Barclaycard Upromise: Does this look promising?

[Anonymous]

I have been planning on applying for a Barclay Rewards card sometime soon, and while I was trying to do some reading on their site I found the reincarnated Upromise card now offered by Barclaycards.  Initially it looks like a pretty decent offering, but after some more reading I did not find anything any positive rewiews from people with this card.  All of the complaints I found had to do mainly with customer service, but I am finding it rather hard to uncover any information of value.  I wanted to see if anyone had this card or knows any more adout it that could possibly shed some light on my plight.  Thanks,

[jsucool76]

My sister has it. She thought it was nice that you can apply the rewards directly to your student loans. She got $25 with her first purchase, but the rewards take a long time to actually become available. It doesn't seem that great. She didnt get an intro apr, just 19 or 20% or something high, with a $1000 limit on recon.

It seems like a really good card if you already use upromise, but all of the bonus cash back is only at certain places. You get bonus CB at exxon mobil, you get it at CERTAIN restaurants, not all, and certain movie theaters and stuff. She did just get a bunch of 0%/12 month BT checks though.

[TheConductor]

I don't have the Upromise card yet, but I do use the UPromise service.

The service's gas rewards are only at ExxonMobil, and the dining rewards are only at selected restaurants and for much lower percentages than iDine (which shares the same list of restaurants).

So why use it?  Online shopping!  It gives a typical 5% back on a vast list of major online retailers. Some even give as high as 15% back or more. I've already earned $30 in October buying camping gear and clothing at REI, Patagonia, and Backcountry. And with most retailers you can get an additional 5% back by using the Upromise card.

Of particular note, you can get 15% + 5% back at Restaurant.com on their already-discounted gift certificates, getting savings that kick the pants off any dining program I've seen (including iDine). The holy grail though is using Upromise to get a gift certificate to an iDine restaurant, then paying the part of the bill not covered by the gift certificate with your iDine-registered card.  Cha-ching!

As I don't have the card yet (but it's on my agenda) I can't speak to the customer service. But I definitely think highly of Upromise as a way to get significant cash back on any card you register with the service, and using the Upromise card will only make that a more lucrative proposition.