The most loyal cardholders are consumers holding MBNA's Platinum card, Citibank's AAdvantage card and American Express Optima card. The findings come from J.D. Power's '1999 Comprehensive Credit Cardholder Study'. Power found that MBNA ranked highest in cardholder loyalty among VISA/MasterCard Platinum cardholders. Citibank's 'AAdvantage' program scored the highest among rewards credit cardholders and the American Express Optima Card took top place among Gold/Classic cardholders. The J.D. Power study also found that consumers are beginning to use their 'Platinum' cards as a debt instrument and that 3% of credit cardholders use the Internet to access their account information. The annual Comprehensive Credit Cardholder Study analyzes and ranks the customer loyalty performance of 17 major credit card issuers and 35 of their individual credit cards. A total of 10,420 credit cardholders were surveyed in this independently funded study by J.D. Power and Associates. More study results are available from CardFlash Online (www.cardflash.com).

        Cardholder Loyalty Among Reward Cards (Index Scores)


          Citibank AAdvantage          108
          Mileage Plus First Card      106
          AmEx Delta SkyMiles          103
          Household GM Card            103
          Chase Shell                  103
          Industry Average             101 

        Source:  J.D. Power and Associates