Comment by nomilk
2 days ago
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.
18 replies →
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.
7 replies →
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.
2 replies →
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.
1 reply →
> 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.
3 replies →
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.
1 reply →
Fidelity's 2% card has no real catch.
Isn't the Citi Double Cash the canonical 2% card?
1 reply →
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.
7 replies →
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.
1 reply →
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.
2 replies →
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.”