After reading about the Banana Republic credit card’s generous marketing promotions over at MilesAbound, I was inspired to get my own to see what would happen. I can’t complain–I’ve received maybe $50 worth of clothing with minimal effort–but it hasn’t been amazing either.
I was therefore delighted to see the following promotion show up in my mailbox yesterday:
Wow! 200 bonus points for every credit card purchase. 1,000 points gets you a $10 gift card, so that’s $2 for every purchase.
I was considerably less delighted to see the following condition for this promotion:
Well, nuts. But still: 25 purchases get me $50 of free clothing. Plus Old Navy / Gap / Banana Republic are always doing promotions with coupons, cardholder discounts, and the like so you can increase your yield.
Here’s a question: how much annual benefit does a card need to make it worth getting? If this card gave away $5 worth of clothing every year, nobody would care. If it gave away $500, there would probably be a lot more interest. Is $50 worth it? $100? What’s your cut-off point for getting a card with no sign-up bonus?
That is a good one… But I just got a postcard mailed to me that arrived yesterday giving me what appears to be unlimited 5x at grocery and gas and restaurant on my GAP card… I guess they know my Amex Blue is closed and want to give me a reason to get some GCs again hehe.
If it’s uncapped, everyone will expect to see some stylish attire at the next get-together.
I haven’t gotten either of these. How often do you guys use your gap/BR/ON card?
I only use mine when there’s a promotion.
Hmmm, thanks. Maybe I need to use mine a tiny bit more. I can’t remember the last time I used it.
I need to go check my mailbox… I haven’t gotten any promo’s from BR in a couple months now. That being said, my wardrobe is becoming very banana heavy. I’ll have to show off my haul in PHX this weekend.
Why I was just recounting this story once again at breakfast this morning. It is one of my favorite stories. The bastards finally realized they needed to cap it!!!!