If you're in the US this sounds like a normal card. If you're in a lot of other places you won't have heard of it because it's not available and it sounds amazing because it wouldn't make any money in more regulated countries.
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.
Yep if you use a card in the US the company just takes 2c from your left pocket and puts it in your right pocket in a form that's more difficult to use.
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
It's usually more than 3 cents out of your left pocket and 1.5-2 into your right one, even if you do everything right and never incur interest charges or fees.
> 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
Even better, they become poorly-paid lobbyists for the entire scheme, since it successfully makes them feel like they're getting "luxury" items/services for free by "gaming the banks", when they're really just participating in a loyalty scheme exactly as designed.
Sure, it's possible to eke out a net cash profit here and there, but all in all, it's just a great counterexample to homo economicus.
It’s not being paid with my own money. If I can get 2% cash back, then the situation is I either pay 98% of $x, or $x.
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.
> It’s not being paid with my own money. If I can get 2% cash back, then the situation is I either pay 98% of $x, or $x.
The counterfactual isn't getting or not getting 2% cash back, it's the merchant paying or not paying ~3% in fees, a part of which you get back from your issuing bank as a kickback to keep participating in and advocating for this scheme.
Of course this would require regulatory action. Absent that, the status quo represents the stable equilibrium.
Well if you can get $100 worth of X on credit card for $98, but you can buy the same thing with cash for $97, aren't you actually paying 150% of the "cash back" with your own money? ¯\\_(ಠ_ಠ)_/¯
Even as somebody really disliking the current interchange fees in the US, 4% is a money grab on the merchant's side that I find hard to empathize with.
Even if the merchant pays the sticker price for card acceptance, it's usually just below 3%, unless international cards are involved. Add to that the fact that cash transactions in restaurants are often accounted for in "more tax efficient ways", and it feels even more icky.
My point is if credit cards didn't exist, the $1 thing would cost 98c, so in that sense it's your money.
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
They are all over the place, especially small businesses. A cash only (paper money) price is typically less than debit card or other electronic “cash” discounts because tax evasion is assumed.
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.
Like I said, I don't think I've ever seen them. For instance, you can't go into a Walmart or Best Buy and ask for a cash discount. Maybe a small business offers them, but I live in a small town (pop < 4k) and our grocery store and hardware store don't offer a cash discount. Neither do our gas stations offer a discount for paying for gas with cash, as the other reply mentions.
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?
From someone who lives in bay area (so not <4k), this is exceedingly common. Of course Walmart does not have a small business owner on-site who can oversee such adjustments, but think mom and pop / single owner stores. They do it all the time.
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.
>I'm half joking and half serious, is he intentionally trying to confuse customers?
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.
I'm seeing it more often. They don't say cash discount, they say they're charging a fee for using a credit card.
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.
I was using "more regulated" as a lazy catch all, but I'm actually British and now live in Australia. The Apple Card would be pretty amazing in either market in my experience. The UK seemed to max out at 0.5-1% back at scale (not including sign up incentives). Australia is similar, although here credit cards are disincentivised even more.
The UK is very similar to the US, very neoliberal.
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.
The UK still has EU-equivalent interchange rate caps that they inherited form pre-Brexit times. The only thing that's changed so far is that transactions between the UK and EU can be charged higher interchange rates again.
Credit cards are, oddly enough, one place in which the US has absolutely amazing consumer protection laws. Debit cards do not share these protections by law (though many banks offer some of them).
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
> Debit cards do not share these protections by law
No, debit cards are covered by Regulation E, which also caps liability for fraudulent transactions, requires your issuer to provide provisional credit until the dispute case has been resolved etc.
The only practical difference in terms of the minimum fraud protections afforded by law is that you're out your own money instead of the bank's until you get that provisional credit, which can be a problem if it causes other transactions (utility bills etc.) on your checking account to bounce.
Where the two really differ significantly is for non-fraud disputes (goods/services not as expected etc.): Reg Z has explicit protections there; Reg E doesn't really talk about these.
But practically, it also doesn't really, because...
> though many banks offer some of them).
No, both Visa and Mastercard require require issuers to extend zero liability protections going beyond these regulations, so it's effectively all banks. (Capital One might be able to relax their own rules now that they own Discover, but I highly doubt they'd risk the consumer backlash for questionable benefit, since they can also just make merchants pay for card-not-present lost/stolen/card credential theft fraud and cover card-present fraud like everybody else in the US.)
Hmm point #2 is not really required here either. In the past I have been skimmed once and I was notified by the bank before I even noticed the transactions. They had noticed because several cards used at a specific public ATM had been skimmed and abused, they removed the transactions immediately and sent me a new card. Very proactive, I didn't have to do anything.
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.
#3 is a reason not to use a debit card but to use credit instead. If you pay your balance in full every month, on time, then there is no interest due at all. So even after you get your bill, if the card has been used fraudulently, it's not your problem and you can't be stuck with the bill.
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).
I don't think consumers are idiots but I do think the system is skewed towards unhealthy borrowing. These protections and cashbacks are nothing but an incentive to keep it the same. The exact same could be done with debit cards after all. The banks are making money off the late payments and customers are incentivised to buy things they can't really afford.
Don't forget this system already collapsed in a big way in 2007 and it had massive global ramifications.
Huh? Cashback cards on VISA/Mastercard have all but disappeared, I think Lloyds still do one but it has a promo of 1% for the first year then drops to 0.25% after. American Express will give you 0.75% on first 10k spend then 1.25%. 2% is unheard of (unless it's promo or heavily capped).
Apple Card can also sometimes offer 3% like at Walgreens and you can also get 6 months of free Uber One.
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.
Anyone who's ever had to pick up a prescription at a Walgreens will tell you that 3% doesn't begin to make up for the incredible shit you have to endure there. It's like being placed on hold indefinitely, only you have to keep standing in one spot while people sneeze on you, all while guys with backpacks come in and steal everything that isn't locked up. And if there's something you want like antacids or razor blades, it probably is locked up too, so spend another 15 minutes finding an extremely miserable employee to unlock those cabinets, then wait another hour in line to check out.
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.
I don't believe any card would mean "no fees" as "no late fees". It would be insane. I mean, I just take their money and never pay back and they are fine with it? Doesn't sound possible. I think they mean "no fees for regular usage" - like, annual fees, etc.
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.
There are still several 2% cards that don’t require Apple Pay, although I don’t know of any with no foreign exchange fee other than maybe the Fidelity one.
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.
Bank of America Travel Rewards is effectively 2.625% on everything if you put >$100k in a Merrill account and redeem the rewards against "travel" (including restaurants in any location) expenses charged to the card. There's no foreign transaction fee.
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.
Bank of America Preferred rewards card is even better with one caveat that there is a $95 annual fee. You get the 2.625 but you also get 3.5 on travel and dining, and you also get Global Entry paid once every 4 years, and $100 in travel incidentals (bag fees, wifi on plane) every year. And you do not need to redeem against travel, you can get cash back if that's what you want.
Yes, that’s a great cashback setup, but definitely not a “no catch” one. Really not a fan of the brokerage UX and generally the BofA web/app experience.
If all you’re doing is buying and holding VOO or TTTXX or similar, I don’t see what difference any of the major brokerage websites makes. If anything, I prefer BoA as they allow you to configure at least 2 phone numbers for SMS 2FA, so I don’t have to hunt down my wife to get the 2FA code.
> There are still several 2% cards that don’t require Apple Pay, although I don’t know of any with no foreign exchange fee other than maybe the Fidelity one.
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.
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.
For prime plus you can get better cards, for people sub 660 credit score, it is the best card on the market. Chase's subprime card which is the slate offers no rewards.
That only makes sense if they don't charge extra for paying with CC. Most places I've seen would charge you 3-4% fee for CC payment, which makes the whole thing pointless - except if you need a big spend e.g. for a sign-up bonus.
I paid my son's tuition yesterday at a 2.90% charge. Since the cashback of 2.625 is also on the charge, my net cost for about 10.6K tuition was about $15. I keep the money invested in SGOV (state tax exempt), for a month, I make that $15 anyways, and it helps me follow lessons from corporations - pay only at the latest due date without any charges.
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.
Incidentally that's when I got the double cash card because in those days that was the top. Fidelity and some other company had 2%, but that was it (not considering what Amex Elite might have had) for all purchase.
The floor is 1.5%. I don’t know of any 2% card without any catch (the Apple Card’s being that you have to use Apple Pay, which is still not available at many online merchants).
It really depends on the definition of catch. Citi Double Cash, Fidelity, Wells Fargo and US Bank all do 2%.
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.
Bank of America Unlimited Cash Rewards for the win :) My only regret is not realizing sooner that it existed since I used the Citi Double Cash card for so long.
The Apple card is the only credit card in the US (that I know of) which does not resell your granular transaction data to 3rd party brokers. To me that alone makes it tremendously better than existing cards.
Has none of the usual expected perks like rental car insurance or damage/theft protection on purchases. Guess purchase protection would be a threat to applecare revenue.
> 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.
It is, but I typically only carry two - the 3% back and the grocery 6% back as the others are mainly online or automated.
> 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.
Here it's about the same. Even with a skimmed credit card you're on the hook for the bill, there's no chargeback. But skimming is really rare because we no longer have the old insecure systems of card imprinting, signature, magstripes etc. It's all chip&pin or contactless.
I don't think anyone I know uses a credit card for daily purchases here in Spain.
Skimming is rare in the US too, as tap to pay is at 90% of payment terminals, and chip reading is at 99% of payment terminals (guesstimates based on the last time I swiped my card).
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.
Using debit card for online purchases has substantial negatives and credit cards are much preferred (this may be US specific), but in the EU credit cards are a different kettle of fish and not as good as US cards.
3% for $60 annual fee is not bad. AmEx has Blue Cash card with 6% back, but it costs $95 and only works for (some) grocery stores. So if you have a decent churn $60 is not bad. Of course, if you play these games you should never ever hold a balance or pay late (and using cash advance on credit card is always, always a bad idea!) so you can ignore those fees.
The catch is it's very annoying to use outside of Apple ecosystem - e.g. if you don't have an iphone or don't want (or can not) use ApplePay.
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.
IIRC even activating the physical card requires an app, which is of course only existing on iphone. Also, the user agreement specifies you need a device which is ApplePay compatible (i.e., iphone). Also, IIRC the card doesn't actually have a number anywhere, so if you ever need to enter it, you're out of luck. And to use the cashback funds, IIRC you need the app again.
The only fully-functional interface for viewing statements and scheduling payments is on iPhone. In fact I'm pretty sure you can't do either of those things at all in any other place than the iPhone Wallet app. Not even on a Mac or an iPad.
The simplicity and nice app experience is what's really good, but you can easily get better terms in the industry if you pay just one hour of attention.
I use the Apple Card because I love the customer UX, including the privacy from vendors part.
> This seems... really good. As in, it's essentially free money. Am I missing a catch here?
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.
The catch is ethical. I personally don't feel good profiting from financial distress. Cash-back benefits are primarily funded through interest on carried balances (not interchange fees). In other words, credit card cash back is funded via high interest on other people's debt. The strongest predictors of revolving debt are income volatility, lack of regular savings, irregular work hours, and unexpected expenses. Basically credit cards act as an extractive safety net for people with no other options. It's a business model that depends on financial distress.
“ Cash-back benefits are primarily funded through interest on carried balances (not interchange fees).” citation needed. My understanding is that this is false.
An iPhone is required. You can pay for things with Apple Pay, but there’s no Wallet interface on iPadOS.
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.”
Re the Amazon card, it used to be offered through Synchrony Bank (I think I got the name right). I had a lot of weird issues with them and their customer service was very difficult to get ahold of and were terrible once you did. I ended up canceling the card.
That’s the Amazon Store Card, which (at least used to) only works on Amazon.com.
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.
A nice feature of the Apple Card is the very fast processing of transactions. I can pay for something and have it show up as pending and clear within a day. Whereas my bank credit card will leave transactions pending for an average of five days. The fast clearing is not a huge deal, but it's nice as it pairs well with a daily YNAB routine.
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.
The physical card is explicitly just a backup option for when contactless payment isn't available. It would be sort of weird to make it support contactless payment.
I use and love Apple Pay, but it's not ideal for every situation. The biggest flaw is that it requires waving your expensive phone in the vicinity of the reader.
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.
EDIT: hmm, actually the screenshots on Apple.com show a card with a chip, so how come contactless doesn’t work? Deliberately disabled?
—-
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).
The real problem is that the physical card pays only 1% cashback, so the only thing one can demonstrate when paying with the titanium card is financial illiteracy.
It is very hard to get any proper use of apple card without an iphone, so it's clearly designed for people buying into i-system wholesale. The titanium thing is more backup (for those dinosaurs still not accepting applepay) and a gimmick than anything else. You're not supposed to use it as the primary means of payment.
It's strange but I've been to many places where the iPhone's contactless payment doesn't work but normal cards do. Most common are parking lot machines and automated car washes.
It’s much lighter than most other metal cards while being much sturdier too! A real shame it’s completely useless (bad cashback, no printed number making it useless for e.g. hotel or airline card number confirmations at checkin).
I've left Chase twice. Once because they sucked. Once because my bank, First Republic, had a run that put them out of busines. Chase took them over, 10x-ed the prices and 1/10th the level of service.
Maybe Apple's influence will help but certainly worrisome for ne.
I wonder what the terms of this new deal are. Goldman Sachs had accepted absolutely ridiculous terms like forgoing fees because they were apparently desperate for consumer business. Chase has an existing consumer business so I can't imagine they would accept the same terms but I wonder what this would mean for the card benefits.
I used mine to buy Macbook Airs with 0% interest just fine. For the iPhone, the fine print says you (now) have to sign up with one of their pre-approved carriers. If you use another - Mint or US Mobile or whatever - you're out of luck.
I had thousands of dollars of charges I didn’t make (but billed electronically via Apple as if my card was attached to someone else’s iCloud account) appear, exceeding my limit and locking my entire family out of the shared Apple subscriptions (e.g. no music on their devices but strangely music on mine). GS could remotely lock your Apple account at will it seemed.
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.
You clearly never experienced chases anti-fraud division. Who will, without warning, close all of your chase accounts because you used a credit card at the wrong store at the wrong time and you set off whatever fraud score. And csr will not help you as the anti fraud system is treated as god.
A client of mine pushed her business expenses through a Chase account. She banked with them too.
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.
Funny you mention that. I did open a joint Chase account back when I was getting married and first order of business was paying for all the wedding expenses. We went to QR, Mexico for a weekend getaway prior to the madness and because I logged into the Chase account from Mexico they not only locked the bank account, but completely closed it with no way to reopen. We had to both go to the Chase branch at which it was opened with passports and even then the manager said Chase would mail me the money in 3-6 weeks, 2-5 weeks after the wedding. I politely told him I was not leaving the building until he handed me the cash in an envelope and after some time he finally caved and did it after making some phone calls.
Most bizarre experience. Never had a bank account with Chase ever again after that incident.
Wonder what Apple caved on. They famously only found goldman to work with them originally because they had significant demands that bucked the industry, including setting everyone's statement dates to the exact same so that customer support collapses the same day every year.
Settling on the same day is quite a choice. PDF creation cluster scaling alone must have been something else, let alone the obvious problems they had knocking over CS and getting fined by the CFPB.
I doubt that PDF generation makes any dent given all the other things they have to process at statement closing. They also don’t mail out statements by default and I don’t think everyone looks at the PDFs on the first day, so they can do it just in time.
> so that customer support collapses the same day every year.
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.
I would guess putting a cap of 660 credit score and adding some fees back like late fee, over limit fee, and return payment fee. I don't see JPM doing a card with rewards/cash back in the sub prime market, slate doesn't have any rewards.
Apple card with GS was amazing deal for people who didn't have prime credit.
Some of the perks were great even for prime if you're already bought into the Apple ecosystem. 3% cash back plus 0% APR installment on Apple product purchases is a nice double dip that most cards can't touch unless you're really trying hard.
If you don't want to mess with points, its a great card. You still need another card for travel since it doesn't have rental car insurance, travel insurance, etc. Its missing all the features that normally come with Visa Infinite or Mastercard World Elite cards.
I have no insider knowledge here but it doesn't seem outlandish to think that the negotiations would go a little differently for an established product vs a brand new one. Goldman may have simply been the only bank willing to work with Apple when the customer base (in size, demographics, spending patterns, whatever) was hypothetical.
What bank offers rewards and no fees to subprime(below 660) customers? There aren't any. Why no wanted the deal. Guaranteed to lose money. Its not like there's name recognition, i doubt most people could name the underlying bank for the Apple Card. Only place the bank is mentioned is the fine print at the bottom of the card details. Everything is branded "Apple Card"
> i doubt most people could name the underlying bank for the Apple Card. Only place the bank is mentioned is the fine print at the bottom of the card details.
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.
GS was inexperienced and didn't know what they were getting into; that's why Apple was able to get such a good deal and also why GS now wants out. I fear Chase does know what they're getting into and Apple likely has far less favorable terms now. Though I'm incredibly glad they didn't give it to Synchrony (who runs PayPal and is incredibly sociopathic)
I would imagine Goldman want out. They were never a retail banking firm to begin with. And sell the current Apple Card division with debt and customer base packaged at a discount.
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.
Not sure which way this tips the scales, but Chase has a retail banking presence in the UK, GS doesn't. If Apple wants to expand Apple Card internationally, and want to keep the number of partners to a minimum, Chase would be a better fit. Inversely, Chase's market in the UK is still small, and an Apple Card partnership would be a big draw to pull customers in.
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?
Absolutely. I'd imagine not being able to use the card at Costco alone would be enough to have them entertaining surprising concessions. It was the first thing I thought of, with Chase CC's being Visa instead of Mastercard.
credit utilization is a factor in credit scores, which are important for things like mortgages and auto loans. higher credit limit, ceteris paribus, is lower utilization
I have never had a credit limit higher than 1800. I’ve managed to get lots of mortgages at rates that are just fine. Stop believing you’re a slave to your credit score.
If you actually have $110000 in freely available disposable cash and you’re worrying about whether you have the ability to spend it all on a credit card versus arranging a funds transfer or a check, I question your decision-making process. :D
My advice is to ask yourself how important your credit limit is, and ask yourself why. And challenge the notion that a better credit score has any positive impact on your life. You have a whole chain of “truths” you take for granted: higher limit implies lower utilization. Lower utilization implies better credit score. Better credit score implies better mortgage rates. Better mortgage rates implies better something. What I’m trying to tell you is you can forget every single bit of that dependency chain without doing yourself any damage and you will actually feel better.
Sorry for the proselytizing. I know I’m doing it. But I think it’s a huge part of our consumerism addiction.
Oh I do hate the game. I refuse to worry about credit scores and I haven’t checked mine in over 20 years. I’ve got a ridiculously low credit limit and that suits me just fine. Live like you don’t need credit.
Hadn't even heard of Apple Card until now: https://www.apple.com/apple-card/ A credit card with
> 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?
If you're in the US this sounds like a normal card. If you're in a lot of other places you won't have heard of it because it's not available and it sounds amazing because it wouldn't make any money in more regulated countries.
you mean it wouldn't make any money for the bank issuing the card? Is that because they can't charge merchants as much to accept it other countries?
Yes, fees are capped in the EU for exemple.
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.
Yep if you use a card in the US the company just takes 2c from your left pocket and puts it in your right pocket in a form that's more difficult to use.
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
It's usually more than 3 cents out of your left pocket and 1.5-2 into your right one, even if you do everything right and never incur interest charges or fees.
> 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
Even better, they become poorly-paid lobbyists for the entire scheme, since it successfully makes them feel like they're getting "luxury" items/services for free by "gaming the banks", when they're really just participating in a loyalty scheme exactly as designed.
Sure, it's possible to eke out a net cash profit here and there, but all in all, it's just a great counterexample to homo economicus.
It’s not being paid with my own money. If I can get 2% cash back, then the situation is I either pay 98% of $x, or $x.
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.
> It’s not being paid with my own money. If I can get 2% cash back, then the situation is I either pay 98% of $x, or $x.
The counterfactual isn't getting or not getting 2% cash back, it's the merchant paying or not paying ~3% in fees, a part of which you get back from your issuing bank as a kickback to keep participating in and advocating for this scheme.
Of course this would require regulatory action. Absent that, the status quo represents the stable equilibrium.
Well if you can get $100 worth of X on credit card for $98, but you can buy the same thing with cash for $97, aren't you actually paying 150% of the "cash back" with your own money? ¯\\_(ಠ_ಠ)_/¯
> but you can buy the same thing with cash for $97
Merchants rarely offer cash discounts in the US.
Except nearly every restaurant I frequent. Example menu below with cash and credit prices, credit prices being 4% more. I see this commonly.
https://misslucyskitchen.com/menu
Even as somebody really disliking the current interchange fees in the US, 4% is a money grab on the merchant's side that I find hard to empathize with.
Even if the merchant pays the sticker price for card acceptance, it's usually just below 3%, unless international cards are involved. Add to that the fact that cash transactions in restaurants are often accounted for in "more tax efficient ways", and it feels even more icky.
My point is if credit cards didn't exist, the $1 thing would cost 98c, so in that sense it's your money.
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
It's exceedingly rare to offer a cash discount in the US, I honestly don't think I've ever seen one in person.
I think the regulations allowing/prohibiting this vary heavily between states. For example, here are NY's rules: https://dos.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2024/04/2024-04-10...
NY’s laws are about the display of prices, but as of 2010, it is federal law that a merchant can always offer a lower cash or debit card price.
They are all over the place, especially small businesses. A cash only (paper money) price is typically less than debit card or other electronic “cash” discounts because tax evasion is assumed.
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.
Like I said, I don't think I've ever seen them. For instance, you can't go into a Walmart or Best Buy and ask for a cash discount. Maybe a small business offers them, but I live in a small town (pop < 4k) and our grocery store and hardware store don't offer a cash discount. Neither do our gas stations offer a discount for paying for gas with cash, as the other reply mentions.
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?
From someone who lives in bay area (so not <4k), this is exceedingly common. Of course Walmart does not have a small business owner on-site who can oversee such adjustments, but think mom and pop / single owner stores. They do it all the time.
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.
>I'm half joking and half serious, is he intentionally trying to confuse customers?
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.
I've seen it quite often for gasoline. Two sets of prices, one for credit, the other for debit/cash.
I've also seen it more common as a credit card surcharge (at the bottom of a menu) than a cash discount.
I'm seeing it more often. They don't say cash discount, they say they're charging a fee for using a credit card.
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.
This is not even a particularly competitive cashback card in the UK. But perhaps you don't consider that a "more regulated country."
I was using "more regulated" as a lazy catch all, but I'm actually British and now live in Australia. The Apple Card would be pretty amazing in either market in my experience. The UK seemed to max out at 0.5-1% back at scale (not including sign up incentives). Australia is similar, although here credit cards are disincentivised even more.
The UK is very similar to the US, very neoliberal.
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.
The UK still has EU-equivalent interchange rate caps that they inherited form pre-Brexit times. The only thing that's changed so far is that transactions between the UK and EU can be charged higher interchange rates again.
Credit cards are, oddly enough, one place in which the US has absolutely amazing consumer protection laws. Debit cards do not share these protections by law (though many banks offer some of them).
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
That's largely a myth these days.
> Debit cards do not share these protections by law
No, debit cards are covered by Regulation E, which also caps liability for fraudulent transactions, requires your issuer to provide provisional credit until the dispute case has been resolved etc.
The only practical difference in terms of the minimum fraud protections afforded by law is that you're out your own money instead of the bank's until you get that provisional credit, which can be a problem if it causes other transactions (utility bills etc.) on your checking account to bounce.
Where the two really differ significantly is for non-fraud disputes (goods/services not as expected etc.): Reg Z has explicit protections there; Reg E doesn't really talk about these.
But practically, it also doesn't really, because...
> though many banks offer some of them).
No, both Visa and Mastercard require require issuers to extend zero liability protections going beyond these regulations, so it's effectively all banks. (Capital One might be able to relax their own rules now that they own Discover, but I highly doubt they'd risk the consumer backlash for questionable benefit, since they can also just make merchants pay for card-not-present lost/stolen/card credential theft fraud and cover card-present fraud like everybody else in the US.)
Hmm point #2 is not really required here either. In the past I have been skimmed once and I was notified by the bank before I even noticed the transactions. They had noticed because several cards used at a specific public ATM had been skimmed and abused, they removed the transactions immediately and sent me a new card. Very proactive, I didn't have to do anything.
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.
#3 is a reason not to use a debit card but to use credit instead. If you pay your balance in full every month, on time, then there is no interest due at all. So even after you get your bill, if the card has been used fraudulently, it's not your problem and you can't be stuck with the bill.
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).
I don't think consumers are idiots but I do think the system is skewed towards unhealthy borrowing. These protections and cashbacks are nothing but an incentive to keep it the same. The exact same could be done with debit cards after all. The banks are making money off the late payments and customers are incentivised to buy things they can't really afford.
Don't forget this system already collapsed in a big way in 2007 and it had massive global ramifications.
Year old story about the limited debit card protections, with an appalling Chase customer anecdote.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/10/09/fraud-protec...
Huh? Cashback cards on VISA/Mastercard have all but disappeared, I think Lloyds still do one but it has a promo of 1% for the first year then drops to 0.25% after. American Express will give you 0.75% on first 10k spend then 1.25%. 2% is unheard of (unless it's promo or heavily capped).
Isn't this kind of card normal? The Fidelity card is basically the same (no fees, 2% cash back) but without any Apple-specific restrictions
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
Apple Card can also sometimes offer 3% like at Walgreens and you can also get 6 months of free Uber One.
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.
Anyone who's ever had to pick up a prescription at a Walgreens will tell you that 3% doesn't begin to make up for the incredible shit you have to endure there. It's like being placed on hold indefinitely, only you have to keep standing in one spot while people sneeze on you, all while guys with backpacks come in and steal everything that isn't locked up. And if there's something you want like antacids or razor blades, it probably is locked up too, so spend another 15 minutes finding an extremely miserable employee to unlock those cabinets, then wait another hour in line to check out.
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.
I don't know where you live but the Walgreens near me is nothing like that.
Same. I think GP may be somewhere like SF.
I don't believe any card would mean "no fees" as "no late fees". It would be insane. I mean, I just take their money and never pay back and they are fine with it? Doesn't sound possible. I think they mean "no fees for regular usage" - like, annual fees, etc.
They really don't have late fees.
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.
Also cash advance fees:
https://online1.elancard.com/pdap/terms?locationCode=24193&o...
There are still several 2% cards that don’t require Apple Pay, although I don’t know of any with no foreign exchange fee other than maybe the Fidelity one.
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.
Bank of America Travel Rewards is effectively 2.625% on everything if you put >$100k in a Merrill account and redeem the rewards against "travel" (including restaurants in any location) expenses charged to the card. There's no foreign transaction fee.
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.
Bank of America Preferred rewards card is even better with one caveat that there is a $95 annual fee. You get the 2.625 but you also get 3.5 on travel and dining, and you also get Global Entry paid once every 4 years, and $100 in travel incidentals (bag fees, wifi on plane) every year. And you do not need to redeem against travel, you can get cash back if that's what you want.
Yes, that’s a great cashback setup, but definitely not a “no catch” one. Really not a fan of the brokerage UX and generally the BofA web/app experience.
If all you’re doing is buying and holding VOO or TTTXX or similar, I don’t see what difference any of the major brokerage websites makes. If anything, I prefer BoA as they allow you to configure at least 2 phone numbers for SMS 2FA, so I don’t have to hunt down my wife to get the 2FA code.
> There are still several 2% cards that don’t require Apple Pay, although I don’t know of any with no foreign exchange fee other than maybe the Fidelity one.
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.
It's not tremendously better than existing cards.
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.
For prime plus you can get better cards, for people sub 660 credit score, it is the best card on the market. Chase's subprime card which is the slate offers no rewards.
Apple had a promotion at the start of 2025 with 5% cash back on everything up to $50k. I paid my taxes with that card that year :)
That only makes sense if they don't charge extra for paying with CC. Most places I've seen would charge you 3-4% fee for CC payment, which makes the whole thing pointless - except if you need a big spend e.g. for a sign-up bonus.
I paid my son's tuition yesterday at a 2.90% charge. Since the cashback of 2.625 is also on the charge, my net cost for about 10.6K tuition was about $15. I keep the money invested in SGOV (state tax exempt), for a month, I make that $15 anyways, and it helps me follow lessons from corporations - pay only at the latest due date without any charges.
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.
If it's federal income tax, then the fees are <2%.
State taxes, and county property taxes vary a lot fee-wise.
yeah, federal taxes and I live in WA :)
Incidentally that's when I got the double cash card because in those days that was the top. Fidelity and some other company had 2%, but that was it (not considering what Amex Elite might have had) for all purchase.
The floor is 1.5%. I don’t know of any 2% card without any catch (the Apple Card’s being that you have to use Apple Pay, which is still not available at many online merchants).
It really depends on the definition of catch. Citi Double Cash, Fidelity, Wells Fargo and US Bank all do 2%.
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.
Bank of America Unlimited Cash Rewards for the win :) My only regret is not realizing sooner that it existed since I used the Citi Double Cash card for so long.
Fidelity's 2% card has no real catch.
Isn't the Citi Double Cash the canonical 2% card?
3% foreign exchange fee. Also, it’s Citibank.
The Apple card is the only credit card in the US (that I know of) which does not resell your granular transaction data to 3rd party brokers. To me that alone makes it tremendously better than existing cards.
Fidelity has had a great 2% cash back/no forex fee/free global entry card for a long time too.
Apple's credit card has always been unremarkable.
Has none of the usual expected perks like rental car insurance or damage/theft protection on purchases. Guess purchase protection would be a threat to applecare revenue.
I have only seen cards that cost hundreds of dollars per year have decent rental car/travel/theft insurance.
Chase Sapphire Preferred is less than 100 per year and it has those things.
One can do better.
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%.
The 3% is good, but you have to pay $5 a month, so equivalent $60 annual fee.
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.
Fair points.
> 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.
That looks like a a crazy amount of cards. I carry exactly one debet card in my wallet (.eu) and use it for everything.
It is, but I typically only carry two - the 3% back and the grocery 6% back as the others are mainly online or automated.
> 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.
Here it's about the same. Even with a skimmed credit card you're on the hook for the bill, there's no chargeback. But skimming is really rare because we no longer have the old insecure systems of card imprinting, signature, magstripes etc. It's all chip&pin or contactless.
I don't think anyone I know uses a credit card for daily purchases here in Spain.
Skimming is rare in the US too, as tap to pay is at 90% of payment terminals, and chip reading is at 99% of payment terminals (guesstimates based on the last time I swiped my card).
Yes but the magstripe is still present thus it can be skimmed.
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.
> Basically, if someone skims your debit card
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.
Using debit card for online purchases has substantial negatives and credit cards are much preferred (this may be US specific), but in the EU credit cards are a different kettle of fish and not as good as US cards.
3% for $60 annual fee is not bad. AmEx has Blue Cash card with 6% back, but it costs $95 and only works for (some) grocery stores. So if you have a decent churn $60 is not bad. Of course, if you play these games you should never ever hold a balance or pay late (and using cash advance on credit card is always, always a bad idea!) so you can ignore those fees.
The catch is it's very annoying to use outside of Apple ecosystem - e.g. if you don't have an iphone or don't want (or can not) use ApplePay.
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.
what's the hard part outside of the Apple ecosystem? They give you a physical card and a normal ccard number. What else is there?
IIRC even activating the physical card requires an app, which is of course only existing on iphone. Also, the user agreement specifies you need a device which is ApplePay compatible (i.e., iphone). Also, IIRC the card doesn't actually have a number anywhere, so if you ever need to enter it, you're out of luck. And to use the cashback funds, IIRC you need the app again.
The only fully-functional interface for viewing statements and scheduling payments is on iPhone. In fact I'm pretty sure you can't do either of those things at all in any other place than the iPhone Wallet app. Not even on a Mac or an iPad.
You can view statements via the Web on <https://card.apple.com/> (though not for the associated savings account, if you choose to add that).
using normal card offers a reduced cashback of 1%.
The simplicity and nice app experience is what's really good, but you can easily get better terms in the industry if you pay just one hour of attention.
I use the Apple Card because I love the customer UX, including the privacy from vendors part.
What privacy from vendors?
What privacy from vendors?
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.
The Apple Card is the only card in the US I am aware of that does not resell your purchase history to data brokers.
Are you sure it's not part of e.g. this dataset? https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/seller-profile?id=13af1c0...
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.
If you care about earning cash back and points it's only a good card for buying Apple products.
I have one and it exist for presents and upgrades. It is great for that but only that.
You need to buy an apple device
The fees go to the vendors. The vendors are allowed to accept cash for less money than the card+fees price, so there is still a fee.
No I’ve been using them since 2020 and it’s fantastic
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.
> This seems... really good. As in, it's essentially free money. Am I missing a catch here?
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.
The catch is ethical. I personally don't feel good profiting from financial distress. Cash-back benefits are primarily funded through interest on carried balances (not interchange fees). In other words, credit card cash back is funded via high interest on other people's debt. The strongest predictors of revolving debt are income volatility, lack of regular savings, irregular work hours, and unexpected expenses. Basically credit cards act as an extractive safety net for people with no other options. It's a business model that depends on financial distress.
“ Cash-back benefits are primarily funded through interest on carried balances (not interchange fees).” citation needed. My understanding is that this is false.
No fees except the hundreds of dollars it costs to buy an iPhone or iPad which is required.
An iPhone is required. You can pay for things with Apple Pay, but there’s no Wallet interface on iPadOS.
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.”
For people living in the states there are better deals to be had:
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
Re the Amazon card, it used to be offered through Synchrony Bank (I think I got the name right). I had a lot of weird issues with them and their customer service was very difficult to get ahold of and were terrible once you did. I ended up canceling the card.
That’s the Amazon Store Card, which (at least used to) only works on Amazon.com.
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.
The Prime credit card is Chase.
Thanks for the clarification. I had forgotten the distinction.
I think Amex one is $95/year
Oh youre right. Its a pain to find the annual fee on their site
https://www.americanexpress.com/us/credit-cards/card/blue-ca...
Hilarious. Paying $2.2b for credit losses on a $20b portfolio is insane. That existing portfolio is toxic waste
Please elaborate.
A nice feature of the Apple Card is the very fast processing of transactions. I can pay for something and have it show up as pending and clear within a day. Whereas my bank credit card will leave transactions pending for an average of five days. The fast clearing is not a huge deal, but it's nice as it pairs well with a daily YNAB routine.
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.
The hilarious thing is the Apple card is a chunk of titanium and doesn’t have contactless payment capabilities in the year 2025.
(Obviously their angle is you’ll use your phone or watch, which isn’t a huge stretch)
The physical card is explicitly just a backup option for when contactless payment isn't available. It would be sort of weird to make it support contactless payment.
I use and love Apple Pay, but it's not ideal for every situation. The biggest flaw is that it requires waving your expensive phone in the vicinity of the reader.
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.
Clearly the solution is to buy an Apple Watch.
Where do you live where your phone can't be out in public for fear of opportunistic theft?
EDIT: hmm, actually the screenshots on Apple.com show a card with a chip, so how come contactless doesn’t work? Deliberately disabled?
—-
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).
There are titanium cards with tap and pay. So I think it’s just an Apple policy.
The real problem is that the physical card pays only 1% cashback, so the only thing one can demonstrate when paying with the titanium card is financial illiteracy.
It is very hard to get any proper use of apple card without an iphone, so it's clearly designed for people buying into i-system wholesale. The titanium thing is more backup (for those dinosaurs still not accepting applepay) and a gimmick than anything else. You're not supposed to use it as the primary means of payment.
It's strange but I've been to many places where the iPhone's contactless payment doesn't work but normal cards do. Most common are parking lot machines and automated car washes.
I've never used the card. too heavy.
It’s much lighter than most other metal cards while being much sturdier too! A real shame it’s completely useless (bad cashback, no printed number making it useless for e.g. hotel or airline card number confirmations at checkin).
Great for jimmying locks, so not completely useless
Which is actually more secure across the board, which is why I prefer it
> Which is actually more secure across the board
Than mobile payments? Absolutely not
Preventing an RFD vector on the physical card and assuming the user will use mobile payments is less secure than RFD on the card also?
Methinks your reading was not sufficient
I've left Chase twice. Once because they sucked. Once because my bank, First Republic, had a run that put them out of busines. Chase took them over, 10x-ed the prices and 1/10th the level of service.
Maybe Apple's influence will help but certainly worrisome for ne.
I wonder what the terms of this new deal are. Goldman Sachs had accepted absolutely ridiculous terms like forgoing fees because they were apparently desperate for consumer business. Chase has an existing consumer business so I can't imagine they would accept the same terms but I wonder what this would mean for the card benefits.
Gen 1 Apple Card did a bait-and-switch about using it to buy iPhones with 0% interest. Super frustrating.
Bought many things from Apple at 0 interest.
How so?
I've used my Apple card to buy a few Apple devices and indeed with 0% interest.
I used mine to buy Macbook Airs with 0% interest just fine. For the iPhone, the fine print says you (now) have to sign up with one of their pre-approved carriers. If you use another - Mint or US Mobile or whatever - you're out of luck.
And it can’t be prepaid plans, at least with Verizon when I tried that 2 years ago.
Didn't a HN reader/poster get locked out of his Apple accounts because of late payments or some other type of issue with an Apple Card credit card?
If this can happen, I don't plan on ever getting one.
I had thousands of dollars of charges I didn’t make (but billed electronically via Apple as if my card was attached to someone else’s iCloud account) appear, exceeding my limit and locking my entire family out of the shared Apple subscriptions (e.g. no music on their devices but strangely music on mine). GS could remotely lock your Apple account at will it seemed.
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.
You clearly never experienced chases anti-fraud division. Who will, without warning, close all of your chase accounts because you used a credit card at the wrong store at the wrong time and you set off whatever fraud score. And csr will not help you as the anti fraud system is treated as god.
A client of mine pushed her business expenses through a Chase account. She banked with them too.
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.
Funny you mention that. I did open a joint Chase account back when I was getting married and first order of business was paying for all the wedding expenses. We went to QR, Mexico for a weekend getaway prior to the madness and because I logged into the Chase account from Mexico they not only locked the bank account, but completely closed it with no way to reopen. We had to both go to the Chase branch at which it was opened with passports and even then the manager said Chase would mail me the money in 3-6 weeks, 2-5 weeks after the wedding. I politely told him I was not leaving the building until he handed me the cash in an envelope and after some time he finally caved and did it after making some phone calls.
Most bizarre experience. Never had a bank account with Chase ever again after that incident.
This?
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."
Apple Store gift card (redeemable for apps music etc purchased in Apple ecosystem ) iirc
Wonder what Apple caved on. They famously only found goldman to work with them originally because they had significant demands that bucked the industry, including setting everyone's statement dates to the exact same so that customer support collapses the same day every year.
Settling on the same day is quite a choice. PDF creation cluster scaling alone must have been something else, let alone the obvious problems they had knocking over CS and getting fined by the CFPB.
I doubt that PDF generation makes any dent given all the other things they have to process at statement closing. They also don’t mail out statements by default and I don’t think everyone looks at the PDFs on the first day, so they can do it just in time.
This guy manages 35ms per pdf https://www.ersteiger.com/posts/rendering-one-million-pdfs/#...
> so that customer support collapses the same day every year.
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.
They also kept transaction data more private than other cards. Hopefully they’ve kept that
I would guess putting a cap of 660 credit score and adding some fees back like late fee, over limit fee, and return payment fee. I don't see JPM doing a card with rewards/cash back in the sub prime market, slate doesn't have any rewards.
Apple card with GS was amazing deal for people who didn't have prime credit.
Some of the perks were great even for prime if you're already bought into the Apple ecosystem. 3% cash back plus 0% APR installment on Apple product purchases is a nice double dip that most cards can't touch unless you're really trying hard.
If you don't want to mess with points, its a great card. You still need another card for travel since it doesn't have rental car insurance, travel insurance, etc. Its missing all the features that normally come with Visa Infinite or Mastercard World Elite cards.
Searching online, another difference is no late fees for missed payments, only interest, while Chase's late fee is $40. Will that change?
Does it have to be Apple that caved?
Banks were not queuing up to do it the first time and it didn't work out well for the bank that did (Goldman). Who else is compromising
I have no insider knowledge here but it doesn't seem outlandish to think that the negotiations would go a little differently for an established product vs a brand new one. Goldman may have simply been the only bank willing to work with Apple when the customer base (in size, demographics, spending patterns, whatever) was hypothetical.
What bank offers rewards and no fees to subprime(below 660) customers? There aren't any. Why no wanted the deal. Guaranteed to lose money. Its not like there's name recognition, i doubt most people could name the underlying bank for the Apple Card. Only place the bank is mentioned is the fine print at the bottom of the card details. Everything is branded "Apple Card"
> i doubt most people could name the underlying bank for the Apple Card. Only place the bank is mentioned is the fine print at the bottom of the card details.
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.
GS was inexperienced and didn't know what they were getting into; that's why Apple was able to get such a good deal and also why GS now wants out. I fear Chase does know what they're getting into and Apple likely has far less favorable terms now. Though I'm incredibly glad they didn't give it to Synchrony (who runs PayPal and is incredibly sociopathic)
I would imagine Goldman want out. They were never a retail banking firm to begin with. And sell the current Apple Card division with debt and customer base packaged at a discount.
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.
Yeah I was surprised finding out it's Goldman card - I haven't heard about Goldman doing a consumer cards before that (and I have a lot of cards).
I mean I dont fault Goldman for doing it, if they really want to venture into consumer sector there is no better partner than Apple to do it.
But the execution has been absolutely appalling.
Not sure which way this tips the scales, but Chase has a retail banking presence in the UK, GS doesn't. If Apple wants to expand Apple Card internationally, and want to keep the number of partners to a minimum, Chase would be a better fit. Inversely, Chase's market in the UK is still small, and an Apple Card partnership would be a big draw to pull customers in.
(UK reader here too).
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?
Absolutely. I'd imagine not being able to use the card at Costco alone would be enough to have them entertaining surprising concessions. It was the first thing I thought of, with Chase CC's being Visa instead of Mastercard.
Chase issues cards on both the Visa and Mastercard network (i.e. certain cobrands and the Freedom Flex), so I doubt this was a serious consideration.
Why would a bank chose to lose billions of dollars?
dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46534673
[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46534673
Does anyone know why they moved away from GS?
Frankly I liked that they had GS as the bank cause they come with a pretty amazing customer support system
Did GS not want to be involved anymore? I suspect the liability was one of the issues.
GS lost a whole bunch of money on the deal and wants to get out of it.
It's part of a larger move by GS to exit consumer banking.
Makes sense
I wonder what these means for my credit limit.
I have a chase card with 60XXX CL and an AC with 50XXX.
Why would you want such a high credit limit? Are you dying to spend money you don’t have?
credit utilization is a factor in credit scores, which are important for things like mortgages and auto loans. higher credit limit, ceteris paribus, is lower utilization
Oh my God what a financial hellhole US is
I have never had a credit limit higher than 1800. I’ve managed to get lots of mortgages at rates that are just fine. Stop believing you’re a slave to your credit score.
i don't have any problems with credit, i am just answering the question
Why would you assume they don't have $11xxxx?
If you actually have $110000 in freely available disposable cash and you’re worrying about whether you have the ability to spend it all on a credit card versus arranging a funds transfer or a check, I question your decision-making process. :D
I didn’t "want" it. Chase just gave my auto increases over the years of having this card. Spending habits have yet to change.
Also in US, credit utilization is a factor in credit scoring. Higher total credit means a lower utilization.
My advice is to ask yourself how important your credit limit is, and ask yourself why. And challenge the notion that a better credit score has any positive impact on your life. You have a whole chain of “truths” you take for granted: higher limit implies lower utilization. Lower utilization implies better credit score. Better credit score implies better mortgage rates. Better mortgage rates implies better something. What I’m trying to tell you is you can forget every single bit of that dependency chain without doing yourself any damage and you will actually feel better.
Sorry for the proselytizing. I know I’m doing it. But I think it’s a huge part of our consumerism addiction.
Hate the game, not the player. High credit limits = lower utilization ratio = better credit score.
Oh I do hate the game. I refuse to worry about credit scores and I haven’t checked mine in over 20 years. I’ve got a ridiculously low credit limit and that suits me just fine. Live like you don’t need credit.
So you can tell other people about it.
Shame your credibility score is in the negative.
The whiplash is hilarious, they've been through 3 banks now over the years
It’s only GS then JPM though?
Who was the second bank?
Green Dot Corporation, presumably.. although that’s Apple Cash, not Apple Card.