cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Anyone familiar with Baxter CU and their travel rewards?

tag
Wrigley2172
Frequent Contributor

Anyone familiar with Baxter CU and their travel rewards?

Evening all. Recently joined BCU off a recommendation from Maize. Was checking out their products and noticed their travel rewards card offers a flat 2x on purchases and a 10k sub for 1k spend. Found a website linked below that seems like their points are fairly valuable claiming ~33k points would be good for a ticket anywhere domestically. Although I am not sure how I feel about that. Anyone familiar with their/CU points in general? Are other CU's like NFCU similar? Are they vastly different than MR/UR?

 

https://me.bcu.org/CURewardsNotLoggedIn.aspx

https://www.bcu.org/Products/Credit-Cards/United-States/Travel-Rewards

Affinity Cash Rewards: 15,000
Amex BCP: 30,000
Amex Platinum
BCU Cash Rewards: 18,000
Discover it: 14,700
TJX Mastercard: 2,500
Venmo: 10,000
>>23k student loan-payed off
Ficos 8's ~790
Inq: EX:1 EQ:1 TU:1
Message 1 of 11
10 REPLIES 10
AnimatorProcrastinator
Regular Contributor

Re: Anyone familiar with Baxter CU and their travel rewards?

I've been a member for maybe 3 years now and it's my primary bank. I really don't use my travel rewards card, mainly because it has a $1,000 limit and I dont want an HP to raise it. They approved me for a $14,000 platinum card after using the Travel card for about a year for small transactions. I still haven't used the 10,000 points from the SUB, but I have checked out their travel redemption portal and it does seem that they are generally 1 cent per point. From my understanding, they use a third party form of points called CU Rewards points. If you're the kind of person who likes to have one credit card, it is a good choice. However, I use my Amex cards for travel over this card. I do use my platinum card a lot for its low rate, but I am working towards getting a platinum with NFCU because their lowest is around 7% as opposed to BCU's 10%. All considered, I love BCU and don't see myself using any other bank or credit union as my primary bank any time soon. Their customer service has been phenomenal every time I needed something, and their checking and rainy day savings accounts are amazing.


Message 2 of 11
Wrigley2172
Frequent Contributor

Re: Anyone familiar with Baxter CU and their travel rewards?

I absolutly agree, the call from their CS team to welcome me 2-3 weeks ago was actually quite nice. Ive been banking with chase since i was 15 or 16 and had a high school checking lol. But i plan on making BCU my main bank from now on while keeping the chase open for in branch offers and the history there. Wasent really thinking of apping a card unless it was their cash card. I just thought it was odd that a smaller CU could boast points that seemed so valuable on their sites.


@AnimatorProcrastinator wrote:

 


 

Affinity Cash Rewards: 15,000
Amex BCP: 30,000
Amex Platinum
BCU Cash Rewards: 18,000
Discover it: 14,700
TJX Mastercard: 2,500
Venmo: 10,000
>>23k student loan-payed off
Ficos 8's ~790
Inq: EX:1 EQ:1 TU:1
Message 3 of 11
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Anyone familiar with Baxter CU and their travel rewards?


@Wrigley2172 wrote:

I absolutly agree, the call from their CS team to welcome me 2-3 weeks ago was actually quite nice. Ive been banking with chase since i was 15 or 16 and had a high school checking lol. But i plan on making BCU my main bank from now on while keeping the chase open for in branch offers and the history there. Wasent really thinking of apping a card unless it was their cash card. I just thought it was odd that a smaller CU could boast points that seemed so valuable on their sites.


@AnimatorProcrastinator wrote:

 


 


It's not really all that valuable. 2 points per dollar and a $100 value SUB is nothing. There are CUs with much higher SUBs. Most people find those points programs to be difficult to use so their points just go to waste anyway. 

Message 4 of 11
Wrigley2172
Frequent Contributor

Re: Anyone familiar with Baxter CU and their travel rewards?

When you put it that way ya it does seen pretty lack luster lol. Im still new to the points game, i think it was Noir who said it took them a year to fully understand them. Im not there yet😂
Affinity Cash Rewards: 15,000
Amex BCP: 30,000
Amex Platinum
BCU Cash Rewards: 18,000
Discover it: 14,700
TJX Mastercard: 2,500
Venmo: 10,000
>>23k student loan-payed off
Ficos 8's ~790
Inq: EX:1 EQ:1 TU:1
Message 5 of 11
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Anyone familiar with Baxter CU and their travel rewards?

I'm not a fan of points programs. Reading about devaluations and constant flux in redemption values has pretty much killed any real interest I might have had. Much prefer cash. 

Message 6 of 11
Wrigley2172
Frequent Contributor

Re: Anyone familiar with Baxter CU and their travel rewards?


@Anonymous wrote:

I'm not a fan of points programs. Reading about devaluations and constant flux in redemption values has pretty much killed any real interest I might have had. Much prefer cash. 


What?? But were both young and spry! Were supposed to be into whatever is hip and trendy arent we? I mean.... look at your shiny apple card!

Affinity Cash Rewards: 15,000
Amex BCP: 30,000
Amex Platinum
BCU Cash Rewards: 18,000
Discover it: 14,700
TJX Mastercard: 2,500
Venmo: 10,000
>>23k student loan-payed off
Ficos 8's ~790
Inq: EX:1 EQ:1 TU:1
Message 7 of 11
spiritcraft1
Valued Contributor

Re: Anyone familiar with Baxter CU and their travel rewards?

We have had BCU accounts for 12 years.  Before our financial downfall in 2014 we had a couple auto loans from them, paid off.  They were always good.  The only card that survived our meltdown was a business Visa that is no a "Travel Rewards" card for some reason.  We have used the points for flights and in checking rates, it was basically the same price as any travel site and one point per dollar.  They are very easy to deal with.  Two of our kids have accounts and cards with them as well, easy no doc approvals.


Biz |
Current F08 -
Current 2,4,5 -
Current F09 -
No PG Biz Credit in Order of Approval - Uline, Quill, Grainger, SupplyWorks, MSC, Amsterdam, Citi Tractor Supply Rev .8k, NewEgg Net 30 10k, Richelieu 2k, Wurth Supply 2k, Global Ind 2k, Sam's Club Store 11.k, Shell Fleet 19.5k, Citi Exxon 2.5k, Dell Biz Revolving $15k, B&H Photo, $5k

Message 8 of 11
UH_HUH
Valued Contributor

Re: Anyone familiar with Baxter CU and their travel rewards?

Just going to echo what everyone else is saying. Great CU The welcome emails and calls along

with the personal banker made it super easy to ask questions and feel welcomed. Asked for 15K

and they granted it. Made it known they want to be my "everything bank" not gonna go that far

but can't blame em for trying :-)

Cheers

Message 9 of 11
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Anyone familiar with Baxter CU and their travel rewards?


@Wrigley2172 wrote:

@Anonymous wrote:

I'm not a fan of points programs. Reading about devaluations and constant flux in redemption values has pretty much killed any real interest I might have had. Much prefer cash. 


What?? But were both young and spry! Were supposed to be into whatever is hip and trendy arent we? I mean.... look at your shiny apple card!


Lol I got my Apple Card with a SP so it was a no brainer but since I don't leave the house hardly ever and my other cards earn more, it's not even in my wallet. I was using it for iTunes and then I got the BCP which gives me 6% instead of 3%. I'll probably use it for iTunes again when I downgrade BCP to BCE in September. That was last year when I was in "add all the shinies" mode. Now I'm in "let's simplify" mode and I'll probably shed some cards this year. 

If I was able to travel and had the income to do so, I would think about points and really crunch the numbers but I like to have solid plans and budgets well in advance and that's not as easy to do with fluctuating values in points. 

Message 10 of 11
Advertiser Disclosure: The offers that appear on this site are from third party advertisers from whom FICO receives compensation.