The National Retail Federation (NRF) continues to forecast that this season’s holiday sales will decline 1% from last year. With tighter budgets and consumers looking for discounts, credit card issuers’ battle for holiday share of wallet is fiercer than ever.

Issuers have been gearing up for the holiday season by mailing a range of seasonal promotions to existing customers, including discounts on merchandise, accelerated rewards and additional cash-back. A look at some of the more interesting pieces we’ve seen this year:

• Discover sent some customers a holiday card, offering the opportunity to sign up for a Double Cashback Bonus on up to $1,000 of holiday purchases through the end of December
• Bank of America, Chase and U.S. Bank are three issuers promoting Visa card usage for the holidays. Visa cardholders can receive a 20% discount on purchases of $50 or more at Gap, Banana Republic and Old Navy between December 1 and December 24
• MasterCard has Citi and RBS in its camp. Some Citi MasterCard and RBS Citizens MasterCard customers received a “Holiday Savings for You…to help you prepare for holiday entertaining, gift giving and more”
• Additionally, some card issuers are promoting their own gift cards in seasonal promotions, like State Farm Bank describing its Visa Gift Card as the “perfect gift”

As usual, holiday shopping is intensifying this week and will continue through next week with returns, exchanges and self-gifting. There is a lot more seasonal shopping to be done and card issuers continue to fight for their share.

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