The Venmo credit card now has a cashback on your spending. But how does it measure up to other credit cards? Let’s dig in!
When it comes to the Venmo credit card, you typically have cards earning a flat rate for any purchase or cards earning bonus cash back in certain categories, such as grocery stores or gas.
The Venmo Credit Card likely was designed to offer competition to such cards by making the rewards process even easier to do and yet generating high cashback rates. Does it, though, offer enough value to match more mature credit cards?
What is Venmo?
Venmo is a payment application service that was introduced in 2009 as a means for friends and family to send simple and secure payments between each other.
It could be something like paying a friend for lunch, paying a rent to a roommate, or dividing gas on a family road trip. Venmo is owned by PayPal and has more than 70 million users. The Venmo mobile application is available to download on iOS and Android devices.
To expand its financial services, Venmo offers branded financial products. The two are the Venmo Debit Card and the Venmo Credit Card. Venmo is a financial services app that was created in the early days of 2009 as a platform through which friends and family could make instant and safe payments to each other.
This could include buying someone dinner, sending money for rent to a roommate, or chipping in for gas on a family trip. Venmo is a subsidiary of PayPal and serves more than 70 million customers.
Venmo has branded financial products in an effort to expand its financial services. These are the Venmo Debit Card and the Venmo Credit Card.
How does the Venmo Credit Card Work?
Although the Venmo Debit Card is a Mastercard, the Venmo Credit Card is a Visa card issued by Synchrony Bank. It offers cashback on every purchase you make, though the process of earning rewards and bonuses differs from other cashback cards.
The Venmo Credit Card is integrated with the Venmo app, so you can have all your Venmo services centrally managed in one place.
The earning power of the Venmo Credit Card is the first benefit, but you do get other benefits and features to add value to the card. The rewards are:
1. Virtual Card Number
Your card is always with you inside the Venmo app in the event you ever need it. It’s easy to continue using your card for buying things online, even if you don’t have your actual card with you.
This could be especially useful if you misplaced or lost your card or are expecting your actual card to be sent to you.
2. Special Color and Custom QR Code
Choosing the card color doesn’t serve much purpose, but everyone would like to be able to have a little bit of control over card colors. Available colors include Cotton Candy, Night Life, Denim, Campfire, and Tropical Islands.
Your card’s face will also get a special Venmo QR code so that friends can scan it and instantly bring up your Venmo profile to divide up payments.
3. Contactless Payments
The best contactless credit cards make it easy to breeze through in-store checkouts without touching any surfaces. The Venmo Credit Card features secure, contactless technology that works with contactless-enabled terminals. Look for the contactless symbol (it looks like a Wi-Fi symbol) to find a compatible payment terminal.
4. No Annual Fee
Fees annually reduce the value of credit cards, but you will not be charged an annual fee with the Venmo Credit Card. The Venmo Credit Card is only for existing Venmo users. This means that you need to have a Venmo account in order to apply for and use the Venmo Credit Card.
Fortunately, it’s also free to sign up and use Venmo. Also, the Venmo app is free to download from both the App Store and Google Play. You must have a good-standing Venmo account, which has been open for at least 30 days prior to applying.
The Venmo Rewards Package
The biggest draw to cashback credit cards is the possibility of making cash back on every purchase you make or specific types of purchases that you regularly make. If you have the ability to get a good cashback rate on the categories where you tend to spend, you’ve definitely found yourself a great cashback card.
The Venmo Credit Card offers three rates of cashback rewards on purchases: 3%, 2%, and 1%. You, however, have no categories allocated to each rate.
The Venmo Credit Card will automatically offer you 3% cash back in your highest-spending category during a given statement period. The 2% category is provided to your second-highest spending category, and the rest of your purchases earn you the 1% rate.
So if you spend $500 on bills and utilities, $300 on dining, and $200 on gas during a statement period, you’d receive 3% cash back on $500, 2% cash back on $300, and 1% cash back on $200.
Your total cash back for the month would be $23. This system of automatically applying higher rates of cashback to your highest spending categories can make the Venmo Credit Card potentially the best credit card for Venmo.
Last Words
The Venmo Credit Card and the Venmo app are linked, so it’s easy to manage all things related to your card within the app. That means day-to-day things like checking your Venmo Credit Card balance and your rewards history.
But you can also use the app to modify your autopay settings, request a new virtual card number, view your credit card purchases, and turn your physical card on and off.
So if you want to check out your spending habits in your transaction history and see prior credit card statements, the app is where to go. It’s also a convenient way to review and pay your credit card bill each month.
