I upgraded to Neo World Elite Mastercard from a regular Neo credit card to try out a new product; then I realized that the premium goes on top and not instead. I canceled premium bundle that I had thinking that I would get a better deal from a new premium card.
On Jan 1, I lost access to credit score as my premium bundle was cancelled – turns out that credit score is a premium feature that is included in the premium bundle but not the world elite Mastercard.
This is a bummer on a number of levels:
• Competitor banks and fintechs like Borrowell or Credit Karma include credit score as a basic feature that is available at no cost – I didn’t realize it was a premium feature until it got cancelled;
• The nudge doesn’t work, i.e. there is no reason to pay for premium to get access to this feature because it is available for free elsewhere; This means users can go outside of Neo to check their credit score for free when they could be doing that with Neo. If they go to Borrowell and Credit Karma they will get bombarded by offers by competitors to open other cards;
• The more expensive product (world elite) doesn’t offer what is offered by a less expensive product (premium add-on) – this is counterintuitive. One would expect to get more when paying more.
• Similarly, when newer doesn’t mean better, adoption is going to be a challenge. I don’t really look into fine print to determine the best features – I trust that when Neo offers a new product it’s going to be great and that Neo would have done all the thinking for me. When newer, more expensive product doesn’t give that, trust is eroded. Superusers who buy everything you put out without reading the description can provide more valuable feedback.
• The fact that credit score is a premium feature is hidden in the “premium features” menu:
The first thing that pops up is Cashback rates and users have to scroll all the way to the bottom to just to find out that the premium features menu exists. If Neo really believes that credit score should be a premium feature, this could be more prominently mentioned somewhere.
Ideally, it would be desirable to have a way for users to adopt new products that would just be better without any doubt. Think how people buy new iPhones on release date without trying them or reading the specs.