Farmers credit card launches!

This one escaped my notice, but apparently Comenity Bank launched the Farmers Bank Rewards Visa in June. It’s a little more interesting than the recently announced Univision card, though this Farmers Bank credit card still probably won’t be of interest to most people.

As with most of Comenity’s portfolio, there is no annual fee. There are no unusual perks to this card, and it goes without saying that we’re not concerned with the interest rate since we never pay interest on credit cards, right? So let’s get right to the Farmers credit card rewards. Here they are:

• 3x points for every $1 spent on Farmers products
• 3x points for every $1 spent on home improvement
• 3x points for every $1 spent on fuel/gas
• 1x points for every $1 spent everywhere else Visa is accepted

There aren’t many other cards that let you earn 3X on insurance payments, so that’s original, though of course you are restricted to Farmers products. 3X on gas is no big deal as there are a lot of other products that offer that, like the AARP card, which also gives you 3X on restaurants. There’s a UMB credit card that gives you 3X on that plus a few more categories. A few cards even give you 5% back on gas. 3X on home improvement stores is moderately interesting since that’s not a popular bonus spend category aside from the occasional Chase Freedom / Discover It quarterly bonus, so this card could come in handy if you’re a do-it-yourselfer.

But… 3X on home improvement stores isn’t going clinch the deal for too many folks given that 2% rewards is a pretty easy baseline to achieve. As with the Univision card, most of you will probably want pass on the Farmers credit card. As always, your baseline should be 2% on everything via a no-fee cashback card. Anything less than that and you’re just not trying.