Update: NMEFCU changed their name to Nusenda Credit Union. We’ve also added the 5% categories for 2016.
This is our first post in a new weekly series we’re doing called Weird Wednesdays where we look at unknown or little known credit cards that might be useful. You can view future posts in this series by clicking here.
The Nusenda Federal Credit Union offers a credit card that offers 5% cash back in rotating categories on the first $1,500 in purchases per quarter. The card has no annual fee. If this sounds familiar, it’s because the Chase Freedom & Discover it cards also offer the same rewards program. Those cards have been blogged about to death and this is a new opportunity so let’s delve a little further.
Contents
Rewards Program
The credit card is called the “Visa® Platinum Cash Rewards credit card from Nusenda Credit Union” and offers 1% cash back on all purchases that don’t fall within the 5% rotating categories. There is no sign up bonus on this card, but there is a sign up promotion that offers 2% cash back on all purchases for the first 90 days. This isn’t particularly useful as it’s possible to get 2% cash back or more on all of your purchases with other credit cards.
Rotating Categories
The rotating categories have been the same the five three years. I love the fact that you get two quarters of gas and restaurants, especially since there is no longer any credit cards that get 5% cash back on restaurant purchases year round. Grocery store purchases are also pretty easy to make with the amount of grocery stores that sell $500 Visa gift cards.
| Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Groceries + Gas Expenses | Movies, Restaurants & Home Improvements | Gas & Education Expenses | Restaurants, Hotels & Airfare |
| 2017 | Groceries + Gas Expenses | Movies, Restaurants & Home Improvements | Gas & Education Expenses | Restaurants, Hotels & Airfare |
| 2016 | Groceries + Gas Expenses | Movies, Restaurants & Home Improvements | Gas & Education Expenses | Restaurants, Hotels & Airfare |
| 2015 | Groceries + Gas Expenses | Movies, Restaurants & Home Improvements | Gas & Education Expenses | Restaurants, Hotels & Airfare |
| 2014 | Groceries + Gas Expenses | Movies, Restaurants & Home Improvements | Gas & Education Expenses | Restaurants, Hotels & Airfare |
Redeeming Your Cash
The Nusenda Federal Credit Union website links to the Score Card Rewards website for Cash Rewards redemption information. But as far as I can tell that website only deals with redeeming points (these points seem to be worth less than 1¢ a piece, which is important as they offer a Platinum Rewards card which earns 3x points in the same categories with the same $1,500 limit that earns these points).
I’m not sure what the minimum amount of cash back you need to earn is because of this or what the redeeming process is like.
Membership Qualification & Applying
Join The Credit Union
Update: Turns out you can join by becoming a member of one of their partner organizations. We discuss doing this in this dedicated post.
To join the Nusenda Federal Credit Union you need to open a savings account with a minimum opening deposit of at least $5. You need to either be:
- Employed by one of the select employer groups
- Be a student at one of the participating schools
- A member of certain associations
- Live work, worship or attend school in Socorro county, Taos county or Valencia county which are all in New Mexico
- Have an eligible family member that is already a member
- Or volunteer at one of the participating organizations/charities
I had a pretty good look at everything and I couldn’t find any organizations, associations or charities that had open membership or that could be joined for cheap. But I might have missed something, if you find something then let me know.
Apply Without Joining
It looks like you might not need to be a member of this credit union before you apply for this card.  Here is what you’ll need to do:
- Go to the cash rewards cards page
- Click open a cash rewards card
- In the middle you will see “apply for a loan online”, fill out your e-mail and password then click start my application
- Fill out the security questions then click enroll
- Click “apply for a credit card”
- Click “Visa Cash Rewards” and then “next”
- Fill out your information
It does ask you for membership number and how long you’ve been a member for, but this is not compulsory information. I never completed my application, so I am unsure if this will actually work but my gut says that it won’t.
Fees & Other Key Information
- They seem to pull Experian for this card
- A lot of the paperwork needs to be printed out, filled out and snail mailed in to be approved for this card
- Minimum credit limit of $5,000, they might approve for your the Platinum or Platinum Rewards cards if you do not qualify for this credit limit.
- Card has no balance transfer fees
- Comes with a number of benefits outlined here
- Concierge service
- Price protection
- Supplemental auto rental insurance
- Travel & emergency assistance
- $500,000 in travel accident insurance
- Warranty Manager Service
Our Verdict
In the end, I decided to not apply for this card. The main reason I decided against it was the fact that there is no sign up bonus, let’s say you value your hard credit pulls at $200 – you’d need to spend $4,000 on this card to recoup that $200.
But if you had $4,000 in purchases you wouldn’t suddenly use cash, you’d use a cash back card that earns at least 2% cash back. That means you need to spend $6,667 to break even which is more than a year maxing out the 5% categories each quarter. Realistically I am not going to max them out every quarter as I already have the Freedom & it cards and I also generally value my hard pulls at more than $200.
This card might still make sense for some people, but for the moment I’m going to pass. If you do decide to sign up for this card, let us know what the process was like in the comments as well as how you redeem your cash back.
I hope you enjoyed this post and I look forward to writing more about unknown/little known credit cards. I need you’re help finding them, so if you find something that looks interesting/a bit different then please contact me.
I did wanted this card but now can’t even get it cause I live in California . But yeah, I think it was for the best to not get this card then…
The last comment from 4 years ago is spot on. This card is great in theory as another 5% rotating card in your arsenal, but in practice it’s not worth it, as it has been the least dependable of all my credit cards as far purchases coding correctly to actually earn the 5% cashback advertised.
The reason why the cashback sucks is that Nusenda outsources the rewards program to a trash company called ScoreCard Rewards. They are a below-the-radar bottom-feeder borderline-predatory company whose business model is to work with small banks/CU’s and run their card rewards program, but then try to not actually pay the rewards out. Or get you to redeem your rewards on a way overpriced catalog of junk items instead of cash 1:1. Their website UI is worryingly ancient and as mentioned by others, you have to earn $50 in cashback before you can actually cash out your money. Which is by far an industry high redemption threshold. I’ve never seen any other CC with a threshold higher than $25.
I’ve had this card for 7 years now and I’ve also been regularly screwed over by purchases that didn’t code correctly for the 5%. The opportunity loss has probably been about $100 over that time altogether by not using more dependable cards from the big banks with much better customer service.
This card made sense to get a decade ago when 5% cashback was a rare unicorn offered only by the Chase Freedom and Discover It cards. But luckily there are a lot more high-earning cards around these days. I don’t recommend anyone apply for this Nusenda card anymore until they overhaul the rewards program to be more modern and dependable.
Thank you so much for this comment. I tried to find info on their site about how the credit card rewards redemptions work and doesn’t seem to be anything I can find without already having an account. That’s a real bummer that they are using ScoreCard rewards. I really appreciate how Abound Federal Credit Union just automatically credits your account with your cash back in every statement. I figure this is something they have automated and it seems like an automated way of doing it would possibly be cheaper than partnering with a company like ScoreCard rewards.
One question, in case they do actually approve me for this account (applied before reading your comment), once you reach the $50 threshold is it easy to get the cash back/does it work okay? I agree that $50 threshold is a pain, but it’s not a dealbreaker for me. Alliant also has that threshold I believe.
I’m also curious if you or anyone else has ever asked ScoreCard Rewards or Nusenda to send a list of the merchant codes that correspond to each category? I’ve had success asking that with other credit cards.
Thanks again for sharing your experience, it would be good to push any credit unions or banks who use them to switch to another service. Curious if there are other cards with good rewards rates that use them, that folks should be aware of. Also curious if there are alternatives to them that we could recommend these CUs and banks switch to, or just recommend they do the automated monthly statement credits :).
Safe Cash rewards
FWIW, you can cash out points at some gas stations and at walmart in increments of $10 if the point of sale prompts you. To your point super weird program, and it’s hard to tell what MCCs apply. For example, the Q4 is “Retail Merchants” and “Online Retail Merchants”, and yet I found that while Lowes/Home Depot apply, Harbor Freight doesn’t.
I wouldn’t bother with this card. You have to redeem in increments of either $50, $75 or $100 and categories don’t post consistently.
I made a large purchase on this card recently in the “Retail Stores” category and it posted at 1X. It’s a good card in theory, but not in practice. I’m probably just going to sock drawer this card indefinitely.
I really want to apply for this card (to complete my suite of rotating category cards – Chase Freedom, Citi Dividend, Discover It and US Bank Cash Plus). the two quarters of 5% back on Restaurants alone will make it worth it; no other card offers that in Q2 and Q4. Airfare and hotels in the Q4 holiday season also look pretty tempting.
But I am a US resident but not a US citizen, and the CC application page has a dropdown for status – the only option being ‘US Citizen’. Wonder if anyone else has checked if this is a necessary condition. I applied for the Credit Union membership via opening a Savings Account in the hope that it makes it easier for me to get the CC. That didn’t have any requirements for being a US citizen.
I’m a citizen but I was wondering how it worked out for you? Would be good to have that info on here.
They removed the restriction on citizenship only on the application page by mid 2018 – but when I completed the application, they called and informed me that I needed to provide more ID documents – and that could only be done at a Nusenda physical branch in New Mexico. So there was no way for me to complete verification from New Jersey. I haven’t seen others being asked for this, so I suppose its just bad luck.
I applied for this card this week and they tried to do an identity verification remotely, but the representative said the system they use to do that only works for some customers and I happened to be one of the ones that it won’t work for. So, like you, I’d need to come into a branch in NM with identify documents to verify. I asked if there is any other way I could do that because I live far away from NM, and she is going to look into it, but just wanted to share that experience so far. They also said would need to email them proof of income if they are able to verify my identity, fyi.
I had actually applied over a year ago as well, but at that time I had recently opened about 5 credit card accounts 🙂 and had a bit of a balance on a 0% APR card and they said they were denying because of those reasons and that I could try reapplying after 12 mos with Joe new credit card accounts. I have no credit card balances now and more than 12 mos since last opened a credit card, so those aren’t issues.
They did ask me why I had so many credit card accounts open. I said because I try to keep my utilization rate low and that’s easier spreading things out between different cards, and also because of no foreign transaction fees on certain cards and different cash back rewards on different cards.
$50 min redemption is killer for me. I hate the Double Cash’s $25 min, Uber’s $25, and Amazon’s $20 (for not using points for Amazon purchase). But none of them having a cap really helps as well as multiple categories to earn good rewards in is great. I am a long haul card owner, but having to be $10 in the hole just to get the card along with jumping through hoops isn’t worth it. One who has the Blue Cash Preferred and Uber cards would generally get at most 2% more in gas and travel cash back, 1% in dining, and 3% in home improvement, education, and movies. If I guess an average 2% more return, I have to spend $500 in the 5% categories to break even before I earn more than the 2 other cards.
Hi, I think this reply might be alittle late. But was hoping you can elaborate more on the “3% in education” part. I am looking to pay for some tuition fees, and am looking for a great card for that. I have the cash to pay it off, was just looking for a way to maximize those expense in the coming semesters. Let me know! Cheers.
I’ve had this card since July, and I like it a lot. It’s actually really easy to redeem cash back, though you have to redeem it in chunks of $50, $75, or $100. However! When I made an $800 in-category purchase and found that my rewards balance had increased by $48, I realized that this card actually gives you 6% back on bonus categories!
This was my 8th credit card, and my 2nd in about 3 years (the 7th being opened earlier the same month).
The application process was relatively painless. I did have to go back and forth a bit via email with a banker, including esigning documents iirc, and I think there may have been a phone call involved, but no faxing, and I don’t believe I had to snail mail any forms in.
If you can get this card, it’s friggin great not just for the 6% back, but also cuz the categories are the same every year so it is far more predictable than the Freedom and It. Also, this will appeal to some people: you don’t have to enroll in the bonus categories every quarter, it’s automatic!
One weird thing is they wouldn’t let me change my due date, they said it’s determined by when you opened the account. Seems odd, maybe I just need to talk to a more knowledgeable rep, but whatever.
Rob is correct, some of the things in this old post are simply wrong. I also did not have to jump through hoops like Kevin. Would have been hard as I live in Nebraska. I did the Wildlife donation for $10. $50 min to redeem. I really do not care as I am in for the long haul with the card. The rotating categories not changing for years sold me. Perfect compliment for my Discover, CF and Amazon cards. Do I care that there is not a sign-up bonus? Nope, I have 9 other cards that I have soaked up the bonuses from. The application process was all done over the phone and just had to esign some docs. All done within a half hour or so. I did have to sign up for an account. Honestly, I have no idea what the account even is as I have $5 in it. I simply told them that I was probably moving to NM. Well, anything is possible, right?
The website sucks compared to other places but it is navigational.
And ya, you can not change your payment date. A bit inconvenient but only 10 days off from the rest of my cards.
This card is awesome, I usually find reason to carry it in my wallet. I tried to submit my application as noted in the article without putting a member number, but membership was still required, which I got with a small donation to the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance. I find this card works best as a complement to the Freedom card and the Discover It, helping to fill in any potential gaps in categories. I’d value Discover’s 10% in first year most highly, then Freedom’s 5x UR points, then 5% cash back.
Unlike Kevin, I did not need to visit a branch for verification. I may have had to speak with someone over the phone, though, but I distinctly recall most if not all of the sign up process being done online, some through email, signing disclosures with a banker.
Here’s what I have:
Chas Ink Preferred
Chase Freedom (x2 – PCed my slate)
Chase Freedom Unlimited
US Bank Cash+
Nusenda CU Platinum Cash Rewards
Vantage West CU Connect Rewards
Amex Blue Cash Everyday
Here’s what I’m applying for:
Chase Sapphire Preferred or Reserve
DuPage CU Platinum Rewards
Citi AAdvantage Platinum
Hyatt Visa
IHG MC
Amazon Prime Visa
Discover It
Spirit Airlines MC (I like Spirit and can avoid the fees easily so it can actually be quite lucrative to sub in for UR points)
Sears MasterCard (If I can confirm that the 10% offers are redeemable as ThankYou points or cash back – I haven’t looked into it but I suspect the ShopYourWay points aren’t worth all that much)
Update on above. Not worth your time to apply for the credit card due to difficulty applying for membership. They insisted I need to visit a branch for verification so unless you live in their area of service or a current member, you won’t get approved. Still lost my $10.
Just sharing my experience so far. Applying for the CC was easy and approved quickly. The membership, on the other hand, is quite challenging and it’s been months yet I have not received the card. Since I don’t live in New Mexico, they first ask me to make a $10 donation to New Mexico Wilderness Alliance. Then they said they could not verify my identity so I need to come in a branch. I asked for an alternative and they told me to become a member at one of their co-op credit union in my state (Massachusetts).
Interesting benefit that doesn’t seem to be noted: it does appear that their annual rotating categories are the same for each quarter of each year. So even though it changes from quarter to quarter, it appears to be the same each q1, the same each q1…making the rewards much more predictable. For me, this would be nice, especially since for example gas is in here twice. that means for 6 months you’ll get 5% back on gas. I know the freedom does 5% on gas every now and then, so it’s totally feasible to have 5% on gas for 9 months out of the year