My DH co-signed a student loan with my daughter during her college it was first through Sallie Mae which well yikes they were not a good company but this is not the place! We refinanced it to Earnest. I know I know they are owned by Navient but it was a good rate. It got put under my email instead of my DH's I forget why I think his email was locked out or something when we were doing this. Anyways today I get an invitation to apply for a new card product from Earnest. It's called the Earnest Card. It's sort of like a Citi Custom Cash but not totally. It earn 3% cash back (with a $500 cap combined) on all purchases made within your highest spend category for each month. Your highest spend category will be determined on day 6 of each calendar month. It earns 2% cash back (with a cap of $500 combined) on all purchases made within your second highest spend category for each month. So in case it's a bit confusing the 3% and 2% cash back cap it all together so if I spend $350 at restaurants boom 3% and $300 at gas stations you've met your $500 cap and gone $150 over it. All other purchases after the cap earn 1% cash back. The card includes a $100 welcome bonus after spending $1000 in the first 3 billing cycles. You can NOT redeem cash back to your bank account or in the form of a check cash back earned by using this card must be redeemed as statement credit or towards a student loan and it does not have to be an earnest loan it could be a Sallie Mae loan or MOHELA and Private or Federal dosen't matter. Here's the part that dosen't make much sense to me their website has a faq section on how the student loan cash back rewards system works it states "Say you use the Earnest Card for three months and you spend $1000. You earn 1.25% cash back, but if you put that cash back towards a student loan, the value will increase to 1.50%. This means you can redeem $12.50 as a statement credit towards your credit card balance or $15 towards your student loan repayment.
Your cash back credit card rewards are worth more (1.5%) when used towards student loans than when used towards your credit card balance (1.25%). Once you select to put your cash back towards a student loan, you'll be asked to enter your student loan information, so that we can send a check to your student loan provider." This must have to do with the redemption rate as the website says 3%,2%,1%.
The card can be used instantly after applying via Apple Pay! This card is not issued by Earnest/Navient it is issued by Celtic Bank, which is powered by Deserve. Their the company behind the BlockFi Card and a few others. The card does not do a HP on your credit when submitting an application. I took a shot at it but was shot down for inquiries. I did have a little app spree a few months ago so fair. I think the card is targeted mainly at college students and possibly parent borrowers who co-signed/took out a loan for their child. The tab on earnest's main page still states the card is in waitlist mode. However I got an email with an apply link as well as my DD. The link dosen't seem targeted as it has no /'s after it that link is https://earnest.deserve.com/! So let me know what you all think about this card honestly I think for a college kid this paired with maybe a Discover It Card or something of the sort isn't that bad.
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Definitely looks like this card is stuck in transition between being a 1.25% back card and a 3%-2%-1% card. There are old promo images of the Earnest Card that show screens like this:
which make it seem like it's a 1.25% back card (but, as mentioned above, becomes 1.5% back when sent to a student loan); the website image that shows a similar screen with a $60 statement credit option and a $72 student loan option (which would be 1.25% and 1.5% of $4800 in spend).
But, the new promo images (including the 3%-2%-1% animation they've put up) make no mention of this, and neither do the CC cardholder agreement, which simply states that "you can redeem your cash back as a statement credit or when you choose to use your cash back to repay your student loan debt."
What gives?
This would make more sense to me as the current info makes no sense at all. I'm quite surprised they are sending out apply emails without updating the faq's!!!