When Apple announced the launch of a new Apple-branded credit card in 2019, some fans may have hoped it would revolutionize how we pay for things.
However, the product’s characteristics make it the credit card equivalent of a Red Delicious: relatively common and rather bland.
Nonetheless, despite a crowded market of cash-back cards, consumers may be able to find room in their digital wallets for another one that earns rewards, particularly on expensive Apple purchases.
The pertinent question to ask as with all Apple product announcements and credit cards is: Is this product right for you?
To help you decide that, we’ve made an Apple card review capturing how to use an apple card, its pros and cons as well as some of its interesting features that are unique. Carefully read!
How Do I Use Apple Card?
To use an Apple Credit card is very simple!
Once you have Apple Card, use it for any upcoming purchases you make with Apple — from your Apple TV+ subscription to a new iPad.
You can earn 3% rewards online and in Apple stores, and you can sign up for monthly installment plans to pay off your purchases over time without incurring interest.
Also, set your Apple Card as your preferred payment method with Apple Pay to earn a flat 2% with online and in-store merchants that accept mobile payments.
Stay up so far with eligible merchants that provide 3% cashback with Apple Card. Current retailers include Duane Reade, Panera Bread, Walgreens, Exxon, Mobil, Nike, T-Mobile, Uber, and Uber Eats.
Note, these merchants are subject to vary, and you sometimes must use Apple Pay at checkout to earn this higher rate.
When it involves redeeming your rewards, your cashback never expires or loses its value.
Rather than receiving your cashback only after a particular minimum amount earned or together with your monthly statement, it’s deposited into your account daily.
You’ll use these rewards to buy purchases at stores using your mobile wallet, make payments toward your card balance, send peer-to-peer payments to friends, or deposit them into your checking account.
When it’s time to pay your bill, your Apple Card account shows you the entire interest on your balance you’ll pay over time supported any payment amount you set in, or if you create only the minimum payment.
This will be helpful thanking to visualizing the important cost of carrying a balance, but you ought to always pay your balance fully monthly to avoid MasterCard interest and debt altogether.
What are the Pros of the Apple Card?
Some of the pros of Apply card include:
1. Exceptional rewards for Apple and partner-merchant purchases:
Aside from the top-earning rate, you will get when you make purchases with an Apple card, you’ll also get the three Daily Cash rates at partners that include Uber, Uber Eats, Walgreens, Nike, Panera, Exxon Mobil, and in-store purchases at T-Mobile.
2. Interest-free payment plans on Apple products:
Also, you’ll have up to 24 months to buy Apple products purchased through Apple and charged to your card, with no interest.
3. Even better
Installment purchases still earn 3% cashback. Monthly installments are going to be added to your card’s minimum monthly payment automatically.
Just remember not all Apple products are eligible, and installment periods vary by product.
4. Great rewards rate on Apple Pay purchases
A good sort of major brick-and-mortar retailers, websites, vending machines, and transit systems accept Apple Pay.
The card’s rewards rate on Apple Pay purchases is on par with and sometimes better than the simplest flat-rate rewards cards on the market.
5. Financial-management tools
Apple brings its signature design standards to a product that lacks visual excitement—credit card statements.
The interactive features offer a replacement thanks to understanding MasterCard’s interest and the way your payment behaviors affect it.
The in-app messaging makes it refreshingly simple to speak to customer service.
Goldman Sachs even offers tools to assist non-cardholders to improve their finances and obtain approval for the cardboard.
6. The low end of the APR range is among the best
If you’ll qualify for it, the Apple Card APR is one among rock bottom out there, especially compared to the typical cash-back MasterCard rate.
The high end of the range is comparatively low, too, but you continue to don’t want to urge caught paying that rate.
Apple Card Cons
Despite are the many pros of apple Cards, there are also some hitches that serve as cons. Some of them include:
Only worthwhile for Apple users:
The card’s value comes from Apple Pay, which you can’t use without an Apple device.
1. Sub-par rewards rate on non-Apple and non-Apple Pay purchases
The physical Apple Card may look cool, but there’s no reason to hold it with you if you’re hospitable having quite one MasterCard.
Cards just like the Capital One Quicksilver or Chase Freedom Unlimited offer a far better rewards rate on all purchases.
2. Few benefits
As a financial tool, this card offers little beyond the rewards on Apple purchases and Apple Pay.
If you’re trying to find a welcome bonus or features sort of free credit score or rental automobile insurance, this isn’t the cardboard for you.
3. Limited integration with budgeting apps
If you employ a third-party app to stay on track of your expenses, it won’t be ready to automatically ingest your Apple Card spending.
You’ll export your transactions and upload that file to your money management app, but that’s not the seamless connection most credit cards offer.
However, Apple Card offers a variety of in-house features to trace your spending with the cardboard.
Doesn’t allow allowed users. It’s extremely uncommon for a MasterCard issuer to not allow you to feature another user to your MasterCard.
What is Apple Card Earning Points & Rewards Like?
The Apple Card offers what it calls Daily Cash, its own version of cash-back rewards.
Cardholders earn 3% Daily Cash on Apple purchases, 2% on purchases made with Apple Pay, and 1% on purchases made at merchants that don’t accept Apple Pay.
Basically, Apple Card doesn’t limit the quantity of Daily Cash you’ll earn, and Daily Cash doesn’t expire.
If you’ve got unredeemed Daily Cash and closes the account, Goldman Sachs will either credit it to your account, send it to you electronically, or mail you a check.
The Apple Card’s fees/Charges
The Apple Card is one of the few cards on the market with no fees. There are no annual or foreign transaction fees, and there are no late payment penalties.
However, if you do not pay your bill in full each month, you may incur interest charges. The current variable APR ranges from 10.99 percent to 21.99 percent depending on your creditworthiness, which is comparable to other cards.
Unfortunately, this card does not provide interest-free financing, so if you use it to pay for large purchases, such as a new iPhone 11, you should pay the balance in full to avoid incurring interest.
If you want to pay off new purchases gradually, consider the Chase Freedom Unlimited®, which has a 0% APR for the first 15 months after account opening (then a 14.99 percent to 23.74 percent variable APR).
How to Maximize Your Apple Card Rewards
Amplifying compensations with the Apple Card is about essential spending. To begin with, you’ll need to use the card to pay for any Apple buys you intend to make, including things like repeating membership administrations. This will get you that succulent 3% Daily Cash rewards rate.
Then, you can keep bringing in 3% Daily Money by utilizing your card at that short rundown of accomplice dealers referenced previously.
In the event that you go through $20 every day on Uber and Uber Eats, for instance, that is $219 per year you could take.
Utilizing your card with Apple Pay wherever else is the third method to expand rewards, scoring you that money back at the 2% rate.
What you should consider, notwithstanding, is skipping utilizing this card at vendors or sites that don’t acknowledge Apple Pay.
For instance, on the off chance that you consistently purchase food from a connoisseur staple in your local that doesn’t take versatile installments, you may be in an ideal situation with a card that pays 2% or 3% back at general stores all things being equal.
Reclaiming cash back
The Apple Card’s incentive is actually about client experience, and this stretches out to reclaiming your prizes.
All the cashback that you procure is applied every day to the Apple Cash card in your Wallet application.
From that point, you can quickly reclaim cashback for buys in stores, on sites or in-application, or as an installment to your Apple card.
You can likewise store cash once again into a financial balance, and you can even exchange it to a companion by means of Apple Messages.
Since is all as Apple Cash, you don’t need to stress over losing esteem on any of these reclamation choices your cashback is consistently worth 1 penny.
Most striking is the way that Apple permits you to recover any measure of cashback (beginning at $1) when you acquire it.
Most backers expect you to delay until the finish of the charging cycle to begin utilizing your prizes–the Apple Card doesn’t make you pause.
Infrequent sign-up rewards
Up until this point, Apple Card join rewards have been uncommon, yet they do spring up occasionally, so it merits looking out in case you’re thinking about applying.
There is presently no sign-up reward on the card, yet the latest proposition was genuinely important, particularly in the event that you’d as of now had a huge Apple buy arranged, as new Apple Card individuals were offered 6% back while coming up with all required funds for items at Apple.
All things considered, the Apple Card’s infrequent sign-up rewards are once in a while huge enough to influence your choice to apply for sure.
Interest rate
The card likewise offers a more sensible APR range than expected. Cardholders with brilliant FICO assessments might be offered an outstandingly low pace of 10.99%.
For cardholders with lower FICO ratings, the APR can go up to 21.99%. This is high–however standard for the money-back remunerations program.
On the off chance that you presume you’ll have to convey an equilibrium long haul, you might need to pick an alternate card, as Apple Card balance moves are particularly inconvenient, and, as per some client reports, might be unimaginable.
The card’s backer might consider an installment made as a feature of an equilibrium move a “non-adjusting installment”, so you could wind up in a tough spot in the event that you end up needing to move your Apple Card offset to a card with a 0% introduction APR on balance moves.
Is the Apple Card a good fit for you?
If you use an iPhone or other Apple device and already pay for many of your purchases with Apple Pay, this card could be a useful addition to your wallet.
If you don’t frequently spend at stores that accept Apple Pay, think twice before applying — you’ll need to use the mobile payment method to get the most out of this card’s rewards.
You can use the card without an eligible iPhone or iPad, but you won’t be able to do much.
If you do not add your Apple Card to your eligible device, you will be limited to making eligible purchases at Apple only online and in-store using your line of credit.
Adding the card to your iPhone or iPad grants you the ability to spend at other merchants as well as access to features that make this card valuable, such as earning rewards, managing your account and payments through the Wallet app, paying for Apple products interest-free through monthly installment plans, and more.
Because you’ll earn the highest rewards rates on Apple purchases and anything else you buy using Apple Pay, the Apple Card is best for people who already use an iPhone or other Apple device on a regular basis and plan to spend more with Apple in the future.
Anyone else should probably look into a different cashback credit card. The Citi Double Cash Card, for example, offers a similar 2% cashback reward on all purchases, whether you pay with a mobile wallet or not.
Reference
- https://www.forbes.com/advisor/credit-cards/reviews/the-apple-credit-card/
- https://www.creditcards.com/reviews/apple-card/
- https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/credit-cards/apple-card-should-you-get-it
Recommendations
