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The Apple Card is a great credit card for people that aren't optimizing points for travel (most regular people). The software is solid and Apple prevents them

The Apple Card is a great credit card for people that aren't optimizing points for travel (most regular people). The software is solid and Apple prevents them from reselling your data to third parties. The cash back is super easy to use and visible (and the extra percentage on Apple purchases is a nice bonus). I have some cards I use for perks (Amex Plat/Gold, United Club, used to have Chase Sapphire Reserve) but I used the Apple Card as my sole card for a while and I kind of miss the simplicity of it. With Amex I feel like I'm fighting against an Army of Amex employees trying to make it as hard as possible for me to use the card's perks where as with Apple I feel like they're genuinely trying to make the software usable for me, the incentives are more aligned. Every time I have to use Amex's site to 'enable' a perk and then read the fine print to make sure I actually get the benefit it makes me angry at some invisible product manager that hates customers.

bombcar 3y ago
It is really nice once you give up trying to min/max rewards. And some of the issues are kind of self inflicted - the "always monthly on the nose" isn't a feature I really need, and I would actually prefer to offset that by a few days, so if they offered that as a feature I'd take advantage of it.
wombat-man 3y ago
Yeah, I just can't spend my time on that stuff. I got a card that just gives me 2% on everything and I'm calling it a day. no fee. Airport lounges sound cool, my friends sometimes get a deal on travel/hotel. But they also can't use points in some situations for weird reasons. Another uses a spreadsheet to optimize his poins. I just can't devote that kind of time to that stuff.
- giarc 3y ago
  The points can really be worth it though. In 2 years, over 3 cards (between my wife and I), I've racked up nearly 400,000 Aeroplan miles, which is valued somewhere around $8,400 (2.1c per mile). And this is regular spending, and pretty basic cards (AMEX Cobalt and TD Infinite). These aren't the $700+/year cards, all are $1xx/year.
  - queuebert 3y ago
    Yes, but how much did you spend to get those miles? What is your effective % cash back?
    - giarc 3y ago
      Best consumer cash back card is 2%. I'd have to spend over $400,000 to get $8400 in cash back. I definitely haven't spent close to that. So if I value the $8400 at cash value, it's better than any cash back credit card available.
  - jwells89 3y ago
    I’ve derived quite a lot of benefit from a Sapphire Reserve and Amex Plat over the years, though a lot less recently with the pandemic. They pay for themselves very quickly if you do any amount of travel at all, like recently I used the points earned from a trans-pacific flight to cut the cost of a hotel stay later during that trip in half (and booking that stay also netted me a nice chunk of points). Might drop one of the two at some point though since they both cover the same niche.
  - wombat-man 3y ago
    I definitely believe it can be worth it monetarily. But to me it seems like such a maze of which cards to get, what point transfers to do. When it comes down to it, I don't even travel that much. Churning cards. One of my friends has a bunch a points that are going to expire, or there's point inflation or something? I may waste my time on other things (like on hn, lol) but I don't think I want to spend it on that.
    - giarc 3y ago
      There are sites that basically walk you through optimal strategies depending on your situation. It's super easy nowadays.
  - caycep 3y ago
    Between Amex vs Chase Sapphire, I feel like the Sapphire points go a longer way than the Amex
- matwood 3y ago
  I mostly fall into the 'set it and forget it' group. But, if you travel it can pay to add another card. Also, there's a middle ground between do nothing and track on a spreadsheet. It's pretty easy to have an Apple Card for 3% Apple things, Amazon card for 5% at Amazon, and then something like Venture X (or other travel friendly card) for everything else. One of nice things about the Venture cards is you simply book travel however you want then apply points to the purchase after the fact - no blackouts. And since you mention lounges - if you travel 3+/year, lounges and TSA Pre/Global Entry really lower the frustration of travel.
  - plagiarist 3y ago
    I was reading reviews of the Amazon card and it sounded like there was a huge catch with fees and interest making that 5% not worth it. That's the only card I think would be worth adding for me. I don't do enough travel or shopping at Apple to make other cards worth using if I have a regular cash back card.
    - paulmd 3y ago
      The amazon card has absurdly bad interest rates if you're carrying a balance, but that's not unusual with points cards, most of them are >= 25% APY. There is also a weird gotcha if you use the cash advance balance transfer offers. It's 4% transfer fee, 2% APY for a year, but the cash advance pays off first, so, any purchases will continue to accrue at the 25% APY if you make them - but if you want to do a balance transfer just lock the card afterwards. Other than that it's fine, actually great. I make a shitload of rewards on those amazon purchases, pay the balance monthly, and cash it out every month and don't pay any fees/interest.
      - Schnitz 3y ago
        You should never carry a balance on any card anyways so I think the high interest rate is moot. I don’t even know the interest rate of any of my cards. The 5% back on Amazon is worth it if you buy a lot on Amazon.
    - 3y ago
- deleted 3y ago
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- rabbits_2002 3y ago
  2% on apple pay, 1% otherwise. So many other cards offer more cash back.
sdfghswe 3y ago
So why did you stop using it?
- gonehome 3y ago
  I still use it, I just started traveling way more so lounge access was nice. Then once I had the travel cards I started using them to see if I could optimize their perks.
mfer 3y ago
> Apple prevents them from reselling your data to third parties Do you have a source on this? The Apple Card uses Mastercard which is known to sell data.
- giarc 3y ago
  I believe the Apple card uses a different card number for each purchase, so they can't aggregate your purchasing history.
  - queuebert 3y ago
    Doesn't Google Pay do this with normal cards?
    - paxys 3y ago
      Same with Apple Pay. You don't need to use the Apple credit card for that.
    - mfer 3y ago
      Google and Apple Pay negotiate a card number of them to use. But, Mastercard and the bank both link those to your account and can tell how you spend. They can even tell the difference between using the physical card and the app.
  - knowriju 3y ago
    That's for the merchant. Merchants only have access to the tokenised card number. MasterCard and Goldman will surely have access to the actual card number. How would you recon they generate monthly statement otherwise?
    - daft_pink 3y ago
      Goldman surely has access to the real card number and the statement, but not sure if the Mastercard network has access to that as you would think that information just gets routed back to Goldman.
xyst 3y ago
> The software is solid and Apple prevents them from reselling your data to third parties. We will see. The Apple Card is using the Mastercard network. Recent article came out which shows MC does their own internal processing of transaction data for their personal gain. I have requested my data through the GDPR portal — “My Data”. In theory, there should only be data for my other MC card. https://www.mastercard.us/public/my-data/dgr-public/personal-data-request.html?locale=en-us https://www.mastercard.us/public/my-data/dgr-public/personal... I do agree. It’s a nice card for those that don’t care about the “point warfare” (most programs offer 1-3 cents per dollar spent). Side note, GS is very generous with their credit limits. My limit is reaching almost $60K at this point and I maybe use 10% of it. The one thing I do dislike about the AC is the support. It’s so bad
jwells89 3y ago
It really is quite nice. If it weren’t for my SoFi credit card giving a flat 2% back on everything (which can be routed into a 4.5% savings account), my Apple Card would be my primary card. As it is it primarily gets used for Apple Pay since the cash back is the same in that circumstance as well as for Apple stuff for the 3% back. Wouldn’t be surprised if between the two Apple will be the one to keep the perks going longest though… my hunch is that SoFi will dial theirs down once they’re done trying to aggressively grow. Apple still beats SoFi in the UI department though. More bank/card apps should be modeled after the Apple Card page in Wallet.
TylerE 3y ago
Amazon card is a good option. 5% cashback on Amazon purchases (and often with "no interest if paid within 12 months" type terms on stuff like TVs. 2% on gas and 1% on everything else. Cashback accrues in practically real time and is useable on 99% of products on Amazon, so it's very normal-person friendly as it doesn't require optimization of habits if you already buy a lot of stuff on the 'zon. Super simple since it just rewards flat dollars, no points or annual thresholds or loyalty programs or... Also doesn't require the insanely good credit of the Apple card.
- criddell 3y ago
  Does Amazon see your activity outside of what you spend at their store?
  - TylerE 3y ago
    I don't believe so. The actual card is managed by Chase, payments go through the Chase website, etc. Amazon just links to it and updates your reward balance nightly.
    - judge2020 3y ago
      Note that it's better if you don't apply rewards points at checkout - instead, get a payout to your bank account via the Chase reward redemption portal in the app. If you have $100 in rewards points, and use them in checkout, that $100 doesn't hit your card and you don't get the 5% cashback on that $100.
      - eutropia 3y ago
        Isn't this optimizing for 5% of 5%? e.g. 1/400?
        judge2020 3y ago
        Sure, to get $100 in rewards you'd need to have spent $2,000. It's not life-changing but $5 is still something, and I imagine Chase/Amazon save >1 million a year from people not doing this.
rootusrootus 3y ago
> most regular people I'd bet that this is pretty close to 'everyone' at this point. Haven't we been reading stories on HN recently about how airline points are basically worthless these days? I wouldn't be at all surprised if that were essentially true for all travel-related points.
FredPret 3y ago
I hate points. There's always a catch, a term and condition that excludes your desired flight, or a time limit, or a horrible website, or something stupid. The best points are called dollars and are accepted everywhere, all the time, for any purchase.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  I agree. While I don't use cash for everything, I do actively avoid credit cards that offer any of those "perks".
paulmd 3y ago
I am very content with my alliant signature visa, as it gives 2.5% on everything, still has an extended-warranty benefit, and has no international transaction fees. There are a few downsides, specifically (a) no contactless chip in the credit card yet, (b) need to keep $1k on deposit and have at least one monthly deposit of any kind/amount (scheduled ACH for $10) to get the 2.5% rate, otherwise it's 1.5%, (c) minimum redemption $50, and (d) ACH processing is a little slow/awkward, so you probably want to pay a bit ahead of time. And generally the UX is a little rough etc, they are a small credit union and it's not super polished, but it's functional. But yeah I'm tired of category gimmicks/etc, they are not usually worth it anymore. BOA Signature Visa has 3% on category of choice (online purchases or home improvement being the good ones) but it's only up to $2500 in spend per quarter, and they count the non-choice categories against your total bonus, so using it for gas/groceries costs you from the theoretical maximum of $75 total bonus per quarter. And they charge international transaction fees which completely negate the online purchase bonus for anything denominated in non-USD (at least it's not charging for international transactions in USD anymore). And they really screwed up on a fraud case that took CFPB intervention to fix - it turns out, the price of my dignity is apparently $75 a quarter. The costco card has 4% on gas, which is good (especially when I had a nearby speedway I could buy beer at), but it doesn't cash out until the next calendar year (so you can wait up to 14 months for points) so I generally don't use that except for the end of the year (I'll wait 3-4 months, I won't wait 14). But I think this is emblematic of the problem - the costco card (and many other store cards) only gives 2% even in the store, so it's worse than the alliant, on top of the onerous cashout process! Even if you have a more typical 2%-on-everything card, the costco card is pretty much strictly worse because of the cashout. I mostly got it for the 2-year extended warranty, that was the value to me, but they dropped that benefit at the start of 2022, so, it's almost useless to me now. Notionally I could use amex or something and try to make it my primary card I guess, but I'm not a business traveler, and the alliant is just mentally easier. 2.5% on everything if you keep the $1k in the account and set up a recurring monthly $10 ach transfer, done. No international transaction fees, what you see is what you pay (plus or minus actual currency conversion, which is unavoidable). Use it as your primary card and spend $2000 and you'll cross the $50 redemption threshold every month. Is fine. The Amazon Prime card is also very good, 5% on all amazon purchases is good enough I'll make a special point of it. If you do most of your bigbox purchases there, it adds up quick. They also have very good cash-advance offers, right now it's 4% transfer fee and 2% APY for a year - but the cash advance pays off first, and new purchases continue to accrue interest at the full rate (25% or whatever), so, you want to lock the card while you're doing a cash advance, so you are also foregoing that 5% (really, 2.5% above the alliant) from amazon purchases, but, if you're mature with it, it's great for consolidating other debt or financing things that need to be done in cash.

bombcar 3y ago

It is really nice once you give up trying to min/max rewards. And some of the issues are kind of self inflicted - the "always monthly on the nose" isn't a feature I really need, and I would actually prefer to offset that by a few days, so if they offered that as a feature I'd take advantage of it.

wombat-man 3y ago

Yeah, I just can't spend my time on that stuff. I got a card that just gives me 2% on everything and I'm calling it a day. no fee. Airport lounges sound cool, my friends sometimes get a deal on travel/hotel. But they also can't use points in some situations for weird reasons. Another uses a spreadsheet to optimize his poins. I just can't devote that kind of time to that stuff.

giarc 3y ago
The points can really be worth it though. In 2 years, over 3 cards (between my wife and I), I've racked up nearly 400,000 Aeroplan miles, which is valued somewhere around $8,400 (2.1c per mile). And this is regular spending, and pretty basic cards (AMEX Cobalt and TD Infinite). These aren't the $700+/year cards, all are $1xx/year.
- queuebert 3y ago
  Yes, but how much did you spend to get those miles? What is your effective % cash back?
  - giarc 3y ago
    Best consumer cash back card is 2%. I'd have to spend over $400,000 to get $8400 in cash back. I definitely haven't spent close to that. So if I value the $8400 at cash value, it's better than any cash back credit card available.
- jwells89 3y ago
  I’ve derived quite a lot of benefit from a Sapphire Reserve and Amex Plat over the years, though a lot less recently with the pandemic. They pay for themselves very quickly if you do any amount of travel at all, like recently I used the points earned from a trans-pacific flight to cut the cost of a hotel stay later during that trip in half (and booking that stay also netted me a nice chunk of points). Might drop one of the two at some point though since they both cover the same niche.
- wombat-man 3y ago
  I definitely believe it can be worth it monetarily. But to me it seems like such a maze of which cards to get, what point transfers to do. When it comes down to it, I don't even travel that much. Churning cards. One of my friends has a bunch a points that are going to expire, or there's point inflation or something? I may waste my time on other things (like on hn, lol) but I don't think I want to spend it on that.
  - giarc 3y ago
    There are sites that basically walk you through optimal strategies depending on your situation. It's super easy nowadays.
- caycep 3y ago
  Between Amex vs Chase Sapphire, I feel like the Sapphire points go a longer way than the Amex
matwood 3y ago
I mostly fall into the 'set it and forget it' group. But, if you travel it can pay to add another card. Also, there's a middle ground between do nothing and track on a spreadsheet. It's pretty easy to have an Apple Card for 3% Apple things, Amazon card for 5% at Amazon, and then something like Venture X (or other travel friendly card) for everything else. One of nice things about the Venture cards is you simply book travel however you want then apply points to the purchase after the fact - no blackouts. And since you mention lounges - if you travel 3+/year, lounges and TSA Pre/Global Entry really lower the frustration of travel.
- plagiarist 3y ago
  I was reading reviews of the Amazon card and it sounded like there was a huge catch with fees and interest making that 5% not worth it. That's the only card I think would be worth adding for me. I don't do enough travel or shopping at Apple to make other cards worth using if I have a regular cash back card.
  - paulmd 3y ago
    The amazon card has absurdly bad interest rates if you're carrying a balance, but that's not unusual with points cards, most of them are >= 25% APY. There is also a weird gotcha if you use the cash advance balance transfer offers. It's 4% transfer fee, 2% APY for a year, but the cash advance pays off first, so, any purchases will continue to accrue at the 25% APY if you make them - but if you want to do a balance transfer just lock the card afterwards. Other than that it's fine, actually great. I make a shitload of rewards on those amazon purchases, pay the balance monthly, and cash it out every month and don't pay any fees/interest.
    - Schnitz 3y ago
      You should never carry a balance on any card anyways so I think the high interest rate is moot. I don’t even know the interest rate of any of my cards. The 5% back on Amazon is worth it if you buy a lot on Amazon.
  - 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
rabbits_2002 3y ago
2% on apple pay, 1% otherwise. So many other cards offer more cash back.

sdfghswe 3y ago

So why did you stop using it?

gonehome 3y ago
I still use it, I just started traveling way more so lounge access was nice. Then once I had the travel cards I started using them to see if I could optimize their perks.

mfer 3y ago

> Apple prevents them from reselling your data to third parties Do you have a source on this? The Apple Card uses Mastercard which is known to sell data.

giarc 3y ago
I believe the Apple card uses a different card number for each purchase, so they can't aggregate your purchasing history.
- queuebert 3y ago
  Doesn't Google Pay do this with normal cards?
  - paxys 3y ago
    Same with Apple Pay. You don't need to use the Apple credit card for that.
  - mfer 3y ago
    Google and Apple Pay negotiate a card number of them to use. But, Mastercard and the bank both link those to your account and can tell how you spend. They can even tell the difference between using the physical card and the app.
- knowriju 3y ago
  That's for the merchant. Merchants only have access to the tokenised card number. MasterCard and Goldman will surely have access to the actual card number. How would you recon they generate monthly statement otherwise?
  - daft_pink 3y ago
    Goldman surely has access to the real card number and the statement, but not sure if the Mastercard network has access to that as you would think that information just gets routed back to Goldman.

xyst 3y ago

> The software is solid and Apple prevents them from reselling your data to third parties. We will see. The Apple Card is using the Mastercard network. Recent article came out which shows MC does their own internal processing of transaction data for their personal gain. I have requested my data through the GDPR portal — “My Data”. In theory, there should only be data for my other MC card. https://www.mastercard.us/public/my-data/dgr-public/personal-data-request.html?locale=en-us https://www.mastercard.us/public/my-data/dgr-public/personal... I do agree. It’s a nice card for those that don’t care about the “point warfare” (most programs offer 1-3 cents per dollar spent). Side note, GS is very generous with their credit limits. My limit is reaching almost $60K at this point and I maybe use 10% of it. The one thing I do dislike about the AC is the support. It’s so bad

jwells89 3y ago

It really is quite nice. If it weren’t for my SoFi credit card giving a flat 2% back on everything (which can be routed into a 4.5% savings account), my Apple Card would be my primary card. As it is it primarily gets used for Apple Pay since the cash back is the same in that circumstance as well as for Apple stuff for the 3% back. Wouldn’t be surprised if between the two Apple will be the one to keep the perks going longest though… my hunch is that SoFi will dial theirs down once they’re done trying to aggressively grow. Apple still beats SoFi in the UI department though. More bank/card apps should be modeled after the Apple Card page in Wallet.

TylerE 3y ago

Amazon card is a good option. 5% cashback on Amazon purchases (and often with "no interest if paid within 12 months" type terms on stuff like TVs. 2% on gas and 1% on everything else. Cashback accrues in practically real time and is useable on 99% of products on Amazon, so it's very normal-person friendly as it doesn't require optimization of habits if you already buy a lot of stuff on the 'zon. Super simple since it just rewards flat dollars, no points or annual thresholds or loyalty programs or... Also doesn't require the insanely good credit of the Apple card.

criddell 3y ago
Does Amazon see your activity outside of what you spend at their store?
- TylerE 3y ago
  I don't believe so. The actual card is managed by Chase, payments go through the Chase website, etc. Amazon just links to it and updates your reward balance nightly.
  - judge2020 3y ago
    Note that it's better if you don't apply rewards points at checkout - instead, get a payout to your bank account via the Chase reward redemption portal in the app. If you have $100 in rewards points, and use them in checkout, that $100 doesn't hit your card and you don't get the 5% cashback on that $100.
    - eutropia 3y ago
      Isn't this optimizing for 5% of 5%? e.g. 1/400?
      - judge2020 3y ago
        Sure, to get $100 in rewards you'd need to have spent $2,000. It's not life-changing but $5 is still something, and I imagine Chase/Amazon save >1 million a year from people not doing this.

rootusrootus 3y ago

> most regular people I'd bet that this is pretty close to 'everyone' at this point. Haven't we been reading stories on HN recently about how airline points are basically worthless these days? I wouldn't be at all surprised if that were essentially true for all travel-related points.

FredPret 3y ago

I hate points. There's always a catch, a term and condition that excludes your desired flight, or a time limit, or a horrible website, or something stupid. The best points are called dollars and are accepted everywhere, all the time, for any purchase.

JohnFen 3y ago
I agree. While I don't use cash for everything, I do actively avoid credit cards that offer any of those "perks".

paulmd 3y ago

I am very content with my alliant signature visa, as it gives 2.5% on everything, still has an extended-warranty benefit, and has no international transaction fees. There are a few downsides, specifically (a) no contactless chip in the credit card yet, (b) need to keep $1k on deposit and have at least one monthly deposit of any kind/amount (scheduled ACH for $10) to get the 2.5% rate, otherwise it's 1.5%, (c) minimum redemption $50, and (d) ACH processing is a little slow/awkward, so you probably want to pay a bit ahead of time. And generally the UX is a little rough etc, they are a small credit union and it's not super polished, but it's functional. But yeah I'm tired of category gimmicks/etc, they are not usually worth it anymore. BOA Signature Visa has 3% on category of choice (online purchases or home improvement being the good ones) but it's only up to $2500 in spend per quarter, and they count the non-choice categories against your total bonus, so using it for gas/groceries costs you from the theoretical maximum of $75 total bonus per quarter. And they charge international transaction fees which completely negate the online purchase bonus for anything denominated in non-USD (at least it's not charging for international transactions in USD anymore). And they really screwed up on a fraud case that took CFPB intervention to fix - it turns out, the price of my dignity is apparently $75 a quarter. The costco card has 4% on gas, which is good (especially when I had a nearby speedway I could buy beer at), but it doesn't cash out until the next calendar year (so you can wait up to 14 months for points) so I generally don't use that except for the end of the year (I'll wait 3-4 months, I won't wait 14). But I think this is emblematic of the problem - the costco card (and many other store cards) only gives 2% even in the store, so it's worse than the alliant, on top of the onerous cashout process! Even if you have a more typical 2%-on-everything card, the costco card is pretty much strictly worse because of the cashout. I mostly got it for the 2-year extended warranty, that was the value to me, but they dropped that benefit at the start of 2022, so, it's almost useless to me now. Notionally I could use amex or something and try to make it my primary card I guess, but I'm not a business traveler, and the alliant is just mentally easier. 2.5% on everything if you keep the $1k in the account and set up a recurring monthly $10 ach transfer, done. No international transaction fees, what you see is what you pay (plus or minus actual currency conversion, which is unavoidable). Use it as your primary card and spend $2000 and you'll cross the $50 redemption threshold every month. Is fine. The Amazon Prime card is also very good, 5% on all amazon purchases is good enough I'll make a special point of it. If you do most of your bigbox purchases there, it adds up quick. They also have very good cash-advance offers, right now it's 4% transfer fee and 2% APY for a year - but the cash advance pays off first, and new purchases continue to accrue interest at the full rate (25% or whatever), so, you want to lock the card while you're doing a cash advance, so you are also foregoing that 5% (really, 2.5% above the alliant) from amazon purchases, but, if you're mature with it, it's great for consolidating other debt or financing things that need to be done in cash.