“I have been to a lot of lounges in my time,” Mitchell said. But seeing how Capital One had kicked things up a notch by putting a Michelin-starred chef in charge, she thought: “OK, amazing.”
“When lounges started, they were for businessmen in suits,” said Capital One’s head of premium products, marketing, and rewards Lauren Liss. With amenities like those at the Landing, “we’re designing for people like Shay.”
The allure of aluminum
Or perhaps, more realistically, people who wish they were like Shay. Because it’s not just the young and flush these cards are looking for—it’s the young and flush who are also status conscious. As The Points Guy’s Ewen pointed out, millionaires don’t care about racking up dining credits and getting 10% off a pair of yoga pants. Perks like that, he said, are “like finding spare change in the couch cushions.”
Instead, luxury cards are about “meeting the mass affluent where they are,” as Nerdwallet’s Rathner described it, “this archetype of a young adult, high-earning city dweller.” In other words, people who like to travel, dine out often, and like to spend on experiences.
“They’re spending their money in a specific way, and they want to have a card that gets them access to the things they want but also helps them save money on those purchases that they were going to make anyway,” she continued.
Mass-affluent consumers also care about looking affluent. It’s why premium cards are made of alloys, not plastic. According to a report from IBS Intelligence, “metal cards, through their weight, finish, and sound, provide a tangible sense of value.” During its 2025 overhaul, Chase’s Sapphire Reserve card gained weight, tipping the scales at 19.6 grams. Such was the demand when it debuted in 2016 that Chase ran out of metal—to the dismay of those who received a temporary plastic card in the mail.
The benefits upgrades made to Sapphire Reserve have paid off for Chase. “Sapphire has already had its best year ever,” CFO Bori Cox told analysts in November, four months after the card’s June overhaul. “In the first month after the refresh, our acquisition rate jumped 3x. So that was a really good early sign that customers received the value proposition really well.”
Indeed, a survey last year by CompoSecure, which manufactures these high-end metal cards, found that 73% of credit consumers are willing to pay more for metal cards, and 68% of them regarded banks that issue them as “cool.” And—counterintuitively perhaps—J.D. Power data shows that cardholders who pay annual fees of $500 or above actually report a higher satisfaction rate with their cards, even if they don’t like the fees themselves.
Can the party last forever?
That may change, however, as fees creep up toward the $1,000 mark. Chase Sapphire Reserve’s membership fee swelled from $550 to $795 last year and, effective Jan. 2, the fee for an American Express Platinum card jumped by $200 to $895.
To justify those charges, cards have kept stacking up the benefits—and putting asterisks by them.
