Comment by jerlam
2 days ago
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.