For some reason, somebody on FatWallet Financial posted a link to the Garfield Credit card. Here, look:
Ha ha ha ha! “We deserve some credit”! Get it? That is some funny stuff! That’s even funnier than the idea of a cat who likes lasagna!
Sorry, I got carried away by all the mirth. Anyway: the Garfield credit card, aside from the fact that it’s the most hilarious thing ever, stinks from a rewards standpoint. It gives you only one point for every dollar of purchases, plus a 500-point bonus. Oh, and you receive three points for every dollar of interest charged to your account, which is an abomination.
The only special aspect of the rewards is the exclusive Garfield rewards, the most expensive of which is 50,000 points for this:
Come see the house that Garfield built! Paws, Inc. will arrange and pay for a two-night hotel stay in Muncie, Indiana, and a guided tour of the famous fat cat’s 36,000-square-foot headquarters.
Very tempting, but this card is not interesting to me at all. But then I figure as long as I’m on the Commerce Bank website I should take a look around and see what else they have. I found this:
It’s the mySpending prepaid, and I’ve never heard of it. How does one load such a card? This page tells me it’s easy to load–“add funds online, by direct deposit, at a Commerce Bank branch and more”. “Online”? “And more”? Hmmm…. if you look at the FAQ and click on the “How do I load money” question, you see this:
Visit the mySpending™ Card site, www.commercebank.com/mySpendingcard™, and follow the steps for loading funds using a Commerce Bank debit or credit card.
A prepaid you can load with a credit card? Interesting, even if you have to use a Commerce Bank credit card. What are the fees like?
Free if you use a Commerce Bank card, that’s interesting as well. They have a fee listed for non-Commerce Bank cards as well, which makes me wonder if they’d let you load this card with a competitor’s card.
But let’s look at Commerce Bank’s credit cards–anything worthwhile? They have some plain-jane 1% rewards cards along the lines of that Garfield card. They have the Kansas City Royals and St. Louis Blues MasterCards. And they also have the Drury Hotels credit card. I have never stayed in a Drury hotel, though according to JD Power they’re the highest-rated midscale hotel chain. Free room redemptions start at 7,500 points.
I thought I’d throw this one out to the public since the limited appeal of Commerce Bank’s credit cards (not to mention that fact that nobody’s paying bloggers to promote them) will probably keep the interest level down.
What do you all think–is this a manufactured spend opportunity worth pursuing?
UPDATE: It’s been pointed out to me that the prepaid card is available to residents of Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Oklahoma, and Colorado only.
If Commerce Bank allows me to max out my credit card and then transfer the money from the prepaid card to an external bank account then yes. I can get 30,000 __ points for the cost of $2.50? I have my doubts, but still worth investigating…
I just looked, $3000 monthly load limit.
Depends on how many family members you have, I suppose…
With a 2% card you can make about $100 in a month with 4 unload trips. Good find, but not too scaleable for me.
The Prepaid ONLY available in 5 states…
Had not seen that, thanks. On the positive side, it’s a lot less likely to get overexposed.
I’ve seen this sort of thing (prepaid funded by credit card but only if it’s from the same bank) at credit unions as well.
Despite listing a fee for loading with non-Commerce credit cards, it’s not possible to do so as the site doesn’t allow it.
Wasn’t Commerce Bank old Milton Drisedale’s outfit? I believe he got into trouble with various schemes using funds from hid largest depositor.
really?