Still, promotions were heavy, with Lord & Taylor offering 20 percent off almost the entire store, and Kohl's giving its Kohl's cardholders 15 to 30 percent off all purchases.
It has 799 million cardholders, 27 million merchants and 20,871 member banks.
It has about 90 million cardholders, 250,000 ATMs and about 3.3 million point-of-sale terminals.
After a successful pilot run in Lagos, involving 24,000 cardholders and 200 merchants, Patrick Merino, the firm's managing director, now hopes to attract a million customers within three years.
Morgan Stanley also just bought the Pulse payments network, which connects some 90 million cardholders to 250,000 automated teller machines.
Visa handles $3 trillion in purchases worldwide each year, has 1.6 billion cardholders and 24 million locations willing to take a swipe.
According to the Nilson Report, the company expects to sign up 5.5 million new cardholders this year, 2 million of those from direct mail.
SAG has 120,000 members, AFTRA 70,000, and dual members ("dual cardholders") constitute 40,000 of those two figures.
New cardholders get 20,000 miles, a $25 discount certificate, an upgrade and a free companion ticket.
What is clear is that cardholders have 60 days to challenge a charge when a product or service is delivered.
Sean Healy, a spokesman for Visa U.S.A., said that Visa cardholders have 120 days from the "expected delivery date," meaning the date they would have boarded the ship, to dispute a charge.
