“Cards are basically a commodity at the end of the day; how you differentiate them is really what makes the difference,” Riley says. “That’s really the big deal here—how you use your card.” Riley has a card for grocery shopping and one for Amazon transactions; all of these steps help him earn the most points.
“One of the big challenges here on rewards is that quite often, you go in well-intentioned and you don’t get the full benefit of the rewards because you start revolving on the product,” Riley says, meaning cardmembers start accumulating interest on the unpaid balance, with interest charges wiping out the value earned by the rewards.
Riley points to one of the failings of the Apple Card: Apple oversold it. It’s slick, yes, but it never became a mainstream challenger to the credit card industry because the average consumer typically has three or four cards per household: one for all of their purchases, one for emergencies, and one that might focus on travel.
Sara Rathner, a credit card expert at NerdWallet, echoed that sentiment. “The Apple Card is far from the iPhone in terms of changing the world,” Rathner says. “It’s fine; it’s a cash-back card.” All of these cards exist to create brand loyalty, she says. If you have a lot of points with Hyatt, you’re more likely to book a stay at a Hyatt property on your next trip. If you make many purchases with Samsung Wallet, that might incentivize you to get the Galaxy Card.
Rathner says the 3 percent cash reward for purchases using the Samsung Wallet app is a really good rate. If you tap-to-pay at New York City’s subway turnstile with Samsung Wallet on your phone, for example, that’s 3 percent on every commute, and “that would be compelling.”
While Rathner finds the Apple Card underwhelming, she does credit Apple with innovating on certain features. For example, Apple allows you to see the interest rate and credit rate you would qualify for before a credit pull, something other credit cards are increasingly offering. The app (and card) have a beautiful design, the physical card is easy to activate with just a tap on the iPhone, and cash rewards are posted daily rather than waiting for a billing cycle.
“I think if other cards want to compete in that way and also follow suit with those features, I think that just makes credit cards in general better products for consumers,” Rathner says. “We’ll see how this resonates with people who have Samsung phones.”