Posted by: John S Kiernan

Rating: 3.6 / 5

The Verdict: TD Bank, the country’s 14th largest credit card company by outstanding balances, offers a handful of different credit cards. But this review will focus on the flagship card bearing TD Bank’s name: the TD Bank Cash Visa.

After all, the TD Bank Cash Credit Card has the broadest appeal among the family of TD Bank cards. That’s thanks to Cash Visa’s easily attainable $150 initial bonus, straightforward cash-back rewards and lack of an annual fee. With that package in hand, the average person’s $28,523 in annual expenses that can be paid for with a credit card would accrue $929 in rewards over the first two years of use. That’s solid but not elite.

One of the notable downsides to the deal is its lack of financial appeal. The card’s regular rate can be as high as 23.49%, and its offer of 0% interest on balance transfers for the first 12 months is marred by a 4% transfer fee. As a result, the TD Bank Cash Visa is best for people who always pay their credit card bills in full.

The other major drawback is the fact that you need “excellent” credit to get approved. That’s important because the card’s terms would represent an excellent deal for people with good credit but only a pretty good option for people with excellent credit. As a result, we recommend taking a pass on the TD Bank Cash Visa and paying special attention to the Competition section below.

The Highlights

• $150 Initial Bonus: This certainly isn’t the largest initial bonus on the market, but it is among the most efficiently rewarding. Rather than spending $3,000 during the first three months your account is open to earn $400 in travel rewards, for example, you merely need to spend $500 within the first 90 days to qualify for the TD Bank Cash Visa’s $150 prize. In other words, TD Bank gives you $0.30 in bonuses, or 20% back, for every $1 of the first $500 you spend. By comparison, a card offering $400 in rewards for $3,000 in purchases only gives you $0.13 per $1 spent.

  So if you want to get the most bang for your buck or don’t typically spend enough to qualify for a bigger bonus, TD Bank’s Cash Visa Card is a great fit.

• 2% Back On Dining: You’ll get 1% cash back for most purchases you make with this card, which isn’t all that exciting considering that the average cash back credit card offers 1.02%, according to our latest Credit Card Landscape Report. Fortunately, that base earning rate is supplemented by 2% cash back on dining, which includes everything from fast food and coffee shops to five-star restaurants.

  That means the TD Bank Cash Card is particularly well suited to people who eat out often.

• No Annual Fee: The lack of an annual fee makes the TD Bank Cash Visa $16.78 cheaper per year to maintain than the average credit card. That means you can keep your account open without feeling pressured to make purchases on a regular basis in order to earn enough just to break even.

The Lowlights

• 4% Balance-Transfer Fee: The average household with credit card debt owes just a bit less than $8,500. Four percent of that is $340. That’s a lot of money to spend, considering you don’t have to. Literally hundreds of credit cards offer 0% introductory financing on balance transfers for at least as long as the TD Bank Cash Card (12 months) and have lower fees, according to our database of offers. In fact, three cards — most notably Slate from Chase — make it possible to avoid paying any fee at all.

  So this fee turns what would be construed as a positive — the Cash Card’s 0% intro offer — into a reason to look elsewhere if you’re looking to lower the cost of existing debt.

• Likelihood Of An Above-Average APR: Let’s start with a bit of context. The average APR assessed by credit cards that require excellent credit for approval is 13.16%, according to our latest market snapshot. And though the TD Bank Cash Card requires excellent credit for approval, the lowest rate you can get is 13.49%. The highest rate you can get, on the other hand, is 23.49%, which is even higher than the regular APR (20.16%) for someone with fair credit.

  That means you’re guaranteed to pay an above-average rate for your credit standing, and you might even wind up paying a rate that would be bad even for someone with limited/fair credit if your credit is just barely excellent.

Other Things To Consider

• No Foreign-Transaction Fee: This card will be a benefit, not a hindrance, when it comes to spending money abroad. Whether you’re physically traveling outside the country or simply buying goods from internationally based merchants, you won’t get hit with a foreign-transaction fee. Most credit cards charge such fees, and the average is 1.97%.

  Not having to worry about such a fee could therefore save you bigtime. And by freeing you up to make the majority of your international purchases with plastic, you’ll also be able to save even more on currency conversion. Automatically converting currency with a no-foreign-fee credit card costs up to 11% less than popular options for converting hard currency.

• Points Don’t Expire With Time: With some credit cards, you have to use your rewards relatively quickly or risk losing them due to nothing more than the simple passage of time. That’s not a concern with the TD Bank Cash Card. As long as your account is open and in good standing, your rewards are safe.

  Nevertheless, we always recommend redeeming credit card rewards on a regular basis to limit the amount that could be lost if something goes wrong.

• No Penalty APR: Your rates won’t get jacked up just because you miss a payment or two, or for any reason, for that matter. And that’s good because the TD Bank Cash Card’s rates are already high enough. But you should still try to avoid ever missing your due date or generally misbehaving because, while TD Bank won’t make you pay for the types of mistakes that would ordinarily lead to a penalty APR, the credit score damage that could result would cost you plenty.

• $35 Late Fee: On-time monthly payments are essential not only to maintaining your excellent credit score, but also to saving money. TD Bank will assess a fee equal to $25 or your missed minimum payment, whichever is less, the first time you fail to pay on time. If you slip up again within the next six months, you’ll be hit with a fee equal to the lesser of $35 or the minimum payment due.

• Excellent Credit Required: More than 60% of consumers do not have excellent credit, according to WalletHub data, which means this requirement classes out a significant portion of the credit card-seeking population. It also casts the TD Bank Cash Visa in an unfavorable light.

  In short, its terms are a fine fit for the good-credit category, but they can’t hang with the market’s elite, many of which offer initial bonuses in excess of $400, 2%+ back across all purchases and/or 0% introductory terms as long as 21 months. And elite is what you should be in the market for if you have excellent credit.

  If you’re not sure where your credit currently stands, you can check your latest credit score for free on WalletHub. WalletHub is the only site that offers free credit scores updated on a daily basis. That will help you track your score over time and determine when the time is right to apply for a better card. And WalletHub’s personalized recommendations will tell you which card offers the most savings for your situation.

Compared To The Competition

  To make things easier for you, we took the liberty of comparing TD Bank’s centerpiece offers to some of their best competitors. You can check out the results below.  

	TD Bank Cash Credit Card	TD First Class Visa Signature® Credit Card	SponsoredBarclaycard Arrival Plus® World Elite Mastercard®	SponsoredCiti® Double Cash Card – 18 month BT offer
Annual Fee	$0	None 1st yr, $89 after	None 1st yr, $89 after	$0
Rewards Bonus	20,000 points	25,000 miles	40,000 miles	N/A
Rewards Rate	1 - 2 points / $1	1 - 3 miles / $1	2 miles / $1	1% + 1% Cash Back
Purchase Intro APR	Not Offered	Not Offered	Not Offered	Not Offered
Transfer Intro APR	0% for 12 monthsTransfer Fee: 3% (min $5)	0% for 12 monthsTransfer Fee: 3% (min $5)	0% for 12 monthsTransfer Fee: 3% (min $5)	0% for 18 monthsTransfer Fee: 3% (min $5)
Regular APR	13.99% - 23.99% (V)	14.24% (V)	16.99% - 23.99% (V)	14.74% - 24.74%* (V)
Editors’ Rating	N/A	N/A	5.0 / 5	5.0 / 5
Details, Rates & Fees	Learn More	Learn More	Learn MoreRates & Fees	Learn More
Winners	Citi® Double Cash Card – 18 month BT offer		Barclaycard Arrival Plus® World Elite Mastercard®

from Wallet HubWallet Hub


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