So, while someone looking at my payment history (zero blemishes) is happy to bribe me to chose them to provide credit, apparently no one looks at the cost of that credit history to the banks.

Oh, someone looks.

*****historical context*****

I opened my first credit card in the late 70s, with a princely $500 limit. Once into the 80s, bleeding people with fees became a thing. Visa started charging me, iirc, a $20/year fee, on a card I used little, preferring to pay cash the vast majority of the time.

One day, an offer floated into my mailbox, from another credit card company, offering "no fee for life" in writing. I signed that form and fired it back in the next day. Once I had that "no fee for life" card in hand, I called Visa, asking them to waive the $20 fee. I heard the agent go typeity type type, and he said "I can't make that a no fee account". I said "fine, cancel the card". I presume what the agent was typing about was looking to see how much interest they had made off me in recent years. That would be $0.00, which made me expendable.

In recent years, the bank that now handles the card program that made that "no fee for life" guarantee to me, 30 years ago, tries mightily to get me to shift to a different card. Nope.

*****takeaway*****

Seems probable that all the other credit card companies think they can induce you to spend more than you can pay, in a month, even though your current card servicer has failed to do that. Their optimism reminds me of the indomitable spirit of the Black Knight.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail - Black Knight

YouTube: Monty Python and the Holy Grail - Black Knight (Shugo)

Steve