Disney credit card offer

Bank One, Avon to offer credit card that lets users earn cosmetics

Thanks to an explosion of Visa and MasterCard credit cards, you can earn free airline trips, discounts on car purchases and money for college tuition.

Now, add makeup to that.

Bank One Corp., which issues so-called co-branded cards that allow customers to charge their way to everything from free Disney trips to Starbucks coffee, said it will offer another card with beauty giant Avon Products. The card is said to be the first that allows users to earn beauty products for charging.

A customer will get a $25 Avon gift certificate for every $2,500 he or she charges. The first purchase made on the card will earn an Avon moisturizer worth $25.

Even the Avon lady gets something. Avon salespeople will earn $25 for every customer they sign up for a card. Avon has 600,000 salespeople nationally.

The fact that employees get rewards for signing up credit-card customers, and not just customers get all the good stuff, is unique, said Robert McKinley, a spokesman for Cardweb.com. "It is the only one like it," he said.

Bank One has introduced several new credit cards this year, among them a card with Starbucks that allows customers to earn coffees and other Starbucks goods.

Bank One is trying to increase its credit-card profits in a tough environment in which its competitors are offering attractive low rates and perks to good customers, forcing Bank One to do likewise. Bank One, which makes about a third of its total profit from cards, said its card profit for the third quarter ended Sept. 30 fell 4 percent from a year earlier to $285 million, thought it opened a net of 895,000 accounts during those three months.