New Comenity card (Coldwater Creek)--Whew--It pays to double-check!

[LexieCat]

I had a Coldwater Creek card without a balance when they closed down.  A few months later, I received a new Coldwater Creek card issued by Comenity bank.  Activated it and thought no more about it until I recently got a balance transfer offer that was attractive.  I transferred the max that I could to the new card, and since they don't have automatic payments, I set up Billpay with my Wells Fargo checking to pay down $500 a month (happens to be the same payment I was making on one of the accounts that I transferred the whole balance to, and also coincides with what I need to pay in order to pay off the BT during the promo period).  I called Comenity to find out what the payment due date would be (since I hadn't gotten a statement yet), put in what I thought was the correct account number, and pulled the payment address from the website.

Yesterday I went to Comenity's website and saw that my statement was available online.  I looked at it carefully, and saw that I not only had the payment address wrong, the ACCOUNT number I put in was wrong (I must have put in the account number from the old card).  Whew!  I updated all the Billpay info, and I am now good to go with that card, but I feel like I just dodged a bullet.  

That's the only card I have anywhere near the max--I have been doing a great job paying down all my balances and they should all be paid off within a year or so (give or take a couple of months), so I'm not worried about my credit score.  If the balance on that one card dings me slightly it will be back up soon enough.  My new Arrival Plus card adds to my available credit so I am still in very good shape.

Anyway, just a reminder that it pays to double-check any time you start messing with BTs...

[Themanwhocan]

Any idea how much a point is worth on this card? Can you redeem for statement credit?

[LexieCat]

Looks like you get 5 points for gas/groceries, but the only redemption option I saw was the catalog (ick).  I don't plan to use this card except to carry the BT.

[Themanwhocan]

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@LexieCat wrote:

Looks like you get 5 points for gas/groceries, but the only redemption option I saw was the catalog (ick).  I don't plan to use this card except to carry the BT.

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5 points only until Dec 31, then it reverts to a 3 points for Gas and Grocery. But without knowing the value of a point, and with no application form available, its hard to determine of its a moderately good cash back card or not.

[LexieCat]

As I said, from what I see you can ONLY redeem the points for catalog items (there are some travel options there that didn't look great)--I saw no option for statement credit, so it really doesn't appear to be a "cash-back" card.  

Maybe I'm missing something, and someone else can enlighten us.  But to me it doesn't look like a good deal for rewards.

[Jerry45]

Thanks for the Info. I also noticed that Comenity does not update transactions on weekend days.