topic Re: Uber Visa Rewards Data Points in Credit Cards

Uber Visa cash back categories DP thread

arkane — Tue, 12 Jun 2018 04:10:12 GMT

Not sure how many people will benefit since the Barclays Uber Visa is still very new (and issued by *gasp* Barclays ), but thought I'd start a thread to share what counts and doesn't count for the bonus categories. Will hopefully try to update OP as I swipe the card more and accumulate more data.

4% Dining

Anything with the following Visa MCC's:

5812 - Restaurants

5813 - Bars/Taverns/Lounges/Discos

5814 - Fast Food Restaurants

Starbucks DOES code as 5814 - fast food and gets 4%, and interestingly the comedy clubs I frequent also get 4% since they code as either 5812 - restaurants or 5813 - bars. But I believe this is highly YMMV and possibly even terminal dependant.

NOT included

Anything coding for 5499 - "Misc Food Stores" earns only 1%!! This unfortunately includes pretty much any "dessert food place" (ice cream/froyo/tea places, most bakeries etc). When in doubt, hit up the Visa Supplier Locator and check what codes for MCC 5499 in your area.

3% Travel

TBD

2% Online Services

- Uber rides (obviously)

- Paypal gets 2% if paying for actual merchandise/services; if using CC to send money you only get 1% (I should probably count my lucky stars it didn't get categorized as a cash advance)

Update 2/19/18

- Fastrak (e-toll in SF Bay Area) (appears as tolls, road and bridge fees, MCC 4784 most likely)

Update 2/3/18: Unfortunately Comcast no longer gets 2% and instead is the default 1%. I might've accidentally tipped off Barclays lol

- Interestingly Comcast gets 2%, but T-Mobile doesn't. Comcast under merchant category is listed as "Cable, Satellite, and Other Pay TV/Radio Svcs", so MCC is possibly 4899 - Cable/Pay TV Services. Whereas T-Mobile is "Telecommunication serv. includ. local/l. dist. calls, CR card calls", so likely 4814 - Telecommunication services

Re: Uber Visa cash back categories DP thread

imaximous — Sun, 28 Jan 2018 13:15:52 GMT

One thing about Starbucks that I experienced is I only got 2% when I used the Starbucks app to reload my card. I do this all the time instead of paying with a credit card in the store to get points, etc.
I thought I’d read in the terms and conditions that if an online purchase is also restaurant, you’d get 4%.
I wonder if I’d get the same result if I ask a cashier to reload my Starbucks card at the register since I’ll be at the actual store.
By the way, the description on my account didn’t show “Fast Food” but “Misc Food Stores... etc.”

Re: Uber Visa cash back categories DP thread

SBR249 — Mon, 29 Jan 2018 00:34:59 GMT

wrote:
One thing about Starbucks that I experienced is I only got 2% when I used the Starbucks app to reload my card. I do this all the time instead of paying with a credit card in the store to get points, etc.
I thought I’d read in the terms and conditions that if an online purchase is also restaurant, you’d get 4%.
I wonder if I’d get the same result if I ask a cashier to reload my Starbucks card at the register since I’ll be at the actual store.
By the way, the description on my account didn’t show “Fast Food” but “Misc Food Stores... etc.”

It could be that online reloads (or any reload) of gift cards would not be coded as a restaurant purchase. As a DP, when I used the McDonald's app to purchase food, it does credit with 4x points so there's definitely no blanket exclusion of online dining purchases from the 4% CB category.

Re: Uber Visa cash back categories DP thread

arkane — Sun, 28 Jan 2018 20:03:39 GMT

wrote:
One thing about Starbucks that I experienced is I only got 2% when I used the Starbucks app to reload my card. I do this all the time instead of paying with a credit card in the store to get points, etc.
I thought I’d read in the terms and conditions that if an online purchase is also restaurant, you’d get 4%.
I wonder if I’d get the same result if I ask a cashier to reload my Starbucks card at the register since I’ll be at the actual store.
By the way, the description on my account didn’t show “Fast Food” but “Misc Food Stores... etc.”

Yes you're right that online purchases that also code as restaurants will give you 4%. If it shows as "misc food stores" instead of "fast food" then you won't get the 4% as explained in my first post. Sounds like when you use the Starbucks app it doesn't code as restaurant, so you're not getting the 4%.

Re: Uber Visa cash back categories DP thread

imaximous — Mon, 29 Jan 2018 00:07:35 GMT

wrote:
wrote:
One thing about Starbucks that I experienced is I only got 2% when I used the Starbucks app to reload my card. I do this all the time instead of paying with a credit card in the store to get points, etc.
I thought I’d read in the terms and conditions that if an online purchase is also restaurant, you’d get 4%.
I wonder if I’d get the same result if I ask a cashier to reload my Starbucks card at the register since I’ll be at the actual store.
By the way, the description on my account didn’t show “Fast Food” but “Misc Food Stores... etc.”
It could be that online reloads (or any reload) of gift cards would not be coded as a restaurant purchase. As a DP, when I used the McDonald's app to purchase food, it does credit with 4x points so there's definitely no blank exclusion of online dining purchases from the 4% CB category.

Yes. They must have different codes for online vs in-store, and maybe others for type of purchase because I looked up the MCC for the Starbucks retail stores, they all show as "Restaurants / Bars - 5814"

At least, I get 2% for the reloads and not 1%, which is essentially the same I was getting prior to getting the Uber card.

I'm still going to try to reload my card at a local store next time and see how the transaction gets recorded.

Re: Uber Visa cash back categories DP thread

imaximous — Mon, 29 Jan 2018 00:47:26 GMT

Would you guys know if paying my auto insurance online would get me 2%? That online purchases category is a little tricky with the exceptions. This should bill as "FINANCIAL SERVICES / INSURANCE - 6300" so I'm trying to figure out if I should put my premiums on the card. It's a few thousand bucks I could get double points on.

Re: Uber Visa cash back categories DP thread

arkane — Mon, 29 Jan 2018 00:48:15 GMT

My AAA insurance only gets 1%. If your insurance allows a Paypal option, just use that and it's pretty much guranteed 2%.

Re: Uber Visa cash back categories DP thread

SBR249 — Mon, 29 Jan 2018 00:53:32 GMT

wrote:
Would you guys know if paying my auto insurance online would get me 2%? That online purchases category is a little tricky with the exceptions. This should bill as "FINANCIAL SERVICES / INSURANCE - 6300" so I'm trying to figure out if I should put my premiums on the card. It's a few thousand bucks I could get double points on.

It seems unlikely. As Arkane mentioned, if you can use an online payment service, you'll be able to swing that 2%, but insurance companies don't really count as an online merchant.

Very OT, but if you have a lot of these miscellaneous expenses, it may be worth it to just get a 2% general purchase card like Citi DC or Paypal CB. That way you know that no matter what happens the minimum CB you'd get on anything is at least 2%.

Re: Uber Visa cash back categories DP thread

arkane — Mon, 29 Jan 2018 00:57:47 GMT

wrote:
wrote:
Would you guys know if paying my auto insurance online would get me 2%? That online purchases category is a little tricky with the exceptions. This should bill as "FINANCIAL SERVICES / INSURANCE - 6300" so I'm trying to figure out if I should put my premiums on the card. It's a few thousand bucks I could get double points on.
It seems unlikely. As Arkane mentioned, if you can use an online payment service, you'll be able to swing that 2%, but insurance companies don't really count as an online merchant.

Very OT, but if you have a lot of these miscellaneous expenses, it may be worth it to just get a 2% general purchase card like Citi DC or Paypal CB. That way you know that no matter what happens the minimum CB you'd get on anything is at least 2%.

Agreed.

Although I will point out that if you have any "qualifying music/video streaming service" such as Pandora/Spotify/Hulu/Netflix OR you have Amazin Prime and think you can run through $5000 a year on the Uber card, then it's effectively +1% to all cash back categories since you get a $50 statement credit. This effectively makes the Uber visa a 2% card on the first $5000 spent, really increasing its appeal and value (and why it's become my DD since I have Amazon Prime).

Re: Uber Visa cash back categories DP thread

imaximous — Mon, 29 Jan 2018 01:15:59 GMT

wrote:
wrote:
Would you guys know if paying my auto insurance online would get me 2%? That online purchases category is a little tricky with the exceptions. This should bill as "FINANCIAL SERVICES / INSURANCE - 6300" so I'm trying to figure out if I should put my premiums on the card. It's a few thousand bucks I could get double points on.
It seems unlikely. As Arkane mentioned, if you can use an online payment service, you'll be able to swing that 2%, but insurance companies don't really count as an online merchant.

Very OT, but if you have a lot of these miscellaneous expenses, it may be worth it to just get a 2% general purchase card like Citi DC or Paypal CB. That way you know that no matter what happens the minimum CB you'd get on anything is at least 2%.

That's annoying because financial services isn't in the "excluded" merchants list, and they have a long list there.

Sorry for going OT here too... I actually have both the PayPal CB and Citi DC. Since I just got the Uber Visa, I'm trying to build history on it, and call them again to see if they'll upgrade my card to Signature from Platinum. I don't know why they won't do it if my credit line is $10k on this card. I'm annoyed that they said there was no such thing as Uber Visa Signature when I spoke to a rep and her supervisor. Then, I called again and another rep said to me that I needed to spend $25k a year to get the upgrade to Signature. Meanwhile, people here have posted they got Signature cards from the getgo.

Re: Uber Visa cash back categories DP thread

imaximous — Mon, 29 Jan 2018 01:21:07 GMT

wrote:
wrote:
wrote:
Would you guys know if paying my auto insurance online would get me 2%? That online purchases category is a little tricky with the exceptions. This should bill as "FINANCIAL SERVICES / INSURANCE - 6300" so I'm trying to figure out if I should put my premiums on the card. It's a few thousand bucks I could get double points on.
It seems unlikely. As Arkane mentioned, if you can use an online payment service, you'll be able to swing that 2%, but insurance companies don't really count as an online merchant.

Very OT, but if you have a lot of these miscellaneous expenses, it may be worth it to just get a 2% general purchase card like Citi DC or Paypal CB. That way you know that no matter what happens the minimum CB you'd get on anything is at least 2%.
Agreed.

Although I will point out that if you have any "qualifying music/video streaming service" such as Pandora/Spotify/Hulu/Netflix OR you have Amazin Prime and think you can run through $5000 a year on the Uber card, then it's effectively +1% to all cash back categories since you get a $50 statement credit. This effectively makes the Uber visa a 2% card on the first $5000 spent, really increasing its appeal and value (and why it's become my DD since I have Amazon Prime).

Yes, I have a couple of subscription services, and I'm trying to get to 5k as quickly as possible. I already got like 3k charged on it before the first month, haha. My OCD needs to know that I'm getting the highest return on purchases with the cards I have.

Re: Uber Visa cash back categories DP thread

arkane — Mon, 19 Feb 2018 16:44:16 GMT

Updated OP with new info:

- Comcast no longer 2%

- Fastrak (e-toll in SF Bay Area) does get 2%. Kinda makes me wonder if this is Barclays way of giving back more for broadly defined "travel"

Re: Uber Visa cash back categories DP thread

Anonymous — Mon, 19 Feb 2018 23:17:21 GMT

Wait so TMobile does not get 2%?

Re: Uber Visa cash back categories DP thread

arkane — Mon, 19 Feb 2018 23:39:07 GMT

Nope.

However I expect more changes to come as Barclays continues to flip flop and finally decide on what counts and what doesn't for the 2% category.

Uber Visa Rewards Data Points

DaveInAZ — Fri, 08 Jun 2018 00:15:09 GMT

The reward categories for the Barclays Uber Visa are:

4% - on net purchases made at restaurants and UberEATS, as defined by merchant category codes, which includes restaurants, fast food restaurants, and bars.

3% - Airfare & hotels, including Airbnb

2% - "Online purchases", but defined as some online retailers including Amazon, Walmart.com, Best Buy. And streaming services and iTunes & Google Play.

1% - Everything else

I've had the card since March. The 4% on restaurants seems pretty straight forward, I've never not received 4% at restaurants or fast food; I haven't tried bars yet. I rarely travel so I haven't tried out the 3% yet. But the 2% "online" seems pretty hit or miss. I renewed my car registration online and only got 1%, I wasn't really expecting 2%, it was part of my spend for the SUB. Newegg works for 2% as does Amazon - it also works for 2% with Amazon Payments for merchants who take Amazon payments for payment processing - I recently bought a speaker at Monoprice and used Amazon Payments and got 2%.. I wouldn't use Uber on Walmart.com as I get 3% with my Walmart store card, but in store the Walmart card only gives 1% so I tried Uber and it did get 2% for an in store purchase.

Purchases through PayPal are also supposed to receive 2% but I've found that hit or miss. When I make an online purchases of a product and use PayPal to charge my Uber card I get 2%, but when I recently sold some items on eBay and used PayPal to purchase the postage labels I was surprised to see they only got 1%. The PayPal purchases show up on the Uber statement as PayPal * XXX, where "xxx" is the name of the merchant or eBay seller. The postage transactions show up as PayPal * USPS and those are the ones that only got 1%. Not a biggie, but just surprised Barclays apparently has a filter to disallow 2% on some PayPal purchases

So the purpose of this thread is for MyFico'ers to post their experiences with rewards on the Uber card to let other know about purchases that might not get the full rewards they expected, such as some travel purchase that didn't get 3%, or some mom and pop diner that didn't get 4%?

Re: Uber Visa Rewards Data Points

MrDisco99 — Fri, 08 Jun 2018 00:25:02 GMT

For "online purchases" you're probably better off just using a 2% everything card like Citi DC rather than roll the dice on whether you'll code for the right category with the Uber card.

Restaurants, and hotels/airfare are pretty easy to tell what is and what isn't.

Re: Uber Visa Rewards Data Points

UpperNwGuy — Fri, 08 Jun 2018 00:46:00 GMT

@MrDisco99 wrote:
For "online purchases" you're probably better off just using a 2% everything card like Citi DC rather than roll the dice on whether you'll code for the right category with the Uber card.

Restaurants, and hotels/airfare are pretty easy to tell what is and what isn't.

+1 My philosophy is to use category cards only when the category is worth 3% or more. I use my PenFed Power Cash Rewards (2% on everything) on any spending that doesn't get 3% or better.

If would be nice to hear from more Uber users about their experience with hotels and airfare. I'd also like to hear about how smoothly the redemptions are.

Re: Uber Visa Rewards Data Points

wasCB14 — Fri, 08 Jun 2018 06:05:26 GMT

As with several cards, the distinction between restaurants, grocery stores, and specialty merchants can be fuzzy.

Re: Uber Visa Rewards Data Points

CreditCuriosity — Fri, 08 Jun 2018 12:38:25 GMT

Used my card at hotel valet the last 3 days for a conference and got 3% back.. Was kinda shocked

Re: Uber Visa Rewards Data Points

imaximous — Fri, 08 Jun 2018 14:39:19 GMT

For those who go to Starbucks and use the mobile app, if you reload your card on the app, you get 2%. If you reload the card in-store at the register, you get 4%.
Moral: reload your card in-store when picking up your drinks