CREDIT: When the Price Isn't Right

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Thanks to the invention of the credit card, no American is too poor to acquire a small fortune in debt. U.S. consumers were carrying $279 billion in obligations on their credit cards as of February. To exploit that vast market, credit-card companies are offering ever more imaginative inducements to pull out the plastic.

Latest example: Citibank, which last week announced "Citibank Price Protection" for its 30 million MasterCard and Visa holders. The program guarantees that if you buy something with a Citibank card and see the item advertised at a lower price within 60 days, Citibank will refund the difference.

Not surprisingly, the deal comes with a number of restrictions. The lower price must be documented with a bona fide print advertisement, and Citibank's generosity has limits: no more than $250 for any individual claim or $1,000 in total claims in any year.

Will the come-on be expensive for Citibank? Maybe, but don't worry. According to the Nilson Report, a California-based industry newsletter, the company made $600 million in pure profit from its credit-card business last year, far more than from all its other operations combined. For competing issuers as well, credit cards are still so temptingly profitable that more customer-pleasing promotions are almost certainly on the way.