2017 Barclaycard Ring Review – WalletHub Editors
10:42 AMPosted by: John S Kiernan
Rating: 3.8 / 5
The Verdict: The Barclaycard Ring MasterCard doesn’t charge an annual fee and features one of the lowest APRs (13.49%) on the market with a 0% intro offer. The card does not charge a balance transfer fee and offers a 0% APR for 15 months on purchases and balance transfers made within 45 days of account opening. That makes it a great option for balance transfer for people with excellent credit.
This card is not an option for the best rewards cards, as it lacks traditional spending-based benefits. What it gives you instead is a murkily explained profit-sharing system through which all cardholders receive — or at least hope to receive — semiannual payouts commensurate with their average monthly balance. The premise is that Barclaycard can’t afford to offer normal rewards along with such a low regular rate, but if cardholders collectively pay their bills on time and there is money left over after costs are recouped and shareholders are compensated, that amount will be dispersed among users.
Considering the uncertainty surrounding the Ring Card’s rewards and the fact that you’ll have to wait six months between payouts, it’s best to think of these dividends purely as a bonus and to base your decision whether to apply solely on the offer’s three calling cards: no fixed costs, low regular rate and an intro APR offer. Below we’ll explain these features and more in additional detail.
The Highlights- No Annual Fee: When you have excellent credit — you must in order to get approved for Barclaycard Ring — paying an annual fee in return for better terms can make sense in certain situations, particularly when it comes to people who regularly use their cards and always pay their bills in full. But if you’re planning to finance a big-ticket purchase or use your card only for emergency expenses, then paying for plastic wouldn’t make much sense. You aren’t likely to have much money to spare if you’re in debt, after all, and you probably don’t want to pay an expensive fee for something you’ll hardly ever use.
It is in this context that you should consider the Barclaycard Ring MasterCard’s lack of an annual fee. Depending on your circumstances and objectives, it could be either a necessity or simply another factor to account for when comparing cards.
- 13.49% (V) APR: It’s not the lowest regular rate available from a credit card, but it’s definitely in the ballpark and well below the 13.16% market average for people with excellent credit. The fact that it’s advertised as a single number, rather than a range from which approved applicants are assigned a rate depending on their creditworthiness, also makes the comparison process far more straightforward.
- No Balance Transfer Fee and 0% intro APR for 15 months: When you consider that the average credit card for people with good credit charges interest at a rate of 18.14%, it’s fair to assume that any debt you might be carrying on a card you’ve had for a while is probably quite expensive. Ring’s low APR and 0% intro offer could certainly yield some savings relative to such steep costs, especially combined with the card's lack of a balance-transfer fee. Just make sure to use a credit card calculator to determine which offer and what monthly payments will enable you to maximize your savings.
- No Spending-Based Rewards: You won’t earn a certain number of points or miles or a particular percentage of cash back for each dollar that you charge to the Barclaycard Ring MasterCard. And you won’t qualify for any sort of initial bonus by spending a certain amount during the first few months your account is open, either. That’s because Ring is far from a traditional rewards card. Barclaycard does give back to cardholders in its own way (see Other Things To Consider), but nothing is guaranteed.
- Community Voting: One of Barclaycard Ring’s most unique features is that cardholders are given the opportunity to share their opinions about potential changes to product terms and policies prior to implementation. It’s hard to say exactly how much weight is given to user feedback, but simply formalizing a procedure for providing it certainly surpasses the efforts of most other issuers.
- Giveback “Profit-Sharing” Program: Barclaycard Ring takes rewards complexity to a whole new level with its Giveback program. The gist of it is that members receive referral bonuses as well as a cut of a pool of money intended to approximate Barclaycard’s profits from the Ring Card. More specifically, each of the following yields the corresponding reward:
- Referral & New-Customer Bonuses: Twenty dollars per account opened through your referral; $10 per new account opened without direct ties to a customer referral or Barclaycard marketing efforts.
- Profits: Twenty percent of the money made from the Barclaycard Ring Card in excess of a 2.25% annualized return on all balances is earmarked to be given back to cardholders. In other words, if the result of this calculation – (Profits / Balances) * 12 – is above 2.25, then 20% of the Profits amount is dispersed to cardholders proportionally to their average monthly balance. The 2.25% is intended to cover the cost of marketing, taxes and distributions to company shareholders. Unfortunately, this profit-sharing program hasn’t been very successful to date, with the payout threshold often not being met.
- No Foreign Transaction Fee: The Barclaycard Ring MasterCard won’t nickel-and-dime you for being a member of the global economy, as it doesn’t charge a foreign transaction fee. That will prove quite important to your bottom line if you travel abroad or make a purchase from an internationally based merchant. It will also help you maximize the average 7.5% currency-conversion savings you’ll derive from MasterCard.
- $3 Flat Fee For Cash Advances: This is by no means a recommendation to get a cash advance, as doing so will always be expensive. However, it figures to be a lot less costly if you complete such a transaction with the Ring Card. Its $3 cash-advance fee pales in comparison to the market average of $14.51, according to WalletHub landscape reports, and its 8.5% APR – which also applies to cash advances – is equally minute in the context of the 22.50% average rate you’d be charged by other plastic.
Ring shopping is a process that demands options. You need to see what else is out there to make a determination about the Ring Card’s value, so we compared it to some of its most notable competitors for consumers’ business.
Citi Diamond Preferred is undoubtedly the superior option if you want to finance an upcoming purchase, as it offers a 0% introductory rate on new purchases for the first 21 months your account is open. But it is not the better balance-transfer vehicle, due to its 3% transfer fee, even if the transferred debt also benefits from a 21-month interest-free period. Diamond Preferred doesn’t offer rewards, but that’s not a point of differentiation with Barclaycard Ring, and it’s beside the point for anyone in Diamond Preferred’s target demographic.
To learn more about the victor of this showdown, check out our in-depth Citi Diamond Preferred MasterCard review.
Winner: Citi Diamond Preferred MasterCard
If you have existing credit-card debt, excellent credit and believe you would be able to pay if off in roughly 15 months in the absence of interest, get either the Slate Card from Chase or the Ring card. Chase offers a 0% introductory rate for the first 15 months and charging neither an annual fee nor a balance-transfer fee. What’s more, it only requires good credit for approval.
For more information about this transfer titan, check out our full-length Slate Card review.
Winner: Chase Slate Visa
If your primary interest in the Barclaycard Ring MasterCard derives from its lack of an annual fee, and you don’t require financing assistance because you pay your bill in full every month, Citi Double Cash is a very interesting option to consider. It does not charge an annual fee and it gives you 2% cash back on every dollar that you charge to the card when you pay in full. You get 1% on every purchase and another 1% on each dollar in corresponding monthly bill payments that you make.
Despite its fairly high regular APR (13.49%–23.49%), Double Cash actually is a better financing option than Barclaycard Ring, too. After all, Double Cash offers 0% introductory interest rates on new purchases and balance transfers for the first 15 months. It does charge a 3% balance-transfer fee, though.
To learn more about the winner of this matchup, read our Citi Double Cash review.
Winner: Citi Double Cash MasterCard
The Barclaycard Ring MasterCard wouldn’t last five minutes in the proverbial ring with the Barclaycard Arrival Plus MasterCard, assuming the fight is for the favor of consumers who both use plastic and travel regularly. Arrival Plus is the best all-around travel credit card on the market because of its 50,000-mile initial bonus for spending $3,000 during the first 90 days (redeemable for $500 in travel expenses) and the fact that you’ll earn the miles equivalent of 2.1% cash back if you redeem for travel.
Arrival Plus doesn’t offer 0% financing for new purchases, however. And while it does give you 0% on balance transfers for 12 months, a 3% balance transfer fee will apply. You also have an above-average regular APR to contend with, which can be anywhere from 16.49% to 23.49%, depending on your creditworthiness.
With that being said, the main issue you are likely to have with Arrival Plus is the fact that it charges an $89 annual fee beginning in the second year of use. Even so, it will still benefit most people more than Barclaycard Ring and must therefore be considered the winner. For more information on this gem of the Barclaycard portfolio, see our Barclaycard Arrival Plus review.
Winner: Barclaycard Arrival Plus MasterCard
from Wallet HubWallet Hub
via Finance Xpress
0 comments