Medford mail tribune., May 24, 1959, Image 34

X s,5 77
i4t phenomenal rate that
people are using
credit cards
to charge everything
from a meal to a wedding,
it's possible that
pockets will disappear
from suits and
money itself
may be on the way out.
by Joseph N. Bell
There is a junior executive in Chicago who,
four times a day, five days a week, visits
the same restaurant. His procedure never
varies. He has breakfast at 8, coffee at 10,
lunch at 12, and coffee again at 3. And each
time he pays the bill with a credit card
whether he's buying coffee for himself or
the blue-plate for everyone in his office.
Although the bookkeeping on this gentle
man is immense and the returns relatively
small, he is in the opinion of a number of
people in the credit card business the pro
totype of what is coming in consumer buying
habits in the United States.
Ralph T. Reed, president of the American
Express Company, predicts flatly that we are
heading toward a "credit card economy."
An official of the Diners' Club told me
cheerfully: "Someday they won't bother to
make pockets in suits. Eventually we'll charge
everything. Money is on the way out."
They may be right, too at least if we are
to believe the signs of the credit card times.
Individual credit systems virtually exploded
with growth in 1958, and the trend is con
tinuing this year, with no foreseeable end in
sight. Diners' Club, the oldest and largest of
the "comprehensive credit cards," is adding
members at the phenomenal rate of 30,000
per month. American Express, which entered
the credit card business in October, 1958.
already boasts "well over 600,000 members."
The Hilton Hotels' Carte Blanche plan got
under way this Spring with close to a million
members, taken over from the long-existing
Hilton hotel credit card. And in addition to
these three major plans, dozens of banks, air
lines, hotels, and other service organizations
are entering the individual credit field.
As a result, the range of use of the credit
card has become almost limitless. A man in
New York employs his principally to buy an
ice-cream soda every afternoon. At the other
extreme, a Californian two years ago took a
party of ten people on an African safari, and
charged the whole trip $50,000 worth on
his Diners' Club card. .
Individual credit cards aren't new. Oil
companies, hotels, department stores, and
airlines have issued them for many years.
More recently, other credit services (tele
phone, telegraph, auto rental, for example)
have kept male wallets bulging with dozens
of different credit cards. The new gambit is
c
family Weekly, May JM, 1S