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Hadn't even heard of Apple Card until now: https://www.apple.com/apple-card/ https://www.apple.com/apple-card/ A credit card with > No fees. Not even hidden on
by nomilk 9mo ago
Hadn't even heard of Apple Card until now: https://www.apple.com/apple-card/ 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?
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- potatoman22 9mo agoYou need to buy an apple device
- Larrikin 9mo agoIf 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.
- emilsayahi 9mo agoIsn'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
- nutjob2 9mo agoAlso cash advance fees: https://online1.elancard.com/pdap/terms?locationCode=24193&offerId=5W8QWVRP5M&sourceCode=88424&st=y https://online1.elancard.com/pdap/terms?locationCode=24193&o...
- dillon 9mo agoApple 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.
- noduerme 9mo agoAnyone 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.
- usefulcat 9mo agoI don't know where you live but the Walgreens near me is nothing like that.
- rootusrootus 9mo agoSame. I think GP may be somewhere like SF.
- noduerme 9mo agoPortland. It's not like this in the rest of the country?
- DrewADesign 9mo agoIt’s very location-dependent. I live in a very dense area with many Walgreens and competitors and they’re all about the same. When you drive out into the far suburbs or country, they’re not as bad. Good independent pharmacies are the only way to go, IMO.
- noduerme 9mo ago
- smsm42 9mo agoI 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.
- zerocrates 9mo agoThey 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.
- jerlam 9mo agoIt'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.
- lotsofpulp 9mo agoFidelity 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.
- itake 9mo agoApple 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 :)
- smsm42 9mo agoThat 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.
- dmoy 9mo agoIf it's federal income tax, then the fees are <2%. State taxes, and county property taxes vary a lot fee-wise.
- itake 9mo agoyeah, federal taxes and I live in WA :)
- kshacker 9mo agoI 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.
- silisili 9mo agoOne 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%.
- nutjob2 9mo agoThe 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.
- silisili 9mo agoFair 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.
- pandemic_region 9mo agoThat looks like a a crazy amount of cards. I carry exactly one debet card in my wallet (.eu) and use it for everything.
- silisili 9mo agoIt 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.
- threatofrain 9mo agoThe 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.
- lxgr 9mo agoWhat privacy from vendors?
- lowkey 9mo agoThe Apple Card is the only card in the US I am aware of that does not resell your purchase history to data brokers.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- lxgr 9mo agoAre you sure it's not part of e.g. this dataset? https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/seller-profile?id=13af1c03-e79b-4f6e-8142-9b5623a952ad 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.
- lowkey 9mo agoYes I'm sure Apple Card data is included in that dataset. That isn't the point. > 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. Respectfully disagree on this point. The issue isn't leaking anonymized aggregated data. The issue is, for example, Chase can and does personalize rewards ads based on your exact transactions internally. So when you use any Chase card, every Chase related entity has access to your non-anonymized transaction data for marketing and credit decisioning purposes. I will cautiously watch how Apple handles this issue in the future because I don't trust Chase and my financial privacy is important to me.
- fogzen 9mo agoThe 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.
- orionsbelt 9mo ago“ Cash-back benefits are primarily funded through interest on carried balances (not interchange fees).” citation needed. My understanding is that this is false.
- georgemcbay 9mo ago> 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.
- danpalmer 9mo agoIf 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.
- noduerme 9mo agoyou 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?
- StopDisinfo910 9mo agoYes, 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.
- ifwinterco 9mo agoYep 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
- lotsofpulp 9mo agoIt’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.
- nutjob2 9mo agoNo fees except the hundreds of dollars it costs to buy an iPhone or iPad which is required.
- TheNewsIsHere 9mo agoAn 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.”
- AndrewKemendo 9mo agoNo 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.
- lxgr 9mo agoThere 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.
- tripletao 9mo agoBank 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.
- lxgr 9mo agoYes, 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.
- lotsofpulp 9mo agoIf 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.
- kshacker 9mo agoBank 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.
- IncandescentGas 9mo agoHas 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.
- lotsofpulp 9mo agoI have only seen cards that cost hundreds of dollars per year have decent rental car/travel/theft insurance.
- LPisGood 9mo agoChase Sapphire Preferred is less than 100 per year and it has those things.
- smsm42 9mo agoThe 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.
- socalgal2 9mo agowhat's the hard part outside of the Apple ecosystem? They give you a physical card and a normal ccard number. What else is there?
- drysart 9mo agoThe 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.
- valleyer 9mo agoYou can view statements via the Web on <https://card.apple.com/ https://card.apple.com/> (though not for the associated savings account, if you choose to add that).
- nickthegreek 9mo agousing normal card offers a reduced cashback of 1%.
- smsm42 9mo agoIIRC 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.
- cma 9mo agoThe 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.