MPC Hill Blast: ‘This Summer’s Biggest Points Swindle’
There’s the song of the summer, the movie of the summer, the fashion of the summer … and the swindle of the summer?
That’s right. The Elliot Report has awarded the biggest swindle of the season — and it’s travel sites pretending to care about your interests while actually taking money from banks to lobby for them.
The article points out:
“That’s right, sites that claim to work for consumers are running petition drives against a bill that could make prices more affordable.”
“These drives run in partnership with the credit card industry’s lobbyists.”
“It’s a classic misdirection. A bank lobbying campaign gets dressed up as consumer activism, and the audience provides the outrage for free.”
“The industry couldn’t buy that kind of authenticity.” — Of course, as Elliot points out, they actually did:
“One site openly admits that it’s teamed up with the Electronic Payments Coalition to amplify the message.”
“You might wonder why a travel site would carry water for the banks.”
“Maybe it’s because these sites aren’t news organizations at all, but affiliate marketers wearing a press badge. They earn hundreds of dollars in commissions every time a reader signs up for a credit card through their links. The content — the reviews, the rankings, the breathless ‘best cards of 2026’ lists — is nothing more than a storefront to sell more credit cards.”
“They aren’t protecting your points, they’re protecting their own paycheck — and your points are the bait.”
“And that’s how a lobby’s talking point gets laundered into fact.”
And the article makes clear that all this paid subterfuge is protecting a bad system:
“The American credit card is a clunky, expensive way to move money. Every swipe crawls through a chain of middlemen, the issuing bank, the acquiring bank, the network, the processor, each one taking a cut. That’s why America’s fees are among the highest on earth.”
The Credit Card Competition Act is “a first and necessary crack in the Visa-Mastercard duopoly.”
Bank talking points just don’t add up:
“But one thing is certain: This summer’s rewards panic collapses under its own numbers. Americans earned $47 billion worth of credit card rewards in 2024, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. That same year, merchants paid $187 billion in swipe fees on credit cards. Your ‘free’ flight is a partial rebate on a tax the banks set, collect and keep raising. They take three dollars and hand you back one. Then a website tells you to guard that dollar with your life and ignore the other two.”
“Don’t be fooled”
“So before you fill out one of those forms, understand what you’re doing. You’re protecting a fee you can’t see, sold to you by a marketer you mistook for a journalist, on behalf of the banks that will never stop charging you.”
“Your ‘free’ flight to Cancun was never at risk.”
“The banks spent $200 million on this fight, and now they’re asking you to work for free to promote a cause that could hurt you.
COMPETITION IS BETTER FOR EVERYONE
IT'S TIME TO PASS THE CREDIT CARD COMPETITION ACT