The news: Wellness products are becoming an integral part of premium card perks, per Bloomberg.

The American Express Platinum’s $200 credit for the Oura Health smart ring and Chase Sapphire Reserve’s $359 rebate for Whoop Inc’s fitness bands represent recent wellness initiatives driving new customer acquisition.

How we got here: As the bulk of spending becomes concentrated within the top 10% of households, per Moody’s, issuers are revamping their product lines to target these consumers, predominantly through premium card offerings. 

These premium cards employ rewards and perks ranging from competitive travel miles to statement credits like Platinum’s Oura ring to woo these shoppers and lock in valuable interchange.

Why this matters: Defining premium is at its core, a moving social target. 

Experiential rewards, spearheaded by American Express, have commodified the ephemeral—concerts, F1 races, exclusive dining experience—to give their members emotionally valuable memories that can also generate FOMO to their peers through social media: marketing and rewards satisfaction in one. 

Moving toward wellness is a bet that health as a status signal can be an extension of experiential rewards. The appearance of wealth has shifted to something more subtle, with brands associated with “quiet luxury” and “found luxury” defining visual cues of affluence. Wellness perks marry into these trends, as an individual’s wellness—well restedness, shinier hair, clearer skin—define understated but noticeable signs of health.  

Implications for payment providers: Capturing premium cardholders through perks is a slippery beast. Signifiers of wealth and cultural cache change over time and through generations, requiring issuers to track consumer aspirations to avoid missing the mark. 

As new consumer products like GLP-1s make old barriers to appearance-related status signifiers more achievable, issuers should anticipate new leaps forward for wealth markers, like rigorous fitness as a new benchmark of luxury living: 87% of high net worth individuals (HNWI) reported actively pursuing longevity strategies in the US, per Julius Baer’s Global Wealth and Lifestyle Report.