The coronavirus lockdown or restrictions has been in place since the start of April 2020 and the financial year 2020-21 was a total mess as there were many job cuts and layoffs and economic slowdown. However, a study reveals that despite such a disaster-like year, there were many people who were still opting for travel credit cards. As per the report, over 25% of people applied for travel credit cards, says an online website that deals with financial products.
Where stay at home was a mandatory rule to be followed in the years 2020 and 2021, it is really surprising to find such consumers who had hopes for renewed travel opportunities. The report observed that in the last one and a half years, travel credit cards are gaining importance because of the discounts that consumers were getting on free airport lounge access, base fares, priority check-in among others. All these benefits were making consumers more profitable to opt for travel credit cards as they had to travel on an emergency for their business or personal reasons in the last year.
This January to March, when the relaxations were getting eased, above 40% of new applications were up for travel credit cards. Travel cards got their rising popularity due to the comfort and cost-effective benefits they provided to their consumers. Also, special discounts on travel websites, excess baggage allowance, and more such benefits were luring people for travel credit cards.
Also, during the lockdown, shopping credit cards were quite in demand among all the credit card applications as people were quite excited to shop online for essential items like food, entertainment purpose, etc throughout the year. If the coronavirus cases come down in the coming months, then we can see more surge in credit cards for shopping and travel as people are really bugged up staying at home and following the restrictions to curb the spread of the virus.
