Posted by: John S Kiernan

Rating: 1 / 5

Just because you love video games doesn’t mean you’ll automatically feel the same way about GameStop or the GameStop PowerUp Rewards Credit Card. GameStop is a leading retailer that buys, sells and rents video games both through its physical stores and online, and its eponymous store credit card promises to help you save. It just doesn’t do a very good job.

You’ll receive a total of $10 - $20 in GameStop gift certificates the first year you use the card, assuming you spend at least $250, and nothing but the promise of intermittent rewards bonuses thereafter. It has a stratospheric 27.49% APR and its promotional financing offers include a sneakily expensive feature known as “deferred interest.”

Yes, the GameStop Card’s modest approval requirements and lack of an annual fee make it a decent credit-building option for people who have limited or fair credit. But numerous offers are this card’s equal in that regard, and many surpass it with additional features that promise to actually benefit your wallet, whether you wind up making video-game purchases or not. Let’s just put it this way: There’s no reason to actively seek out the GameStop Credit Card, which does little to distinguish itself from the crowd, so why decide to apply?

You can learn more about what the GameStop Credit Card does and does not bring to the table below.

The Highlights

• No Annual Fee: Unless your main objective is credit building, the GameStop Credit Card is unlikely to be your only option. After all, you can only use it to make GameStop purchases, and we all have thousands of dollars in non-GameStop spending that we can put on plastic each year.

  As a result, the card’s lack of an annual fee is essential. It enables the card’s modest rewards to benefit you rather than simply help to counteract a fixed cost and thus gives the card a place in certain spending arsenals. Not having to pay an annual fee makes it easier to keep the card open indefinitely — especially one that isn’t your main spending vehicle — which figures to boost your credit score by increasing the average age of your loans and lines of credit.

The Lowlights

• Meager Rewards: Simply making a single purchase with the GameStop Credit Card will score you 5,000 bonus points. And if you have a PowerUp Rewards Pro membership, which costs $14.99 per year, you’ll actually get 15,000 points. These bonuses are redeemable for gift certificates of $5 and $15, respectively, or for a variety of merchandise options that tend to provide less value. That means paying $14.99 for an extra 10,000 points isn’t worth it. The additional $5 you’ll get for spending $250 or more at GameStop through June 30, 2017 isn’t worth much, either.

  Ultimately, you’d think a company that deals in video games would understand the power of rewards. But that clearly doesn’t seem to be the case. The GameStop PowerUp Rewards Card does not offer any ongoing rewards to supplement its ephemeral bonus offers, which significantly diminishes its value to loyal customers.

• Above-Average Regular APR: Gaming-related purchases are the type of luxury that you should never have to go into debt to afford. You should therefore strive to always pay your GameStop Credit Card’s monthly bill in full, especially since doing so will enable you to avoid the card’s 27.49% variable APR. That rate is well above the 22% average APR among credit cards for people with fair credit as well as the 24.3% average for store credit cards, according to WalletHub’s latest Credit Card Landscape Report. 

• Deferred-Interest Promotional Financing : While not currently active, the GameStop Credit Card used to offer six-, nine- and 12-month 0% financing deals, depending on the amount of the purchase in question. Such a deal could save you some money on interest, but it could also come back to bite you. That’s because GameStop financing features a nasty component known as “deferred interest,” which promises to leave you with interest that applies to your entire original purchase amount if you don’t pay your monthly bills on time during the financing term or you don’t pay off your full balance by the time regular rates take effect.

  We recommend that consumers steer clear of deferred-interest financing, but if you decide to give it a whirl, make sure to use a credit card calculator.

Other Things To Consider 

• Credit-Building Capabilities: The simple fact that you can get approved for this card with only limited or fair credit opens it up to a whole new market: people who don’t necessarily like GameStop. It doesn’t matter which retailer’s branding graces your plastic if credit building is your primary goal. What you should really care about in that case is approvability and avoiding fixed costs. After all, if you don’t currently have a credit card, you need to get one in order to have the positive information flowing into your major credit reports as soon as possible. 

• Exclusive Cardholder Offers: “Exclusive cardholder offers” is a rather vague feature to advertise, but you have to assume that such unnamed features will be beneficial.

Compared To The Competition

 

	GameStop Credit Card	Walmart® Credit Card	Target Credit Card		Amazon.com Credit Card	Capital One QuicksilverOne Cash Rewards MasterCard
Annual Fee	$0	$0	$0		$0	$39
Initial Bonus	5000 points after first purchase5000 points after you spend over $250	10% discount on purchases made the day you open the account	N/A		$50 Amazon.com Gift Card	N/A
Ongoing Rewards	N/A	3% discount on Walmart.com purchases 2% discount on Murphy USA & Walmart gas stations 1% discount on all other purchases	5% discount on purchases made at Target		3 points per dollar spent at Amazon.com 2 points per dollar spent at gas stations, restaurants, drugstores and office supply stores 1 points per dollar spent on all other purchases	1.5% cash back on all purchases
2-Year Rewards	N/A	$782	N/A		$737	$856
Intro Financing	Not offered	Not offered	Not offered		Not offered	Not offered
Regular APR	27.49%	17.15% to 23.15%	23.4%		14.74% to 22.74%	24.99%
Editors' Rating	1 Star	2.5 Stars	5 Stars		4.5 Stars	4.7 Stars
Winners	Amazon.com Credit Card			Capital One QuicksilverOne Cash Rewards MasterCard

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