Apple Card How would you rate Apple Card 18 months later?

[adamjackson]

I've had my AppleCard since it came out on the 20th of August 2019. I was initially given a credit limit of $5,000. I haven't requested an increase or gotten anywhere close to the limit.

I use the card for daily spending where Apple Pay is accepted. The card itself is locked and still in the little box it came in and I haven't swiped it once.

At this point, I use AppleCard for every purchase made to Apple including Premiere, hardware purchases and AppleCare along with movie rentals. It's the only card I use for Apple Purchases despite having AMEX benefits at my disposal. I probably could do just as well using my Amex card for apple hardware purchases but I haven't. I also have not taken advantage of 12 months financing with Apple and just buy what I can afford and pay off the iPhone purchase a few days after I receive the phone and get my 3% cash back.

If you look through this list - https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/credit-cards/apple-card-3-percent-merchants, Apple has done some decent promotions with various merchants.

I don't think that they're doing enough personally to compete with other cash back cards. it seems to me that the AppleCard team is more focused on global rollout of Apple Pay which makes sense and they profit more from the fees they charge to merchants and interchange fees than they do giving current card holders more of a reason to use the card at more places.

The truth is, my Amex Platinum offers more for Uber and Exxon/Mobile than AppleCard and I don't visit Walgreens enough to get more than a couple of bucks a year in value.

Here's countries where Apple Pay (the technology) is available - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207957
Here's where AppleCard (the product) is available - United States

...big gap. HUGE even.

----

18 months in, I would have hoped Apple would have allowed customers to pick specific categories for 3% back like their competition. being able to pick grocery stores as my tier of cash back would be nice during the pandemic, then travel for 3% back post-pandemic. A lot of cards do this today and Apple has yet to follow suit.

My fiancé who purchase a MacBook air in January applied for and received a similar limit for a card for herself and after our marriage in October, we do plan on merging our cards for the lower of the 2 interest rates and just using it as we do today which is for all Apple purchases and not much else.

--

What I will say in the overall experience "Only apple can do" sort of way, it's a nice card. I pay exclusively with my watch and it's the default card for Apple Pay, I login every Friday and pay off the balance quite easily and I always just use the cash back to pay my bill...it's free money so I'm not really accruing cash back like some people may. The wallet app has a nice interface and I wish it was carried over to iPad OS but alas, it's not. I'd like Quicken support with AppleCard. Today you have to export from the card.apple.com site as a zip file and import into Quicken which is not something I do every month over $150 in total purchases.

Some of the gimmicky things like using machine learning to match merchant with physical location and the card color based on category are meh in real use.

So despite the convenience of being default on my watch and the ease of use of the iOS integration, Apple hasn't done enough amongst its cash back peers to lure me over to 'everything' use like my Amex & Chase cards have done. Those still are my primary cards because they offer the most value. Gas, Groceries, travel all get used by my other cards.

....I started this thread as a personal 18 month review. I'd be curious to see what others think?

 

[Boyd01]

Have had mine about that long too, quite happy. Still have the original credit limit, have not requested and don't need more. I swipe it at the grocery store and other places, also manually entered the MasterCard number a few times online. Got an expensive Mac system with it last summer. I pay in full at the end of each month. The cash back is really accumulating, embarassed to admit that I'm not even sure how to access it, LOL. Will figure that out when I actually need it.

 

[adamjackson]

Have had mine about that long too, quite happy. Still have the original credit limit, have not requested and don't need more. I swipe it at the grocery store and other places, also manually entered the MasterCard number a few times online. Got an expensive Mac system with it last summer. I pay in full at the end of each month. The cash back is really accumulating, embarassed to admit that I'm not even sure how to access it, LOL. Will figure that out when I actually need it.

One friend told me he uses his cash back to pay for dinner using Apple Cash. He saves his cash back which is about $30 a month and when he goes out with friends and its Time to split the bill, they request money from him and he pays for it out of his balance.

 

[mnsportsgeek]

I use this card solely as an Apple Pay card to get 2% cash back. I use my AMEX for everything else.

As an exclusive Apple Pay card, I have only one complaint. I still want Mint/YNAB integration.

Everything else works as I expect, and the perks are not bad for a free credit card. I don't ever anticipate using the 0% financing but it's nice that it's there for Apple purchases.

 

[Capeto]

I pretty much use it exclusively for financing Apple hardware purchases. I haven't had to reload my App Store balance, but with App Store gift cards being replaced with the universal Apple gift card leading to no more sales on them, I might use it for my app store balance.

 

[Blowback]

Try and use it every chance I get....member since day one. No real issues. Cash Back....plus 3% on Apple purchases ( like my most recent). No real negatives so far....

 

[zinacef]

I love it! I use it pretty much 100% of the time to pay for everything including all my utility bills. The only time I don’t use it is at Costco.

 

[AustinIllini]

It's the best "no annual fee" card I have. It's close to Freedom Unlimited. The big advantage Apple Card has is the no foreign transfer fees.

That being said, of course your Amex Platinum is superior. For a $550 annual fee it had better be better than a no annual fee card.

I use Amex Gold and Amex Platinum for most things but Apple related purchases go on Apple Card.

 

[max2]

Is it ok to open one and then decide to not use it at all ?

 

[AustinIllini]

Is it ok to open one and then decide to not use it at all ?

It's recommended for your credit to at least spend something on it even if you just immediately pay it off. That way the account stays open and your debt/credit ratio doesn't take a hit (if you close an account your credit drops)

 

[4sallypat]

I love it - daily grocery card for 2%.
Received one CLI 6 months ago - it was a SP.

 

[BigMcGuire]

These cards are our (my wife and I) primary credit cards. Vons / Trader Joes has Apple Pay. We use Costco for gas when we can (with the Costco CC). Most restaurants take Apple Pay as well. We are happy with it!

 

[wvayens]

I've had my AppleCard since it came out on the 20th of August 2019. I was initially given a credit limit of $5,000. I haven't requested an increase or gotten anywhere close to the limit.

I use the card for daily spending where Apple Pay is accepted. The card itself is locked and still in the little box it came in and I haven't swiped it once.

At this point, I use AppleCard for every purchase made to Apple including Premiere, hardware purchases and AppleCare along with movie rentals. It's the only card I use for Apple Purchases despite having AMEX benefits at my disposal. I probably could do just as well using my Amex card for apple hardware purchases but I haven't. I also have not taken advantage of 12 months financing with Apple and just buy what I can afford and pay off the iPhone purchase a few days after I receive the phone and get my 3% cash back.

If you look through this list - https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/credit-cards/apple-card-3-percent-merchants, Apple has done some decent promotions with various merchants.

I don't think that they're doing enough personally to compete with other cash back cards. it seems to me that the AppleCard team is more focused on global rollout of Apple Pay which makes sense and they profit more from the fees they charge to merchants and interchange fees than they do giving current card holders more of a reason to use the card at more places.

The truth is, my Amex Platinum offers more for Uber and Exxon/Mobile than AppleCard and I don't visit Walgreens enough to get more than a couple of bucks a year in value.

Here's countries where Apple Pay (the technology) is available - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207957
Here's where AppleCard (the product) is available - United States

...big gap. HUGE even.

----

18 months in, I would have hoped Apple would have allowed customers to pick specific categories for 3% back like their competition. being able to pick grocery stores as my tier of cash back would be nice during the pandemic, then travel for 3% back post-pandemic. A lot of cards do this today and Apple has yet to follow suit.

My fiancé who purchase a MacBook air in January applied for and received a similar limit for a card for herself and after our marriage in October, we do plan on merging our cards for the lower of the 2 interest rates and just using it as we do today which is for all Apple purchases and not much else.

--

What I will say in the overall experience "Only apple can do" sort of way, it's a nice card. I pay exclusively with my watch and it's the default card for Apple Pay, I login every Friday and pay off the balance quite easily and I always just use the cash back to pay my bill...it's free money so I'm not really accruing cash back like some people may. The wallet app has a nice interface and I wish it was carried over to iPad OS but alas, it's not. I'd like Quicken support with AppleCard. Today you have to export from the card.apple.com site as a zip file and import into Quicken which is not something I do every month over $150 in total purchases.

Some of the gimmicky things like using machine learning to match merchant with physical location and the card color based on category are meh in real use.

So despite the convenience of being default on my watch and the ease of use of the iOS integration, Apple hasn't done enough amongst its cash back peers to lure me over to 'everything' use like my Amex & Chase cards have done. Those still are my primary cards because they offer the most value. Gas, Groceries, travel all get used by my other cards.

....I started this thread as a personal 18 month review. I'd be curious to see what others think?

Just pray you don’t get fraudulent charges on this supposed “secure” card. Goldman Sachs shows their credit card inexperience here. Took 7 months to resolve 4 fraud charges from Amazon. I don’t even have an Amazon account. The physical card was never used, never left my desk. After my iPhone purchase on it it was only used on Apple Pay.

 

[adamjackson]

Just pray you don’t get fraudulent charges on this supposed “secure” card. Goldman Sachs shows their credit card inexperience here. Took 7 months to resolve 4 fraud charges from Amazon. I don’t even have an Amazon account. The physical card was never used, never left my desk. After my iPhone purchase on it it was only used on Apple Pay.

sounds like a crappy experience that I haven't heard from anyone else on this forum. My physical card is locked for use and everything goes through Apple Pay.

 

[jimkingwood]

I got mine a while back, and since I am a relatively high-spender I blew through the 5k limit pretty quick. I immediately paid the balance from my checking account right on the phone through the wallet app- it lets you set up a checking account as payment method- but they are taking forever to credit my card account, even though the money was taken from my checking account immediately when I made the payment. Meanwhile, 3 or 4 days after I made the payment to the card, and assuming that there was a good balance available, I used it for a dinner but it was rejected.

I called GS, and their account services was competent and friendly enough, and they said yes, they received my payment on the day it was made, but no, they couldn't explain why the payment hadn't been credited to my card. They gave me a date to expect the credit to be made, a total of 11 days from the day the money was deducted from my checking account.

The only thing I can think of is that they are sitting on float. That is big income for some banks. The only other explanation is that Goldman Sachs is having liquidity issues. So I cancelled the card.

 

[One2Grift]

Been with Apple Pay since January. Plenty of positives, some negatives,
For those who don't want to put much thought into their credit card usage? Apple is a good option wherever Apple Pay is accepted. That means 2% on everything, 3% on specific merchants, cash rewards aggregation and it's easy to spend, and the security is on the upper end. No annual fee (it has very few "fees" a plus).
Expand the list of retailers on the 3% list.

The negatives:
-1% when using the physical card. That's not good. If Apple bumped that to 2% (or say a small drop to 1.9% for physical card usage)? If you want a one card fits all solution? Apple Card would be a prime choice.
-For those who don't mind putting in some work and use the multi credit card selection? Getting specific card offers is supreme especially if you have high spends in one category. Groceries at 6% cash back for example. But Apple Card is a good one to have for Apple specific purchases and their preferred retailer list 3% (that isn't covered by another card at better return).
-Apple Card doesn't integrate with the financial software I use, Mint. That is inconvenient. Finance software like Mint takes a lot of the leg work out of keeping track of finances.

Bring everything to 2% (including physical card), expand the preferred 3% list, integrate with Mint? Apple Card would be one of the best options out there.

 

[minimo3]

Best summed up in 1 word: meh

 

[svenmany]

It's not good enough to be my full-time card.

It has poor integration with my financial software. I do get the transaction download at the end of each month and import that into my software. But, I do my accounting work every weekend and want visibility into what charges were made in the past week.

The daily cash back is a hassle if you want the Apple Cash account represented in your financial software. It's a pain to have so many small transactions in Apple Cash, especially so since they don't offer a way to download those transactions. If you don't bother tracking the Apple Cash account in your software, then it's important not to use the Apple Cash balance to pay part of your credit card bill. Otherwise, the books get wonky.

Because of the limited automation of the Apple Card and Apple Cash, I'm forced to use the Wallet app to check up on things. I find it hard to use. One real annoyance is that they don't provide a date for recent transactions, only the day of the week.

Having said all that, if a vendor takes Apple Pay, I use Apple Card for the 2% cash back.

 

[Eric Idle]

It's the best "no annual fee" card I have. It's close to Freedom Unlimited. The big advantage Apple Card has is the no foreign transfer fees.

That being said, of course your Amex Platinum is superior. For a $550 annual fee it had better be better than a no annual fee card.

I use Amex Gold and Amex Platinum for most things but Apple related purchases go on Apple Card.

$550 a year to use a credit card?? Hard pass on that one.

 

[Eric Idle]

Is it ok to open one and then decide to not use it at all ?

No. I would recommend against that. You'll be detained and taken into custody.

 

[Eric Idle]

It's not good enough to be my full-time card.

It has poor integration with my financial software. I do get the transaction download at the end of each month and import that into my software. But, I do my accounting work every weekend and want visibility into what charges were made in the past week.

The daily cash back is a hassle if you want the Apple Cash account represented in your financial software. It's a pain to have so many small transactions in Apple Cash, especially so since they don't offer a way to download those transactions. If you don't bother tracking the Apple Cash account in your software, then it's important not to use the Apple Cash balance to pay part of your credit card bill. Otherwise, the books get wonky.

Because of the limited automation of the Apple Card and Apple Cash, I'm forced to use the Wallet app to check up on things. I find it hard to use. One real annoyance is that they don't provide a date for recent transactions, only the day of the week.

Having said all that, if a vendor takes Apple Pay, I use Apple Card for the 2% cash back.

I am SOOOOO glad I'm not an accountant.

 

[baypharm]

It's the best "no annual fee" card I have. It's close to Freedom Unlimited. The big advantage Apple Card has is the no foreign transfer fees.

That being said, of course your Amex Platinum is superior. For a $550 annual fee it had better be better than a no annual fee card.

I use Amex Gold and Amex Platinum for most things but Apple related purchases go on Apple Card.

Not any more. The Amex AF is $695.

Apple card is good for small purchases. I never understood why they will finance an Iphone for 24 months yet a MBP or ipad for only 12 months.

 

[hauntvictim]

I just got my Apple Card and mine was white? I thought they were titanium sliver. Not Apple white.

 

[AustinIllini]

Not any more. The Amex AF is $695.

Apple card is good for small purchases. I never understood why they will finance an Iphone for 24 months yet a MBP or ipad for only 12 months.

Yeah, back when I posted that it was only a rumor.

 

[jimkingwood]

$550 a year to use a credit card?? Hard pass on that one.

I’m with you except I think if you use Uber a lot and frequent fly it can get close to break even. You get access to all those airport clubs and if you loath and despise crowded terminals as much as I do that’s ok. I think it pays for clear and tsa pre also. If I flew a little more I’d use it.