The survey held by International Management Association of USA showed that creation of a credit card in 1950s is one of the "75 greatest inventions of mankind in XX century". According to payment systems data based on statistics of European market, 30% of credit cards of retail bank are distributed among status products. Among them - 10% Premium cards, 1-5% Top cards and the rest are Gold. And the Gold cardholder makes purchases, spending the sum, which is three times higher than the Classic cardholder; and Premium cardholder spends five times more.

The most world popular payment systems Visa Int. and MasterCard Worldwide determine the range of additional services for status cards. This range is obviously expanding with the rise of the card category, and bank may add it's own services to this list.

People apply for credit cards not only for shopping. They book hotels and rent cars, pay for online purchases and entertainment. For all of those operations you may use Classic/Standard category card, which is 5 times cheaper than Gold and 10 times cheaper than Premium card. There is something important about best credit cards that make status cardholders to overpay. There are definitely unlimited opportunities and great potential of expensive and very expensive status cards.

The rich experience in cooperation with banks and customers helps international payment systems to determine the list of additional services for every category of customers. Careful study of the needs of people with high income, their lifestyle and values helped them to divide card products into segments.

To attribute customers to this or that category American Express, for example, looks at the annual income. It must be at least $35,000 for Green Card, $50,000 for Gold Card and $65,000 for Platinum. The highest category Centurion Card is usually offered to present Premium cardholders, who regularly use the card.

But such an approach is not always workable, because the salary can be received on different accounts in different banks. Payment systems recommend using monitoring of transaction activity - the sums of transactions and type of purchases and services consumed may tell a lot about habits and lifestyle of a cardholder and regularity of payments - about his character.

The structure of VIP-customer data base may be divided into three components. First of all it is company management and shareholders of the bank. As a rule, there is a special "zero" rate for them. Besides they give trial runs to newly issued cards. The next in the table of ranks are special VIP-customers - top managers and company owners. Those are the important persons for the business of the bank. The rates set for this category are minimal - just to cover current costs.

The next category, and not the most numerous, are customers from the street, large investors - individuals, holding Classic Card with a high limit of overdraft, image customers - those, who are famous in society and have positive reputation. They are offered "public" rates, which bring profit to a bank.