Plastic's Pickup Line

Forget about those zero-percent teaser rates, those low-interest offers for balance transfers, the cash-advance convenience checks.

Now arriving in your mailbox is a host of new credit card come-ons, offering one-of-a-kind experiences and/or special rewards and savings -- all to get you to sign up for one more piece of plastic.

Are you a NASCAR fan? Then consider the NASCAR RacePoints Visa card. Use it often enough and you could earn enough reward points -- 125,000 -- to become "Crew Chief for a Day" and find out what it's like to be part of a race team.

If you're a young, hip Manhattanite who likes to stop in at the trendiest nightclubs, then the IN:NYC card may be for you. Zip it out and you can jump to the front of the line at such hot spots as Crobar and Lotus.

Or, if you like to save money, use the GMAC Mortgage Equity Rewards card. For every $2,500 you charge on the card, you can trim your GMAC mortgage by $25.

Credit card reward programs have come a long way from the revolutionary but simple programs first offered in 1986. Then, Discover offered a simple cash rebate based on the amount you charged, and Continental Airlines became the first carrier to extend frequent-flier miles to credit card users. Since then, every airline has joined in, while credit card issuers have devised all sorts of cash-back and reward incentive programs. Now, the goal is to make those rewards more "experiential," so unforgettable and unusual that consumers will clamor to put one more card into their already loaded wallets.

"The general trend is to try to develop more rewards propositions that are simply more relevant to people," said Michelle Shepherd, group executive of credit card giant MBNA Corp. That means more customized programs that can be closely linked "to whatever stage in life a person is in, whether it's someone who's trying to reduce a mortgage or someone dreaming of going to the Super Bowl," said Shepherd, whose company issues the NASCAR and GMAC cards.

All of this is happening against a backdrop of industry consolidation, as major credit card issuers are merging. On June 30, Bank of America Corp. announced it would acquire MBNA for $35 billion in stock and cash to create the nation's largest credit card company.

The deal, expected to be completed at the end of the year, follows Bank of America's purchase of FleetBoston Financial Corp. last year, as well as J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.'s acquisition of Bank One Corp. That merger made Chase the nation's largest credit card firm, at least until the Bank of America-MBNA merger is finalized.

When that happens, the nation's top five credit card firms will account for 72 percent of the credit card market -- a concentration level that consumer advocates fear will drive up interest rates and fees, which they consider too high already.

Yet industry officials and consumers don't expect the merger to lead to fewer solicitations. They predict MBNA customers in particular can expect even more appeals in their mailbox as Bank of America seeks to sell them its wide array of banking services.

Bank of America could well follow the lead of one of its rivals, Citigroup Inc., which in April began offering its banking customers extra reward points every month for garden-variety banking services. The more accounts a customer has, such as checking, mortgage or home equity loan, the more points he or she can earn, with as many as 1,200 points a month to the Premium CitiGold cardholder with seven or more Citi accounts.