Gold cards are a prestige card, which offers increased services in return for a higher fee. However it is possible to get the same services for a smaller amount of money if the card holder looks around.
Gold cards were introduced in the 1960s as a way of offering a different offering to people who were heavy card users. In return for an enhanced annual fee the gold card offered a lot of services that other cards did not offer at the time. This included enhanced phone support, free insurance on purchases and a very good rewards program. They also tended to have a high credit limit.
Over time the gold card has been offered more widely, and other cards also grew up in the prestige credit card space. These included silver, platinum and black cards. With the exception of silver cards, these cards were intended to be “beyond gold” in offering far greater services which included concierge services. They were also more expensive than gold cards.
Silver cards are in many ways a cut price gold card. These cards offer a lower level of service in return for a lower fee. They are advertised on this basis. However there are gold cards that offer the gold card level of service at a price lower than silver cards.
The way to find these gold cards is to look for ranges of credit cards. There are many ranges of cards that offer the same card but in various different forms. For example there are no annual fee ranges of credit cards, which offer a standard, gold and a platinum card in return for no annual fee. There are also low interest ranges of credit cards. Although these credit cards do charge a fee they do offer a very low rate of interest – much lower than many standard credit cards.
In most cases these credit cards offer the same services as the gold cards offer. For example these credit cards offer free insurance on items bought with the card. This includes travel insurance on flights, purchase insurance and extended warranties.
One thing that has not changed is that these credit cards are still reliant on good credit ratings. In fact these credit cards are more reliant on good credit ratings. One of the main costs that credit card issuers face is default on debt. By limiting the people who hold the cards they minimise this cost, which is then passed on to the card holders.
