Best Buy Visa Card Review

The Best Buy credit card is a store-branded credit card that offers financing and a 5% rewards rate for purchases at the store.

Cash Back & 0% Interest, Waived Annual Fee

The Best Buy Visa gives you the choice between earning 5% back on Best Buy purchases and potentially avoiding interest for six to 24 months with a promotional 0% financing offer. There is no annual fee for this card, but you have to be a brand-loyal customer for this card to make sense. This is not only because you aren’t guaranteed the ability to use it anywhere else, but also because rewards are in the form of Best Buy gift certificates with expiration dates. This means that all the reward points you earned can only be used towards buying things from Best Buy. To those who frequently shop at Best Buy, this may not be a problem. But to those wanting more flexibility, this is a hard stop.

Rewards & points

The Best Buy Visa offers fantastic rewards rates on in-store purchases and good returns on dining and grocery purchases. Cardholders are awarded 2.5 points for every $1 they spend at an affiliated store, and 1 point per $1 on net purchases made at restaurants, bars, and grocery stores.

Each point earned through the Best Buy credit cards is worth $0.02 towards a reward certificate. Best Buy states that 1,250 points can be turned into a $25 rewards certificate, which translates into $25 / 1,250 = $0.02. If you convert the points into rewards certificates, you can explicitly state the card’s rewards rate as falling between 1% and 5% (or 6% for Elite Plus members).

New card members will receive 10% back in rewards on their first purchase. So if you have a big purchase planned that you would like to put onto this credit card (without financing), the amount of money you will save will be proportional to your purchase price.

An unlimited 5% reward credit card may be scarce. However, you don't have to open a new line of credit to earn rewards with Best Buy. Their My Best Buy rewards program is free to sign-up. It earns users 1 point per $1 on all purchases, which translates to a 2% rewards rate. This option can be good for individuals with very low FICO scores, or who want to avoid opening new credit accounts.

Best Buy credit card allows you to finance certain purchases with 0% APR over a period of time. Depending on the purchase amount, you may qualify for different financing periods. 6 months for purchases over $199, 12 months for purchases over $399, 18 months for purchases over $599 and 24 months for purchases over $799.

However, choosing to finance a purchase with the Best Buy Visa card forfeits any reward points you may have earned from the purchase. Financing with this card also means that if you miss a payment or have a balance when the promotional period ends, interest charges can be applied to the entire original purchase starting from the date of the purchase. This is because of a feature this card has called deferred interest. So if you really want something from Best Buy that you can’t afford for another year, you should save your money for it, and get it later. That way you are far less likely to run into financial trouble with this card.

5% Back On Best Buy Purchases

• You will earn 2.5 points for every $1 in Best Buy purchases charged to your card and receive a $5 reward certificate after accumulating 250 points that can only be used for more Best Buy buying.
• You earn an extra 5% back on your first purchase after account approval, as long as you make it within 14 days.
• Neither the 5% regular earning rate nor the 10% first-purchase bonus is compatible with promotional financing offers. You have to pick one or the other: rewards or promotional financing.

Up To 2% Back Elsewhere With The Best Buy Visa Card

• You will be able to earn Best Buy rewards while buying items from other merchants.
• You’ll get a 1% base rate (1 point per $2 spent) that jumps to 2% (1 point per $1 spent) for purchases made at restaurants, bars, grocery stores and gas stations and at 3% (1.5 points per $1 spent) for purchases made at membership clubs (sports, recreation, athletic), golf courses, and sporting goods stores.

Likelihood Of No Annual Fee

• The lack of a fixed cost allows you to use the Best Buy visa Card to supplement everyday rewards or 0% credit card.
• It is a good choice for cost-effective credit building.

5% Balance Transfer Fee

• The Best Buy visa card is structured to encourage new purchases more than it is to help the customer save money.
• It has a 5% balance transfer fee that acts as a deterrent to using the card to pay off an existing balance accumulated with a different credit card.

High Regular APR

The Best Buy visa card has a 26.99% (V) regular APR. That’s well above the market average for credit cards for people with good credit (19.51%) and fair credit (22.34%), which are the respective approval requirements for the card.

Confusing APR Structure

The terms state that there is a 26.99% (V) APR, but there is a footnote that indicates, that’s just the 90-day average. If this rate changes in accordance with the Prime Rate, the terms say you will be provided with information about the rates used in the previous 30 days.

Best Buy’s online credit card application includes a note at the bottom of the page that draws a distinction between variable and non-variable rates, and references other card offers without providing any necessary context. It reads, “As of the last 30 days, My Best Buy, Magnolia & Pacific Sales Credit Card Purchase APRs: variable 23.74%–28.49%, non-variable 9.00%–24.34%; My Best Buy Visa Card Purchase APRs: variable 12.49%–28.49%, non-variable 9.99%–20.24%.”

This is one of the most confusing interest rate disclosures. You shouldn’t put yourself in a position to learn what the real rate is through experience.

Confusing Approval Process

Best Buy has 2 types of credit cards; the store card and the Visa card. Each of those cards has two variations. There’s a standard store card and a preferred store card as well as a Visa Platinum card and a Visa Gold card.

You’ll first be considered for the Visa Platinum version. If you don’t qualify, you’ll then be evaluated for the preferred store card, the standard store card, and the Visa Gold card, in that order. The visa card being the last consideration is because it has a $59 annual fee.

My Best Buy Elite Plus Members Get Added Perks

My Best Buy Elite Plus status can be achieved by spending at least $3,500 on your card in a calendar year at Best Buy and bestbuy.com. The purchases that you make after achieving this status will give you an extra 0.5 point per $1. This is the equivalent of 1% back in Best Buy’s rewards program.

Elite Plus status also gives you an extra 15 days to return or exchange items, plus free expedited shipping.

Rewards Given As Best Buy Gift Certificates

• Rewards are given in the form of points, redeemable for Best Buy gift certificates at a rate of $5 per 250 points.
• Redeeming your points is restricted to Best Buy’s products, and it makes the points susceptible to devaluation and expiration.
• After 12 months of account inactivity, you will receive $5 certificates for every 250 points you’ve earned, with any leftover amount being lost.
• The certificates expire and have a use-by date listed on each one.
• You might have to show ID if redeeming in a store.

Free Shipping

Card holders automatically receive free shipping on BestBuy.com purchases of at least $35.

How it Compares to other Credit Cards

We picked a couple of similar credit cards available on the market to see how they compare.

• Amazon.com Credit Card
• Citi® Double Cash Card
• Sallie Mae Mastercard

The Best Buy Visa Card offers great rewards with no annual fee and a generous bonus. However, the card doesn’t offer much when it comes to how you can spend your rewards. Plus, it has a high APR (25.24%) which makes this card useful for a select few individuals. It’s good for someone who shops at Best Buy frequently, that has fair credit, and is looking for good rewards. But it not so appealing to people who want flexible rewards or anyone who doesn't pay their credit card bill in full each month. Taking that into consideration, the Best Buy Visa gets 2 stars from us. The rewards are useful but only to people loyal to Best Buy, and that restricts the customer pool.

Featured Image: CC0 Public Domain via Canva, with text, banner, and logo added.