Macy's Inc., the second-largest department-store chain, is switching 3.5 million inactive namesake credit cards to Citibank MasterCards that can be used to make purchases anywhere.
Macy's mailed letters in July to holders of accounts that haven't been used in two years, explaining that cards would be sent in September unless people said they didn't want them, spokesman Jim Sluzewski said today. After getting MasterCards, people can choose to cancel by telephone or not activating them.
The switch is part of Macy's alliance with Citigroup Inc. to jointly manage the department store's credit-card operations. The owner of Bloomingdale's and Macy's generated proceeds of $4.6 billion from selling its credit-card receivables to Citigroup in four transactions completed in July 2006.
The company has another 24 million active cardholders, Macy's spokesman Sluzewski said.