Sallie Mae credit card holders had their cards converted to Commence Mastercards back on March 2nd, 2017. Cardholders should receive a notice in the mail informing them that their Commence Mastercards will be converted to Barclaycard Reward Mastercards. The changes are as follows
- You’ll no longer be able to transfer points to student loans for an extra 25%
- You will now earn 2% cash back on gas station purchases (in addition to grocery and utilities that already earned 2% cash back)
- You’ll keep the same card number, CVV and expiry date will change
This card was already useless before and it continues to be useless now. If anything it’s slightly more useless now due to the removal of the 25% bonus (that made grocery and utilities effectively worth 2.5%. Still a bad deal when comparing to the best grocery and utility cards). Some people like to keep these cards open as Barclaycard sometimes sends out useful spending bonuses. Being forcefully product changed twice in two years is a bit excessive though.
Hat tip to rm_a
View Comments (33)
I called multiple times after Sallie Mae ended to get the card changed to something else, but Barclays refused every time. They even sent me a notice saying that they will close the card to inactivity but then never did. Complete BS card with no incentive to use. The card has been sitting in my drawer unused and unactivated ever since the original change.
Wish they'd just be cool and let us PC to a card of our choice - *cough* Uber card *cough*
Just called Barclays to downgrade my AA Aviator Red and they let me PC to this card. Offered me $100 bonus for $1000 spend on the new card.
I also have a Commence card so I guess I'll have two of these soon?
Yep, just got another Barclays Rewards card in the mail.
Here are the details on the $0.99/month small balance forgiveness. Between Barclay, Discover, US Bank, and Capital One, I've made a whopping $88.61 off of these since 2016. It helps to set all of your credit cards to the same statement date.
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/small-balance-waiver-a-k-a-lots-of-free-99-cent-amazon-gcs/
from a trash card.. to another trash card
Looks like it will still only be useful for the 99c balance forgiveness each month
I think, this change is a door to product change from this suck card to a better Barclaycard. In the past, it was not allowed for Commence Card.
I dropped it as soon as they told me I couldn't product change. Perhaps I could have waited a year, but I'm pretty sure it would have cost me at least an hour on hold for one reason or another.
The Sallie Mae card used to be my best card that I used all the time. I haven’t used it ever since they dumped all the benefits and it became commerce.
Not so worthless in my opinion. Plastiq qualifies 2% utilities. Combining 2% bonus. Small mm. Any other master card provides better than 2% for utilities?
Why not just get a card that offers 2% on all purchases?
2% card without bonus points does not make the plastiq payment profitable. One other benefit for the card I can think of is that I regularly get 0% balance transfer promotion for 1% fee for one year. If there were no occasional bonus cash back, this card would be useless to me.
That's why I'm worried about this change––I also like the 1% fee checks!
Yes, Huntington Bank offers 3% back on Utilities.
That card is for us citizens only, I think. Not everyone qualifies.
Since Barclays waives up to $0.99/mo, my relationship with this card is still net profit on me.
oh, there might be use for the Priceline Visa, lol.