Robinhood Markets acquired the X1 credit card, rebranded, and relaunched it as the Robinhood Gold Card and it’s creating some buzz. You can’t apply for it yet, but you can sign up to be notified when it’s available.
This is a 3% cash back card on everything, plus 5% back on travel booked through their portal. They call it a no annual fee card but you need a Robinhood Gold subscription first and that comes with a fee ($5 per month or $50 annually).
- 3% cash back into a Robinhood account, with no cap, plus 5% back on travel bookings through their portal.
- It’s a 17g metal card, though when you refer 10 people to the card you can earn their 36g version of the card which is made from 10 karat gold (capped at the first 5,000 who complete the referrals).
- No foreign transaction fees.
- But no initial bonus offer
For those who like cash back as their rewards, 3% is really strong. The bet here is that you’ll stick with Robinhood for trading activity. Some folks will work to offset the cost of the card with other Robinhood activities. For instance,
- they’ll offer you $1,000 0% cost margin which you can stick into 5%-earning and cover your fee.
- and they hope you’ll move IRA funds over to take advantage of their 3% match that Robinhood Gold members are eligible for – you have to keep your Gold subscription for a year and the funds earned from the match have to be kept in the account for at least 5 years.
For my purposes, I value earning 2 transferrable points per dollar at over 1.5 cents apiece and therefore slightly more than 3% cash back. I’m redeeming my miles for long haul premium cabin travel. If you travel primarily domestically you’re often better off earning cash back and buying tickets (or non-travel).
I’d rather pair a Wells Fargo Autograph Journey card and Active Cash, or other combo like Amex Gold and Blue Business Preferred, but this is going to be very attractive for a subset of readers in the same way the old X1 card was with its 3x earning on spend over $15,000 plus higher multiples for referring friends (4X, 5X, and even 10X).
I much prefer cash to points. It’ll be good if this motivates Fidelity and Schwab to bump up their branded cc’s cash back to match HOOD’s.
After watching an interview with the two guys behind Robinhood and the stunt they pulled shutting down trading to protect their billionaire investors I’m surprised they are still getting people to invest with them.
I wonder what they’re going to do with legacy cardholders. I’m an M1+ and Schwab investor, and have zero interest in gimmicky Robinhood. The X1 card was more hype than substance anyway, and the Altitude Reserve/Altitude Connect proved to be far better for cashback and benefits. The virtual card features and high credit limit were useful initially, but my Amex/BofA cards now have similar limits. Points regime wasn’t impressive, and inferior to fixed-points or straight cashback.
I already have the X1 card. Have not heard anything from RH so far. When X1 was unlimited it was not hype to me like Fenspinbi stated. TO fully use the 3X you had to use it on specific vendors. That fit my needs for this specific card. I also had the Paceline card for a yr that was 5% cash back groceries, drug stores and some other things and 3% everywhere else uncapped. That lasted a year for me plu s a free Apple Watch. Since VC money is no longer flowing free that deal is dead. But occasionally there is a unicorn offer. Seems to me there will be who complain about any program, not realizing that each program can fit a customer in a different way.
I have an X1 – it is completely useless except for the ease of generating one-time use #s. The 3x bonus feature on a single charge is a PITA which I have to activate every week, and the rewards are also a PITA because the highest ROI (1%) is only available on a half dozen merchants and must offset 100% of the charge. Another annoyance is that X1 autosubtracts your entire account balance on the payment date so if you use the card frequently you almost never know what your payment amount will be.
In sum I hope RH converts my card to a 3% cash back program like the old JCB Marukai – otherwise it will stay in the sock drawer. And no way I would ever refer 1 friend much less 10 to this dog.
Already a Robinhood Gold subscriber, so this card is “free” for me. On the waitlist, we will see how long the 3% cash back lasts. Will simplify my credit card strategy greatly if it operates as advertised.