Apple Credit Card Adds Ace Hardware To 3% Category

Update 4/28/22: Ace Hardware now added to earn 3%. Full list of 3% merchants:

  • Ace Hardware
  • Panera Bread
  • Exxon/Mobil
  • Walgreen’s
  • Duane Reade
  • Uber
  • UberEATS
  • T-Mobile store purchases
  • Nike
  • Apple

Update 8/3/20: Apple has now added Panera Bread to earn 3%.

Update 6/29/20: Apple has now added Exxon and Mobil.

Update 11/25/19: Apple Card has now added Nike to the 3% category when using Apple Pay. Significant addition.

Update 9/19/19: They’ve now added T-Mobile as well to the 3% category when using Apple Pay at a T-Mobile store. Note: paying your monthly bill with T-Mobile will apparently not get 3%. It’s probably possible to pay your bill in-store and get the extra rewards, but barring that, any bill payments will earn normal 1% or 2% rewards (depending whether you use Apple Pay or the physical card number).

Update 9/12/19: Apple Card has added Walgreen’s and Duane Reade to their 3% category when using Apple Card with Apple Pay (starts Friday 9/13/19). That’s on top of Uber & UberEATS which were previously announced.

Original Post:

The long awaited/hyped public release of the new Apple credit card finally came today, with card now available to anyone with an updated iPhone (requires iPhone 6 or later). In the press release today, Apple announced an additional 3% category of Uber and UberEATS:

Apple Card is extending 3 percent Daily Cash to more merchants and apps. Starting today, customers will receive 3 percent Daily Cash when they use Apple Card with Apple Pay for Uber and Uber Eats.4 (4 Apple Pay is coming soon to Uber services like Uber Cash, Scheduled Rides and JUMP. ) Customers can request a ride through Uber in more than 700 cities across the globe and order a meal through Uber Eats in more than 500 cities around the world. Apple Card will continue to add more popular merchants and apps in the coming months.

Previously, only Apple purchases were mentioned as earning 3%, while regular Apple Pay purchases earn only 2%. Now, you can get 3% on Uber when using Apple Pay. This is also great advertising for Uber in their competition with Lyft as there are lots of avid Apple fans.

It’s interesting what they say in the end there that “Apple Card will continue to add more popular merchants and apps in the coming months”. We’ll see.

We’ll add this benefit to our full review: Apple Credit Card Full Details – 3% at Apple, 2% with Apple Pay, 1% with Physical Card; No Fees. 

Hat tip to @iam_K_Man
    Chuck
  • On April 28, 2022, 20:46

View Comments (68)

  • Excuse the stupid question from a non iPhone guy, but is this 3% CB on using the actual card itself, or does this have to be thru the iPhone/Apple Pay?

  • Genuine question: does anyone care? Does 3% anywhere other than maybe utilities or rent excite people?

      • 3 is indeed > 1, but 2% is the real floor for cash back and with the custom cash and bofa customized cash already offering home improvement stores as categories, hard for me to imagine anyone getting excited over this.

    • If I have the card and I shop at one of those stores, I can at least enough to use the card over other cards that offer slightly less cash back.

  • I find this card confusing. It needs to do like 3% back at groceries, restaurants etc.
    The specific merchants are too limiting.

  • How is one supposed to keep track of the list of random merchants where they get 3%? Rather than broad categories?

  • Make it 3% on every purchase using Apple Pay and I'm in. Until then nah, I'm good with my Freedom and Freedom Unlimited.

  • As someone who lives in Europe where pretty much everyone accepts ApplePay, getting 2% back on all purchases with no FX fee is awesome

  • has anyone had their Apple card account reported to the credit bureaus yet? Mine hasn't since September

  • Translation: we're still not get many applications for our subpar card. Here's another carrot, we think the 680 FICO's are gullible enough to bite.

    This card will make a great case study one day. Other CC issuers took a pass on it, because they had decades of card experience to know that it wasn't going to be a profitable venture. So the rookie Goldman steps in. They wont ever make money on it, like so many other Apple partners before it.

    And Apple likewise wont make any direct $ off the card either. Will it juice apple product sales beyond what they would have been without the card? Maybe, but I'm still skeptical. Outstanding consumer products sell themselves, with or without financing. Lacking the "outstanding" of late, they resorted to a CC of all things.

    I say all this as a 10 year apple customer.

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