Upromise should have more attention

kdm31091 · ‎09-05-2015

Here's my pitch for what I think is a pretty underrated card (so far): the Upromise card. Everyone has/loves Sallie Mae it seems, but Upromise gets very little mention.

The portal itself is extremely similar to Discover Deals and many of the percentages are the same (sometimes a bit higher on Upromise or vice versa). I will acknowledge that Upromise is a bit slow to credit the rewards, but then, Discover's only update once a month too so not a big difference.

For those who want a "travel card" with no fee and don't want to be locked in to any certain redemption, you can use the Upromise portal on Travelocity, Orbitz, etc and last I checked the rate is 10% back...better than you will get with many "travel" cards like Venture or even BOA's AAA with 3% travel, etc. Now of course, the "point hackers" will probably still prefer points, but for occasional travel, you can't beat 10% back. For me, this is a better alternative than holding 5 hotel cards like IHG etc.

You don't have to have any kind of loan to redeem the rewards. You can take a check. I opted to open a free Sallie Mae savings account since the yield is okay (for a savings account these days anyway) and you get a yearly 10% Upromise earnings match. Every time you reach earnings about $10 they send them to the savings account. As long as you make a monthly deposit of $25 or more from your actual checking, you get the 10% match. So I get up a $25 auto deposit. No min balance for the savings or anything. I figure it forces me to save and the Upromise earnings add up quickly -- this statement, I only spent ~130 and my rewards are $11 so far with one purchase still waiting to be credited.

It won't work for everyone, and it fits a different niche than most cards. It's not meant for your daily spending in the store on groceries/gas like Sallie Mae is, but just wanted to point out it has some major benefits that are overlooked, especially for occasional travel booking etc.

Just so I'm not a fanboy, I will say that it is a bit annoying that the rewards essentially go through 3 "steps": from your Barclay statement (for the non-online shopping anyway), over to Upromise, over to the savings account (or check). The process does take a bit of time. But again, most CCs only reward you monthly anyway.

jsucool76 · ‎09-05-2015

I used to have a upromise card. I liked it, and it was a decent product, but I don't shop online at stores too often. mostly amazon, and I have a forward card. my upromise never saw much use, but Barclay's offered me $100 to pc my upromise to arrival, so I did.

CreditCuriosity · ‎09-05-2015

If you shop online then decent card, otherwise for me it doesn't work. The restaurants that participate in it, I wouldn't feed my dog that food. Overall the SM IMO trumps the Upromise hand over fist for what I use it for. As we know not one card fits everyones taste/lifestyle. Not to mention of tons I mean tons of complaints of people going through hoops to get credited their rewards for whatever reason; appears to be some system glitches with that card on rewards posting correctly alot of times

kdm31091 · ‎09-05-2015

@CreditCuriousity wrote:
If you shop online then decent card, otherwise for me it doesn't work. The restaurants that participate in it, I wouldn't feed my dog that food. Overall the SM IMO trumps the Upromise hand over fist for what I use it for. As we know not one card fits everyones taste/lifestyle. Not to mention of tons I mean tons of complaints of people going through hoops to get credited their rewards for whatever reason; appears to be some system glitches with that card on rewards posting correctly alot of times

Everything I've purchased so far has posted correctly - albeit slowly like I mentioned. Takes a couple weeks for the purchases to show up. Really not a big deal.

I agree the restaurants are not exciting...this is primarily a good (IMO) online shopping card.

As an aside, this doesn't have to be a "one or the other" thing...you can take your Sallie Mae rewards and put them in Upromise if you so choose. Then you can get the 10% bonus in the savings account each year. You don't need the Upromise CC to do that. Anyway, not intending to compare it to Sallie Mae as they are very different products.

CreditCuriosity · ‎09-05-2015

@kdm31091 wrote:
@CreditCuriousity wrote:
If you shop online then decent card, otherwise for me it doesn't work. The restaurants that participate in it, I wouldn't feed my dog that food. Overall the SM IMO trumps the Upromise hand over fist for what I use it for. As we know not one card fits everyones taste/lifestyle. Not to mention of tons I mean tons of complaints of people going through hoops to get credited their rewards for whatever reason; appears to be some system glitches with that card on rewards posting correctly alot of times
Everything I've purchased so far has posted correctly - albeit slowly like I mentioned. Takes a couple weeks for the purchases to show up. Really not a big deal.

I agree the restaurants are not exciting...this is primarily a good (IMO) online shopping card.

As an aside, this doesn't have to be a "one or the other" thing...you can take your Sallie Mae rewards and put them in Upromise if you so choose. Then you can get the 10% bonus in the savings account each year. You don't need the Upromise CC to do that.

This another reason I really don't go for this card as I can sign up any CC whether it is SM or my CSP or my Plat to be part of the upromise program if I am not mistaken? I believe the Upromise card just gives a bit more on top of it is all. The whole thing is kinda confusing to me to be quite honest. It is about as clear asa mud as I do have a upromise account along with a Sallie mae now Navient SL that I would love my SM / Upromise rewards to get to, but it just isn't very clear how to do it. I am sure I can spend an hour one day and figure it all out to make it seamless, but just has been a headache what I have read so far and the steps needed. If you can let me know how to link my SM card and other card for that matter and if I happen to frequent x bar/restraunt or shop that online portal or whatever that I might by chance get those bonus rewards then ALSO have them credited against my balance on my SM/Navient student loan I would be very grateful

Current balance of Navient loan:

Balance

$48,926.00

No hurry to pay that bad boy off at 3.5% interest, make more money putting money other places. Price of a good education and that isn't near what it started at!

kdm31091 · ‎09-05-2015

@CreditCuriousity wrote:
@kdm31091 wrote:
@CreditCuriousity wrote:
If you shop online then decent card, otherwise for me it doesn't work. The restaurants that participate in it, I wouldn't feed my dog that food. Overall the SM IMO trumps the Upromise hand over fist for what I use it for. As we know not one card fits everyones taste/lifestyle. Not to mention of tons I mean tons of complaints of people going through hoops to get credited their rewards for whatever reason; appears to be some system glitches with that card on rewards posting correctly alot of times
Everything I've purchased so far has posted correctly - albeit slowly like I mentioned. Takes a couple weeks for the purchases to show up. Really not a big deal.

I agree the restaurants are not exciting...this is primarily a good (IMO) online shopping card.

As an aside, this doesn't have to be a "one or the other" thing...you can take your Sallie Mae rewards and put them in Upromise if you so choose. Then you can get the 10% bonus in the savings account each year. You don't need the Upromise CC to do that.
This another reason I really don't go for this card as I can sign up any CC whether it is SM or my CSP or my Plat to be part of the upromise program if I am not mistaken? I believe the Upromise card just gives a bit more on top of it is all. The whole thing is kinda confusing to me to be quite honest. It is about as clear asa mud as I do have a upromise account along with a Sallie mae now Navient SL that I would love my SM / Upromise rewards to get to, but it just isn't very clear how to do it. I am sure I can spend an hour one day and figure it all out to make it seamless, but just has been a headache what I have read so far and the steps needed. If you can let me know how to link my SM card and other card for that matter and if I happen to frequent x bar/restraunt or shop that online portal or whatever that I might by chance get those bonus rewards then ALSO have them credited against my balance on my SM/Navient student loan I would be very grateful

Not sure as far as redeeming for the student loan as I don't have one but yes, any CC can be linked to Upromise. The difference with a Sallie Mae card is that your actual rewards just from spending on the Sallie (nothing to do with Upromise) can then be deposited into upromise. Just like with my Upromise card, if I were to put day to day spending on it, the 1% would go into my upromise acct (and I think it's 2% on dept stores).

If you link a CSP to Upromise, you'll just earn any bonus portal rewards on the spend. You can't send your actual CSP rewards to Upromise as cash.

It is a bit confusing, and takes some time to sift through, but for some people, it's a good deal.

CreditCuriosity · ‎09-05-2015

@kdm31091 wrote:
@CreditCuriousity wrote:
@kdm31091 wrote:
@CreditCuriousity wrote:
If you shop online then decent card, otherwise for me it doesn't work. The restaurants that participate in it, I wouldn't feed my dog that food. Overall the SM IMO trumps the Upromise hand over fist for what I use it for. As we know not one card fits everyones taste/lifestyle. Not to mention of tons I mean tons of complaints of people going through hoops to get credited their rewards for whatever reason; appears to be some system glitches with that card on rewards posting correctly alot of times
Everything I've purchased so far has posted correctly - albeit slowly like I mentioned. Takes a couple weeks for the purchases to show up. Really not a big deal.

I agree the restaurants are not exciting...this is primarily a good (IMO) online shopping card.

As an aside, this doesn't have to be a "one or the other" thing...you can take your Sallie Mae rewards and put them in Upromise if you so choose. Then you can get the 10% bonus in the savings account each year. You don't need the Upromise CC to do that.
This another reason I really don't go for this card as I can sign up any CC whether it is SM or my CSP or my Plat to be part of the upromise program if I am not mistaken? I believe the Upromise card just gives a bit more on top of it is all. The whole thing is kinda confusing to me to be quite honest. It is about as clear asa mud as I do have a upromise account along with a Sallie mae now Navient SL that I would love my SM / Upromise rewards to get to, but it just isn't very clear how to do it. I am sure I can spend an hour one day and figure it all out to make it seamless, but just has been a headache what I have read so far and the steps needed. If you can let me know how to link my SM card and other card for that matter and if I happen to frequent x bar/restraunt or shop that online portal or whatever that I might by chance get those bonus rewards then ALSO have them credited against my balance on my SM/Navient student loan I would be very grateful
Not sure as far as redeeming for the student loan as I don't have one but yes, any CC can be linked to Upromise. The difference with a Sallie Mae card is that your actual rewards just from spending on the Sallie (nothing to do with Upromise) can then be deposited into upromise. Just like with my Upromise card, if I were to put day to day spending on it, the 1% would go into my upromise acct (and I think it's 2% on dept stores).

If you link a CSP to Upromise, you'll just earn any bonus portal rewards on the spend. You can't send your actual CSP rewards to Upromise as cash.

It is a bit confusing, and takes some time to sift through, but for some people, it's a good deal.

I agree it is or could be a good deal, the thing is they make it way more confusing than necessary. The point of it is to honestly apply to your student loans aka SM/Navient and the whole process is a nightmare from what I have seen so far and don't want to lose my $ earned in no where land as I don't understand how to link all that stuff and make it flow seemlessly. They could of done alot better interface to make it a ton easier, but I think they kinda want to make it confusing to be honest.. Maybe I will try to figure it out today just since you mentioned this subject and been putting it off umm maybe a few years now.

I work in IT for a living and this is confusing as heck to me. If is confusing to me, imagine the normal joe smoe.

Anonymous · ‎09-05-2015

@kdm31091 wrote:
@CreditCuriousity wrote:
If you shop online then decent card, otherwise for me it doesn't work. The restaurants that participate in it, I wouldn't feed my dog that food. Overall the SM IMO trumps the Upromise hand over fist for what I use it for. As we know not one card fits everyones taste/lifestyle. Not to mention of tons I mean tons of complaints of people going through hoops to get credited their rewards for whatever reason; appears to be some system glitches with that card on rewards posting correctly alot of times
Everything I've purchased so far has posted correctly - albeit slowly like I mentioned. Takes a couple weeks for the purchases to show up. Really not a big deal.

I agree the restaurants are not exciting...this is primarily a good (IMO) online shopping card.

As an aside, this doesn't have to be a "one or the other" thing...you can take your Sallie Mae rewards and put them in Upromise if you so choose. Then you can get the 10% bonus in the savings account each year. You don't need the Upromise CC to do that. Anyway, not intending to compare it to Sallie Mae as they are very different products.

Time to sprout a seedling. In one year you will have grown a ruby?!

kdm31091 · ‎09-05-2015

Right....it's confusing, but could be worth figuring out.

Personally, I'm liking this card. I shop online for many things anyway, and this is just an extra incentive. Although the savings account doesnt make much (0.80% APY), it's more than my regular savings account that is 0.05%. Nobody will get rich from this, but it's a rainy day fund and provides a small yearly bonus on your Upromise earnings.

As much effort as we put into thinking about CC rewards, it can't hurt to think about saving some actual money up, too

@Spider...definitely gardening. I have no real want/need for any other cards right now, if anything I want to pare down. Problem is all of my cards more or less serve a purpose.

CreditCuriosity · ‎09-05-2015

.80 isn't a bad rate to be honest compared to some other savings accounts out there it appears to be one of the better.. Question is how easy is your money to access from it.. Although with that said it should be somewhat tough or a savings account is just a checking account