Latitude Financial faces a public backlash after a controversial decision to abandon the rewards programs attached to several of its Visa and Mastercard products.
Thousands of customers subscribed to Latitude’s “Infinity Rewards Visa” card and the “Go Rewards Mastercard” have been given only two months’ notice to redeem points they have accrued through the incentives programs.
Latitude last week began notifying customers that they would cease to accrue points on 19 November and would need to use them before the redemption deadline on 23 November.
Points not redeemed by this date will lapse.
In a post on its website, Latitude indicated that “external providers” were responsible for the decision to terminate loyalty incentives.
“While we’ve enjoyed providing our customers with a rewards program for several years, we’ve needed to make the difficult business decision to end the program due to external supplier changes,” the company told its cardholders.
A Latitude spokesperson defended the move, saying that features and benefits were being enhanced on the Go Mastercard.
“We’re in the process of contacting all impacted customers to give them sufficient time to redeem their points before the deadline of 23 November 2021”, the spokesperson said.
“We are making a number of enhancements to the Go Mastercard to add value for customers, including the introduction earlier this year of a reduced interest rate on credit card purchases and the option later this year of six months interest free shopping.”
Aside from the short notice, the decision is controversial because many cardholders who paid special annual fees to participate in the Go Mastercard offer never stood a chance of redeeming the program’s most lucrative rewards.
That’s because Latitude imposed an annual cap of 100,000 points on each customer regardless of how much they spent on their card.
This meant that cardholders needed to remain active users of the card for more than a year and spend at least $100,000 just to secure a $500 Myer gift card.
A card holder needed to wait at least 72 months and spend at least $100,000 each year to get the 600,000 points required to redeem an Apple desktop computer.
The cost was greater for cardholders who revolved card balances.
Latitude charges 19.95 per cent on balances that are carried over more one statement period.
Revolvers also incur a monthly account servicing fee of $8.95.
The Go Mastercard and several other Latitude products have regularly featured in CHOICE research reports highlighting the most expensive credit cards in Australia.
Customer reviews of the Go Mastercard on Mozo describe the product and Latitude as “horrible”.
One Mozo reviewer warns readers not to use Latitude “under any circumstance”.