For those of you who have the Fidelity 1.5% cashback card, are there any downsides to this at all? How long has it been around?
I have been using my citi dividend 5%/1% card for a while now, but am close to reaching the $300 limit. I also just opened a Fidelity account for mutual funds, so having an account there is no problem.
Im interested in knowing some people's experiences with this Fidelity card. Thanks.
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I've had the Fidelity 1.5% card for a while and it works just fine. The only issue is that MBNA does not always get you Fidelity account number when you apply for the card. This happened to me. Make sure that you call MBNA after you get the card to confirm.
CashBack is completely seamless. I gave MBNA my Fidelity acct #, and it's been showing up then every quarter. I then just transfer the CashBack to my external checking account that I already had linked there. Alternatively, I could use it to fund my Roth. The whole thing is totally automatic, could not be easier.
I use it everything except foreign currency transactions because they charge 3% -- for that I just use MBNA Merrill Lynch (no foreign %)
i have the card, with about $80 in rewards, but i'm not sure it's automatic?? i thought i had to call and request a xfer to my fidelity account. i'm not worried, 1.5% back is better than 1 or 1.25!
Thanks for the response. The citi dividend card limit is $300 / year. I was just afraid there was some hidden fee somewhere with the Fidelity card. I have been using my citi card for a while and have never had any problems at all.
didYOUsearch said:Dont plan on keeping this card and accumulating rewards long term.
Any credit card company can change the rebate terms at anytime, so it doesn't really matter what BofA will do. I simply choose a card that gives me the highest cash rebate now as my primary card.
didYOUsearch said:doesnt matter, this card will be GONE once the BofA/MBNA merger is complete. BofA is not likely to continue issuing a Fidelity-branded card.
Dont plan on keeping this card and accumulating rewards long term.
Hope not. Just maybe bofa has learned from past M&A and will actually try to maintain the affinity business that's made MBNA worth 35B to them.
Ah well, you're probably right.
In the meantime I'll take the 1.5 on my wife's card and the 0% BT I've got going on mine.
bk330ci said:I use it everything except foreign currency transactions because they charge 3% -- for that I just use MBNA Merrill Lynch (no foreign %)
I notice that you posted this in the thread on fees on foreign transactions. I asked about this there, but never saw an answer.
I believe that quite a few FWers and FTers would like to hear more about this, since the experience of others is different (no fee, no written change in T&C), etc. Could you tell us, when did you receive notice of this change? Since the 3% fee was clearly not part of the original T&C, when did the change occur? I've been watching this for a while, and so far as I can tell, you are the only person to report the higher fee for foreign transactions on this card. Thanks for more info.
And to respond to the OP, this is my primary card, no problems at all, works well, including no extra fee for foreign transactions.
didYOUsearch said:doesnt matter, this card will be GONE once the BofA/MBNA merger is complete. BofA is not likely to continue issuing a Fidelity-branded card.
Dont plan on keeping this card and accumulating rewards long term.
That's plain wrong. Ken Lewis, BoA's CEO, has been questioned about issuing cards for other finanicial by analysts because they're worried not that BoA will drop them, but that other financial instituions will drop BoA. His quote - "Where else will they go?" Hence, his intent is not to drop them.
Grifman said:didYOUsearch said:doesnt matter, this card will be GONE once the BofA/MBNA merger is complete. BofA is not likely to continue issuing a Fidelity-branded card.
Dont plan on keeping this card and accumulating rewards long term.
That's plain wrong. Ken Lewis, BoA's CEO, has been questioned about issuing cards for other finanicial by analysts because they're worried not that BoA will drop them, but that other financial instituions will drop BoA. His quote - "Where else will they go?" Hence, his intent is not to drop them.
did you even read grrarrgh's post in the thread I linked?
more evidence that cobranded cards will be making like the dinosaurs:
"The Bank of America deal turns MBNA into a direct competitor of its current partners. Bank of America management told analysts that they expect to lose some business as a result, leading to a 7 percent drop in revenues by 2009. They declined to discuss specific partnerships
More discussions of the 1.5% Fido card in BofA/MBNA merger thread DYS already quoted.
I do not think that we can conjecture about the fate of the 1.5% Fido card one way or the other. It will purely be a business dicision. That is, is it more profitable and/or more efficient for BofA to keep the 1.5% Fido card?
On the plus side, it is still a positive on the balance sheet with a 1.5% rebate considering the merchant cc charges (2-3%?). The corporate relationship with Fidelity is certainly worthwhile. BofA may want to stay competitive in the rebate cc business.
On the negative side, BofA may want more aggressive profit with the "cc debt-oriented" consumers rather than "rebate-oriented" consumers. There are some BofA hidden agenda (partnership) like DYS rightfully pointed out.
BofA (or MBNA) has already started to consolidate the numerous accounts that were developed during the HGW1/HGW4 and recent CGE4/CGFX eras. That is definitely necessary from the efficiency perspective.
Learning from the BofA/BofBoston merger, it (the change) may be be a gradual process.
I certainly hope that BofA eventually keep the 1.5% Fido card from the competitive standpoint.
If i were a betting man, I'd be betting against an ongoing fidelity/bofa card relationship -- and all other cobranded fin institution cards. That bieng said, and the article I quoted notwithstanding, of the cobranded financial institution cards, Fidelity has one of the best chances of surviving -- they aren't a bank, and bofa's mutual fund offerings are pretty pathetic, so there's a larger chance of synergy/lower competition. (Nonetheless, bofa brokerage and fidelity brokerage will be in direct competition...)
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