Entertainment benefits are a rewards programme that has been developed by credit card providers in order to attract card holders to their products. They tend to centre on offering access to sports games and music concerts.
There is little cost to the card holder of the entertainment benefits. This is because the promoters of the shows are keen to advertise the events and the entertainment cards will advertise these events by giving exclusive access to their cardholders.
Some of the things that are done for the entertainment benefits are things such as offering slightly better seats. They also give preferential treatment with allowing booking of tickets at an earlier point than the general public are allowed to book. There are sometimes email alerts for unsold seats that can be got at a last minute discount. Sometimes there is the ability to meet some of the performers or sportsmen.
These benefits tend to cost very little to the promoters. The promoters give these away to the rewards programme in return for the exposure to a large and relatively affluent customer base. This means that the programme tends to be free to its users.
Although this is advertised by the card providers as a rewards programme it is not dependent on spending on the card but is available to all card holders. The entertainment benefits programmes are on offer to most debit cards as well as credit cards and prepaid cards. It also does not tend to be dependent on the type of card that is held, although sometimes gold and platinum cards along with other exclusive cards will have better perks offered.
There are two major entertainment benefits programmes, Visa Entertainment and MasterCard Applause. American Express also has a programme. These are run by the card providers rather than the banks that offer the cards directly to the customers (although they can feature prominently in the advertising of these cards).
They are registration based, in that the card holder once they hold the eligible card needs to register with the programme to get the benefits and alerts. This is usually done on line.
There are other similar schemes in other countries, although these tend to be hard to register for if the card holder is going abroad for a holiday, although Australian cards will usually be eligible for overseas events if the card holder is temporarily resident in another country.
