latterly and they stopped applications which led me to think the writing was on the wall. Made over £60 cashback last year on it, and that wasn't on the biggest amount of spend.

I'll just stick with it- for the moment 1% for Shell is O.K and that is what I use it for, no point switching to get the same on an egg card, although the other cashback going to 0.25% is disappointing- I'd have thought it would have gone to 0.5% or more.

Citi and Egg are the same so differing cashback is strange! Might need to consider a new cash back card, but got a zero card with Abbey recently so don't think I'll qualify for a new card so soon. Then again Egg Money charges a £1 fee eating up £100 cashback effectively and making it a £100 month minimum spend.

NonGeographicalMan

Although I have a dormant Egg Money card and I suppose my average card card spend is £650 per month but I object bitterly to the £1 fee on principle and am going to have give serious consideration to whether it is better to go back to collecting Air Miles with Lloyds Duo Amex or NatWest YourPoints instead for the time being. 0.25% cashback certainly isn't worth bothering with.:eek::mad:

flyingscotno1

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

Although I have a dormant Egg Money card and I suppose my average card card spend is £650 per month but I object bitterly to the £1 fee on principle and am going to have give serious consideration to whether it is better to go back to collecting Air Miles with Lloyds Duo Amex or NatWest YourPoints instead for the time being. 0.25% cashback certainly isn't worth bothering with.:eek::mad:

Apart from Egg what choice is there? Amex or LBS at 0.5%. I think Barclaycard have dropped their general cashback card too, only a 5% on TfL- not much use outside London. Must be the credit crunch- the less profitable products get cut.

withnell

No charge if you are an existing Egg Money customer