There’s a new 2% flat cash back card in town …although it’s somewhat hidden under some Priceline co-branding and William Shatner doing martial arts.
Here’s how it works. The Priceline Rewards Visa® Card earns 2 points per $1 spent on all purchases, with no limit, no cap, no category restrictions. 100 points = $1 in statement credit, so in other words that’s 2% flat cash back on everything.
Redemption involves “zapping” one of your existing purchases with your points. So let’s say you have 5,000 points ($50 worth). You’ll need to choose a purchase on your card within the last 90 days that’s between $25 and $50 to “zap”. Let’s say you spend $43.33 at the grocery store, and you pick that to zap. You’ll get a $43.33 statement credit and redeem 4,333 points. The remaining 667 points will be saved for the next time. Make sense? Not as nice as 2% back, but it’s not that bad once you understand the system. You can redeem online, there’s no need to call in.
You may redeem your points toward statement credits for any purchase(s) on your Account statement that are $25 or greater.
New cardholders also get a $50 bonus after first purchase (5,000 bonus points after your first purchase). No annual fee.
If you do use Priceline.com, you can redeem your points towards previous “Name Your Own Price” Priceline purchases at a higher rate. Depending on the size of the purchase, you can effectively get between 2.2% to 3% cash back on those purchases. Combine with a 4% or so rebate from a cashback shopping portal for hotels and care rentals, and that’s not a bad total discount.
For those interested, there is also a 0% balance transfer offer that isn’t the best, but definitely above-average. You get 0% introductory APR for the first fifteen billing cycles after the account is opened. The balance transfer fee is either $10 or 3% of each transfer, whichever is greater, during those first fifteen billing cycles. See terms and conditions for details.
In summary, this is a rewards card where you can get a baseline 2% cash back on all your purchases. I recommend combining this with a nice category-specific card like the 5% cash back rotating cards or the 6% back on groceries / 3% back on gas American Express. This card is issued by Barclays Bank which is a relatively new issuer in the US and thus won’t affect your existing Citi/Chase/AmEx relationships if you have other rewards cards.
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Very Nice, I still have my Orchard Credit Card that works about the same, the only thing I have seen close to it since is the fidelity card which only puts the rewards into your fidelity account.
Got the NFL card for the $400 promo when Barclay’s had that deal. They made it hard if you already had a Barclay’s card to get that NFL card. I wonder if you already have the NFL card if they will make it tough to get this card. They have some really unique cash out rules on their cards as you alluded to on this and their other cards.
“The only “catch is that you must redeem at least 2,500 points ($25) towards a statement credit that offsets any purchase made within the last 30 days.”
What is that means?
Do we have to charge items for 2500 points every 30 days. $1250 in 30 days or not reward?
I brought up this card on one of your posts back in July. The site lets me choose purchases as far back as 90 days, not just 30. They’ve also had some pretty good cash advance offers lately. I have a 2% no minimum on the site currently, but I’m pretty sure I’ve gotten a few 1% offers via mailed checks as well.
@MC – So, first, you rack up the points, 2 points per dollar spent. You have to rack up 2,500 points to redeem them ($25 worth). You do not need to charge 2,500 points every days. Let me then try to explain the redemption process better.
Redemption involves “zapping’ on of your existing purchases with your points. So let’s say you have 5,000 points ($50 worth). You’ll need to choose a purchase on your card that’s within $25 and $50 to “zap”. Let’s say you spend $43.33 at the grocery store, and you pick that to zap. You’ll get a $43.33 statement credit and redeem 4,333 points. The remaining 667 points will be saved for the next time. Make sense? Not as nice as 2% back, but it’s not that bad once you understand the system.
@Jacob – Also, the Fidelity card is an American Express while this is a Visa card.
@MAC – Not sure about multiple Barclays card, but you could always cancel the other card to get this one, I don’t think the NFL card rewards are nearly as good. Just cash out that $400 🙂
@Tim – Thanks for the info. I added the part about 90 days lookback period. Barclays has been having some okay 0% offers.
Its a nice option, but ever since they killed the Schwab 2% card I developed a taste for blood, and I want more, more, more.
The yield on killing minimum spend for a new card bonus is always greater than 2%.
‘Name your own pricing’ redemption premium I hadn’t heard about.
There is another perk if you use Priceline.com’s ‘Name your own pricing’ a bit as I had on a recent trip. You earn 5 points per $1 spent on this site feature.
Just buyer beware that Priceline doesn’t honor smoking/non-smoking room requests. Also priceline tends to hold a room for you. Often it’s the last/worst room available. Learned this the hard way after a horrible encounter with Priceline’s ‘Name your own pricing’ offer.
@Michael I had a similar experience with priceline on a trip to San Diego once. View of the harbor? If the harbor is made of cement and standing 50 feet tall outside my room, then I guess that’s what I paid for. Luckily my wife is a great negotiator and we got upgraded for free. #thumbsup
But I have the blue cash preferred card from AMEX and have noticed that about 62% of my spending is only getting 1% cash back. That’s a big chunk that varies between many spending cateogories and i’ve been looking to supplement it with a 2% cash back card. This one looks like it has decent benefits that come along with it.
Jonathan – the zapping explanation was helpful. I would expect that nowadays, many retailers allow you to split purchases (and nearly all restaurants) to getting to exactly $25 or $50 (and thus full 2% value) seems fairly easy with a small bit of planning.
Regarding Jason’s reply, my take is that a full 2% can always be obtained as long as you keep spending (e.g. in Jonathan’s example, 667 points could be combined with, say, 333 points obtained later to zap some future $10 charge). Is this correct?
BTW let me know if there’s some way you can get a referral bonus! I have the Fidelity AmEx now and a Capital One Visa 1.5% cash back; it’ll be great to have 2% all around again for all vendors.
I applied and was turned down because I have 1 existing Barclay card (a different card). I guess they don’t want a higher percentage of my credit card usage. Seems dumb to me. My advice would be to not apply if you already have any Barclay cards or you’ll get hit with a credit check for nothing.
I’ve seen some conflicting information recently (on the Priceline website vs. the Barclay’s website) about whether members with this card still receive 2 pts on all regular purchases or whether they now receive only 1 pt. Any idea which is the most up to date information? Thanks!
Jonathan,
This is now just a 1% card with some bonuses for Priceline purchases? Any other 2% cash cards out there that aren’t Amex?
I was fortunate enough to got the card when it was still 2%. As of today the reward for regular purchases is still 2%… finger crossed for it be grandfathered in…
OK, now for the update. Barclays is killing the program one step at a time. First they disconnected the offer. Now, for existing users, the reward program only considers purchases of $25 or more qualifying for “applying” the reward points. They makes them redeemable in the increments of $25. Next thing it will be $50 and so on.