Co-branded Card

You have a credit card associated with an airline (Southwest, Turkish Air, Kentucky Airlines, whatever). You like to accumulate points for future trips, but it’s a Visa card that can be used anywhere and you pay your credit card bill to Chase Bank. Or you have an L.L. Bean card because they also give you points, but it’s also a Mastercard with Citibank sending out the bills. These are perfect examples of co-branded cards. Retail merchants and even non-profits such as universities partner with a “network processor” such as Visa or Mastercard, where both logos are present on the credit card.

These types of cards offer some incentive related to the co-brand partner...miles for the airline card...extra points when you shop at the particular store...points applied as donations to co-branded charities. Meanwhile, the retailer gets more loyal customers and the financial institution acquires customers they might not otherwise get if they just offered a plain U.S. Bank card.