Saturday Night Live credit card review

I don’t know why this card exists, but here it is: the Saturday Night Live credit card. Now that Hans & Franz as well as the Copy Machine Guy are appearing in insurance commericals, Lorne Michaels has presumably exhausted all other money-making vehicles. I know I’ve been making up stuff recently, but this one’s for real, and it has some interesting properties. 

Here are the rewards:

Earn points every time you use your card, but earn more when you make entertainment purchases

• 2X the points every day and 4X the points on Saturdays
• Use your points to get access to exclusive content, merchandise and even tickets
• Spend $500 or more on your card in the first 180 days after opening and receive A cardholder exclusive SNL™ leather wallet

Unless you’re really into SNL wallets, the sign-up bonus isn’t too interesting. But 4X points on Saturdays is something I find interesting. The question is, what counts as an “entertainment” purchase? The T&Cs said to call Comenity, so that’s what I did. The very helpful customer service rep couldn’t give me any merchant category codes, but he read me the list of everything that counts as entertainment, and it was a surprisingly long list. This is what I wrote down:

• Airlines
• Amusement Parks
• Art Dealers
• Bakeries
• Casinos / Gambling
• Cable
• Cruises
• Restaurants
• Hotels
• Movies
• Record Stores
• Transportation
• Video Rental

This card apparently gets you 4X rewards on just about any travel (or casino!) purchase so long as you buy on Saturday. Not bad. (In your face, Chase Sapphire Preferred First Fridays!) I specifically asked about bookstores for obvious reasons, but the rep said bookstores are not on the list.

The next question: how much are 4X rewards worth? The rewards catalog is theoretically located here, but that site does not work as of press time. This truly is the not-ready-for-prime-time card! The rep told me the catalog is pretty extensive, but I have no idea if you can redeem for cash and gift cards or if you’re stuck redeeming for SNL-themed stuff.

In conclusion: there may be some potential with the Saturday Night Live credit card, but it’s hard to tell because Comenity doesn’t have its act together. This isn’t the first time I’ve experienced ineptness on their part, but since they’re a smaller bank I sort of expect it, the way I expect toddlers to have trouble tying their shoes. At least it’s better than the Garfield Visa.

Finally, since I’m writing about SNL, here’s an old post about Jack Handey.