Display MCC in transaction detail

After clicking on a transaction to see detail like “Status” and “Category”, add another row showing the merchant category code. The 4 digits will suffice. This will be extremely helpful in determining which card is best to charge a particular merchant to and thereby improve the quality of the training data you are using us to create.

I’ve seen restaurants misclassified as 5411 (grocery store). Then there’s the subtle distinction between grocery store 5411 and wholesale club 5300 and cards often write exclusions for wholesale clubs in their grocery cash back terms.

Revolut changes between 6012 and 4829 without telling users just to surprise them with a cash advance from time to time.
On Creation, 6012 is limited to 600/week but treated as a purchase. 4829 is unlimited but charges interest immediately. Both earn points.
On Virgin, 6012 is usually a purchase and 4829 is usually a cash advance with a 5% fee.

For a time, the mostly-useless https://moneymail.me/ money transfer service was classed as 5611 men’s clothing store.

Knowing the MCC is key to understanding what rewards a particular merchant will earn.

There are many wrong MCCs out there. I suspect it’s a game of cat and mouse between merchants moving to cheaper MCCs and acquirers moving them to more expensive MCCs.

It’s not on you to fix the mess of MCC assignments out there. So far as I understand VitraCash will always pass it through regardless of how weird the category is. (Otherwise just change everything to 3501 Holiday Inn and charge my IHG card please!)

I just want you to give me the data necessary to optimize which card I choose subject to the constraints of the merchant having a particular MCC and you passing it through.

If you mean AI in the sense of machine learning, you need training data. And I am happy to provide that by way of selecting which card I use for a particular charge. The quality of the training data will improve if I have all the tools I need to make the right choice.

If by AI you mean a bunch of handwritten rules, the MCC will of course be an important feature but it’s not clear your rule writing will reach the Zipfian distribution of poorly documented card issuer bonus categories (What is transportation anyway? Does that include parking?) and merchants (is it a bus or a municipality?).

To give a specific example of a good bank, HMBradley shows MCC in transaction information and published their rewards category definitions in https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/804075662092664832/849313734886817822/MCC_to_Rewards_Category_Map.csv. (Though there’s also an error: they block 6012 so the rewards category is moot).

The rewards are 3% in the top (highest spending) rewards category, 2% in the second rewards category, and 1% in the rest. The rewards categories can change each month. Apparently some of the more extreme users time purchases around statement cycles to optimize the 3% category.