Visa, Sprint Team Up for Discount
From Associated Press
NEW YORK —
Visa International stepped up its battle with MasterCard International on Wednesday by offering a new service with Sprint that lets users charge long-distance calls at a deep discount.
The Visa-Sprint alliance puts one more contender into a credit card industry already crowded with programs offering discounts for calls charged to their cards.
The Visa card’s new feature, VisaPhone, ups the ante by offering a discount 25% cheaper than the calling card rate offered by AT&T;, the biggest long-distance carrier.
AT&T; has been in a competitive brawl with Sprint and the other leading long-distance company, MCI. With VisaPhone, even users of AT&T;’s own Visa card, the Universal Card, could choose to receive the Sprint discount.