I have a chase card with 60XXX CL and an AC with 50XXX.
Also in US, credit utilization is a factor in credit scoring. Higher total credit means a lower utilization.
> No fees. Not even hidden ones
and
> 2% cash back when you use Apple Card with Apple Pay
and
> 3% cash back at Apple (and Uber, Uber Eats, Booking.com and a few others) when you use Apple Pay
This seems... really good. As in, it's essentially free money. Am I missing a catch here?
I have one and it exist for presents and upgrades. It is great for that but only that.
EDIT: The Fidelity card has late fees, I guess. Does the Apple one not? It shouldn't really affect you if you know what you're doing
https://online1.elancard.com/pdap/terms?locationCode=24193&o...
Another benefit of the Fidelity card is they reimburse your Global Entry or TSA pre check.
It’s not a bad idea to have both cards because the Apple Card is 1% with the physical card so having the Fidelity card with you for places that don’t accept Apple Pay is a good idea.
I remember visiting the Soviet Union as a kid and it's weird to watch Americans adopt the same passive, drained and resigned faces standing in lines at a Walgreens as Soviet citizens did waiting to cash bread tickets.
If you just never pay you'll owe a bunch of interest and they'll eventually send you to collections... the same basic process as for a normal card but just without the fees stacked on top.
2% cash back is practically the floor for rewards cards. I've had a 2% rewards card for over a decade (Citi Double Cash).
People are able to get around 5% rewards if they're willing to be stuck with miles, locked into a specific retailer/company, or deal with rotating categories.
Apple's credit card has always been unremarkable.
State taxes, and county property taxes vary a lot fee-wise.
So in this case there was no saving, just a deferment of payment, but if the charge was 2.5%, 2.2% or 1.9% (like I did for something else), you absolutely saved some money besides deferment.
I am not starving for pennies, but using the card to get 2.62% back has become a habit and until recently the highest I had paid was 2.75%, the 2.9% was just yesterday for the first time and rather than think more about the impact, I just paid it.
Personally, I use a 2.625% cash back card with the "catch" being that I have to have enough stock in their subsidiary brokerage to qualify for the top rewards tier. Since I just buy and hold SP500 ETFs, this is an easy requirement.
As just a one card catchall, Robinhood does 3% on everything.
I'm one of those crazy maximizers with a drawer full of cards, and most purchases earn 5% or 6%.
They have late fees and cash advance fees.
> most purchases earn 5% or 6%
I assume thats using the high end cards with fairly hefty annual fees, or category cashback.
> The 3% is good, but you have to pay $5 a month, so equivalent $60 annual fee.
It's $50 a year, which isn't nothing, but more than pays for itself with either the 3% IRA match or 1k free margin. Understandably, not everyone wants to invest, so point taken.
> I assume thats using the high end cards with fairly hefty annual fees, or category cashback.
The only one with a fee is Amex Blue Cash Preferred, which I use for 6% groceries. The rest are store cards(AMZ/WM) or free category cards(of which you can often get multiple, oddly enough). For example USBank Cash+ for 5% back on all utilities and electronics, year round. Then there are some that automatically just 5% your highest spend category.
> I carry exactly one debet card in my wallet (.eu) and use it for everything
Not sure about eu but in the US that's generally not advised, due to the semantics of how the cards work and legal fraud liabilities. Basically, if someone skims your debit card, they take your money and you have to sometimes fight to get it back - but still, you are without the money for a time. If someone skims your credit card, they're stealing from the bank, and for obvious reasons they seem much more eager to investigate - but you still have your money.
I only ever use debit cards these days when I need cash from the ATM.
I don't think anyone I know uses a credit card for daily purchases here in Spain.
Here in Europe a lot of cards don't have a magstripe anymore, or it is deactivated (containing no relevant payment info but a functional header)
My bank asked if I still wanted it in case I'd travel to the US or some other countries but I never travel outside of EU anymore so I didn't want one.
I've had this happen to me and the bank in question asked me a couple of questions about where it happened (an ATM in a really dark location!) but quickly reversed the charges. Happened in London, so was OS to boot.
That was a few years ago don't know if its different now.
I use the Apple Card because I love the customer UX, including the privacy from vendors part.
And even if it's not, as long as the other side (i.e. merchants and acquirers) just collects and aggregates the same data, that's little consolation.
One of the big promises when the Apple Card launched is that, unlike most other cards, your purchase information isn't sold.
That's the big question mark from me with the Chase takeover. If that privacy goes away, I'll stop using the Apple Card.
2% cash back for "everything" and 3% with some limitations (on platform, types of purchases, etc) is a relatively common reward structure for these types of credit cards. So its... good, but nothing really special.
The money is "free-ish" as long as you don't carry a balance month to month.
Of course, the banks know that a lot of people will actually end up carrying a balance (they mentioned in the linked announcement that they are bringing in an estimated $20 billion worth of existing balances with this deal) so they are fine with giving out the 2-3% "free money" for a lot of chances to collect 17-28% interest.
Considering the impact on prices, cashback is basically reverse redistribution. It makes the situation worse for the poorest customers to give money to the banks and their richest customers.
And if you don't use a card, the business takes 2c from your left pocket and keeps it.
It's a great trick though, people really buy into the whole points/cashback thing and don't realise they're being paid with their own money
Nowadays though, many sellers are offering at least 3% or higher discounts for not using credit card. My mobile network provider, home ISP, daycare and kids activities, insurance, taxes, healthcare, tradespeople, and even Target offers a 5% discount if you do not use a credit card.
It’s basically only travel, restaurants, and non Target retail that earns credit card rewards. Although sign up bonuses make it worth paying the additional credit card fees sometimes.
Merchants rarely offer cash discounts in the US.
Admittedly that is overstating it a bit because not everyone uses a rewards card. In reality the 2% cashback is 1% your own money being given back to you and 1% money from people paying in cash being transferred to you (normally regressively as someone else pointed out).
If you get a discount for paying cash, then it really is just your own money
Next time you have an independent contractor do some work, after they give a price, ask them if they will accept 90% or even less if you pay cash.
My barber has a sign with a cash price, a Zelle/Venmo price, and a credit card price.
I've also seen it more common as a credit card surcharge (at the bottom of a menu) than a cash discount.
I'm not disputing they exist, just that it's exceedingly rare and not the norm.
> My barber has a sign with a cash price, a Zelle/Venmo price, and a credit card price.
I'm half joking and half serious, is he intentionally trying to confuse customers? Why do Zelle/Venmo have their own prices, and what price do I pay if I just want to pay with the debit card on my phone?
He is sharing some of the savings from tax evasion with the customer.
I do not know if he can accept electronic payments from a debit card on the phone. I presume Zelle/Venmo is simpler than figuring out a system to separate debit cards and credit cards.
>just that it's exceedingly rare
Discounts for non credit card payment methods (such as ACH/debit card/Zelle/Venmo/paper cash) seem more and more common to me. Bigger businesses likely won't engage in tax evasion allowing for bigger discounts for paper cash, but fewer and fewer of my expenses are worth paying with a credit card.
Think contractors. They also do it all the time. When I did a remodel a couple of years back, he asked for cash. It was a small amount so I did not think much until my accountant told me I will need receipts if I wanted them added to my house's capital /cost. I asked the contractor and he stalled me for weeks while also saying I will need to pay more for receipts, until one day I forgot chasing (and am thinking of it now) and just let it go I guess.
What annoys me is debit card fees are supposed to be capped in the U.S. But for unclear reasons many payment processors don't honor this, even large processors like PayPal and Square. Merchants tell me the debit card fee is same as a credit card.
My local government charges a 2.9% fee for use of credit or debit card as well.
They have a little more consumer protection but not a lot.
Here in Spain cards don't tend to provide any cashback, also they hurt your credit rating (in contrast with the US where they improve it and people end up shuffling cards). They're pretty unpopular here, most people just use debit cards. I prefer it too, if I don't need credit to buy something I don't want to use it. I currently don't have any loan or credit active which is the best situation in case I'd want to get a mortgage.
We do have some cards like revolut which provide some benefits but you have to pay a monthly sub. It's more promotional stuff like 'free' Uber one, perplexity, tinder etc. I don't find those terribly useful except for perplexity but they give that away free with a lot of things. Uber one in particular really sucks because it's way more expensive than local alternatives (cabify for rides, glovo for meals) even with the discount.
So, if you move to the US, getting a credit card, even if you never intend to carry a balance, is a wise idea.
- You cannot be held responsible for more than $50 of fraudulent charges
- You are not required to report a card missing within a short period of time to claim that charges are fraudulent
- Because your bank account is not directly linked to the credit card, fraudulent charges occur with the credit bank's money, not yours, so you do not have to fight to have them declared fraudulent before you can use money in your account
Point #3 doesn't really play here because the credit card is simply a loan in your name and you are liable for the full amount regardless. You could simply not pay the bill but then the insane interest builds up.
I will never move to the US though anyway. I won't even visit until the situation improves.
I was using the generic "you", not you specifically. Many people don't understand this about credit cards in the US. If an entire nation of people use something that nobody you know does, then either they are all idiots in a way that nobody you know is, or there is something that makes it uniquely valuable there. The consumer protection angle is the unique value proposition (and it covers quite a lot of things).
Don't forget this system already collapsed in a big way in 2007 and it had massive global ramifications.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/10/09/fraud-protec...
Given that I have an Apple Card, this is a chief annoyance. GS/Apple extended an insane credit limit to my household but we’ve never used more than about 6% of that and the benefits aren’t any better than any of our other cards.
My spouse’s reaction to the news of the move to Chase was basically “so I guess we do know when we’ll finally close that account.”
They even got me back a ton of money from a venue that burned down and I had a deposit down for an event there.
For everything where Apple Pay works, it’s a great deal; for everything else, it’s below average (as there are many 1.5% on everything cards).
> it's essentially free money. Am I missing a catch here?
In the end, all you’re doing is recouping a bit more of your own money than with some other cards. You pay those 2% and more as part of the price of everything you buy.
The biggest downside is all the dark patterns at Merrill trying to sell you advisory services. That seems to be only upon account opening, though.
The Bread American Express is a 2% card and no FTF. Fidelity is still the best overall card, but sometimes the AmEx can be nice.
Also, 2% cashback and no fees is nothing exceptional (in US market) - I mean, it's on the better end but there are a number of cards with similar deal from Wells Fargo, Fidelity, Capital One, etc. So it's not that spectacular - you can have the same deal without being hardwired into Apple's closed garden.
I've used my Apple card to buy a few Apple devices and indeed with 0% interest.
(Obviously their angle is you’ll use your phone or watch, which isn’t a huge stretch)
Than mobile payments? Absolutely not
Methinks your reading was not sufficient
Apple Pay is more risky than contactless cards. There is a risk of dropping your phone or it being stolen out of your hand. I only use it in controlled indoor environments, like at a retail store, where I have enough personal space to feel comfortable getting out my phone. If I want to pay at e.g. a stall in a crowded market, I'm using my card.
—-
Wearing my ecology hat, you could argue if barely any of their customers will use it for contactless, then it’s a waste of resources manufacturing a chip.
(Of course there are plenty of other areas of Apple’s business where they thoroughly undermine this - persuading people to buy wireless in-ear headphones, iPads that have so much glue inside when you ‘replace’ the battery they just give you a new device because it’s too much hassle etc.)
Or… maybe insisting on using Titanium means it’s an PITA adding a chip as well, versus plastic? (At least one of my UK cards claims “made from 100% recycled plastic” now).
Frankly I liked that they had GS as the bank cause they come with a pretty amazing customer support system
If this can happen, I don't plan on ever getting one.
Called, charges reversed, 1 month later they were all reinstated, no reason. Called, charges reversed again, 1 month later they were all reinstated and my Apple Card was cancelled by GS. Since I still had it linked as my payment method w Apple this again locked my whole family out of subscriptions. GS gave no explanation for why the account was closed, but it was after they reversed the charges a second time. Balance was $0, account closed, no recourse. Then 1 month later all the reversed charges were reinstated and on the now locked account and I had no recourse but to pay GS’s ransom because it was a closed account that would be reported if I didn’t pay.
I have CCs from a number of banks and it was by far the most ridiculous consumer experience. No wonder GS wants to exit the consumer market because they are terrible at it. Chase is better, but it’s no AmEx. Sad that it’s not AmEx.
Now I’m wondering if I can get a new account under Chase because I’m definitely never calling GS again.
Most bizarre experience. Never had a bank account with Chase ever again after that incident.
She traveled to the “wrong” country. A country that is not and was not embargoed or sanctioned. A country that the US is/was on good terms with. She had been there and used her Chase card previously. She didn’t do anything out of the norm.
Chase closed all her accounts with no notice while she was traveling and refused to provide a reason. I told her to sit on my invoices while she scrambled and got things sorted out.
It took months. They refused to send her the balance of her asset accounts until she threatened to sue them and air the calls she recorded.
I have kept a healthy distance from relying on Chase ever since.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44021792
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26310817
But:
"Allegedly unrelated to the apple card, your appleid just gets locked if you don't fulfill a trade-in."
Multiple 2% cashback cards
Amazon prime - 5% off Amazon and Whole Foods purchases, but you have to be a prime subscriber
Robinhood gold -3% off anything for $60/year
Amex blue cash rewards - 6% off groceries(and gift cards bought at supermarkets) for $75 per year
https://www.americanexpress.com/us/credit-cards/card/blue-ca...
The Prime credit card is issued by Chase. I closed mine and stopped patronizing Amazon.com around the time Bezos started meddling with the Washington Post, so I may be out of the loop on how things work now.
Maybe Apple's influence will help but certainly worrisome for ne.
The actual rewards are pretty average, but that's okay. I don't really get the elitism I'm seeing in the comments from people who act like you're an idiot for not juggling a half-dozen cards with varying annual fees and rotating bonus points categories. For people who don't travel, rent cars, dine out, etc. the Apple card is a fine everyday card given the number of places that qualify for 2%. In the end, for people making the average US salary, +/-1% in limited categories is not worth the administrative overhead and credit impact of managing a bunch of cards.
I personally enjoy some of the min-maxing involved in managing cards/finances, but I wouldn't go as far as to call somebody 'financially illiterate', as one commenter did, for using the physical apple card and receiving 1% back on the rare occasion contactless payment doesn't work somewhere.
delfinom•22h ago
Tempest1981•22h ago
petesergeant•22h ago
killingtime74•21h ago
sethhochberg•21h ago
adrr•21h ago
LoganDark•20h ago
And in the bottom-right corner of the titanium card and in the picture in Wallet. And it's advertised practically everywhere they mention the titanium card. And if you have Apple Savings it's also specified to be from GS everywhere.
LoganDark•20h ago
ksec•20h ago
Consider the transition takes 24 months I wouldn't be surprised if the discount allow them to run three years with clause to terminate at later date. The downside and exposure should be limited with great upside on worldwide launch.
But judging from Apple's speed with their execution in Apple Wallet this will likely take a lot longer than expected.
smsm42•20h ago
ksec•18h ago
But the execution has been absolutely appalling.
monster_truck•21h ago
iancarroll•21h ago
adrr•21h ago
pdpi•21h ago
wt__•18h ago
You could well be right, though I have a couple of theories why they Apple haven't rolled it out here:
- maybe they think it'll just be too messy, having to market different cashback reward rates and so on for the US and UK, due to the capped interchange fees - too much "it's not fair" style moaning like everyone did about Black Friday, even though we don't even celebrate Thanksgiving here.
- Apple have somewhat de-prioritised UK/Europe generally given their dealings with the EU
- (as others have hinted) most banks simply aren't interested
From the outside it does seem as though there was basically nothing in it for Goldman Sachs, other than perhaps useful spending data (they must surely have got some data, regardless of Apple's privacy claims) and a bit of industry prestige for being the ones to work with Apple?
MarkMarine•21h ago
the8472•21h ago
lxgr•20h ago
samename•21h ago
adrr•21h ago
Apple card with GS was amazing deal for people who didn't have prime credit.
nrb•21h ago
adrr•20h ago
jldugger•20h ago
Every _month_. And it's not just the customer service desk that's a problem. With even distribution of billing and a large customer base, outflows match inflows and you don't have to do much to manage it. With all money coming in on one day you have a huge outflow of money and then it all rushes back in.
Much easier to borrow 1 dollar for a year than 30 dollars for a month.