Santander Ultimate Cashback Review: 3% Cash Back First Year, No Fees

Update 4/11/20: This card is available again. Santander stop issuing cards due to overcharging but are now issuing them again. They have replaced the $100 sign up bonus with 3% cash back the first year on up to $20,000 in spend. Card not available nationwide

Santander has launched a new cashback called call Ultimate Cash Back. Let’s take a look to see if it’s worth signing up for in this review.

Card Basics

  • Card earns 1.5% cash back on all purchases
  • No annual fee
  • No foreign transaction fees
  • No cash advance or returned payment fees

 

Our Verdict

1.5% cash back on all purchases is simply not competitive in the credit card landscape anymore when you have a glut of 2% cards and some earning up to 2.5%/3% on all purchases. $100 cash sign up bonus is also on the lower end (you can view the best cash bonuses here). There are limited options for cards that have no annual fee and no foreign transaction fee so I guess there might be some very limited utility there. Personally this is an easy pass from me. I think there Bravo card is more interesting. Santander is on the verge of launching a useful card, but they just can’t quite get it right yet.

Hat tip to reader Jason
    William Charles
  • On April 11, 2020, 23:22

View Comments (24)

  • How stingy or generous are they in giving credit limit? Do we have DP as to which credit bureau it pulls?

  • I thought with the 3% up to 20K offer if you are able to maximize which I think I could, $600 is worth the HP, but then its not really $600: Its only $200 as $400 I would anyway be getting with 2% card that I already have. So pass for me.

    • As a card for everything else that is not used for SUB it's not bad. I have a Freedom Unlimited with the same 3% for a year currently, there is always spend in between real Sign Up Bonuses. You spend whatever spend is left, no worrying about missing the whole bonus.

      I might convince P2 to get one.
      She's not that much into the credit card game, so no more asking "Which card shall I use?" for a year would be nice. And international it's hard to beat.

    • i think that combined with the 0% apr makes it worth it. I dont know of any 2% card that gives a $200 signup bonus as well as 0% apr for 12 months. the closest thing is probably the discover miles card which gives 12 months of 3% unlimited and 14 months of 0% apr. but there a couple issues with that one. first is that its discover, so you will be a little more limited by where you can use it which is annoying if its your daily spender. the other big issue is you can only have 2 discover cards. I keep one discover IT open for account aging and relationship purposes, which means for the other one i get yearly, i would have to choose the Miles card over the IT. which means i'd give up 10% bonus categories for 5 quarters (which i tend to max out and you can get 5 quarters of the 5% doubled to 10% if you apply in the middle of a quarter), so that's an opportunity cost of $750

      so i think this is a good offer, i applied. hopefully they give me a large credit limit though, because if its under $10k it wont be much use to me for the 0% apr

      • BTF is 3%. Only purchases are absolute 0.which is common for several cards that also offer sign on bonuses of $200 or more. So yeah if you don't currently have a 2% card AND you get a nice hefty 20K+ CL AND you can max out 20K, only then its an ok deal. If you don't get a good CL, I would suggest calling recon if they have such a thing. Good luck.

      • A $200 signup bonus for $20K spend isn't very tempting. Maxing out your credit limit to take advantage of the 0% APR will have a significant effect on your credit score. These days I only do that on business cards that aren't reported on my credit report.

  • So it's like Discover It Miles in that it offers 3% on all purchases for the first year, except with Discover there's no limit.

  • This is not nationwide — only the NE territory where they have a foothold, presumably. The application has a drop-down box of available states, nothing outside of the East Coast.

  • No foreign transaction fees + no cash advance fees = free ATM cash withdrawals abroad at the Mastercard interbank rate?

  • How does this compare to the Quicksilver? That is the true question. And the fine print says there is a 3% intro balance transfer interest on the card. So no initial fee, but for balance transfers, I'd rather get a 0% fee and interest card.

    • Santander card seems to have slight advantage with the 0% transaction fees, 3% intro balance transfer APR for 12 months is not bad

  • State Restricted - drop down on application forces state selection from available only. Not nationwide by any means.

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