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Moderator/Staff
Belk Credit Card - Warning Before You Apply
Warning: Before you fill out a Belk credit card application, here are some things you need to know about the Belk’s credit card!
The Company
Don’t get me wrong, I think Belk is a great place to shop. They were founded in North Carolina over a century ago and now have over three hundred stores throughout the Southern states. In fact, I recently read that they are now the biggest privately-owned department store in the US and have sales over 3 billion dollars!
However like most large companies, I guess they have lost touch of one of their core goals – delivering value – when it comes to their Belk credit card. I still think they are a great store, but their charge card is another story. Here’s why…
An Outrageous Interest Rate
While I was looking over the fine print on their application, I was stunned to see the APR they are charging their cardholders… a sky high 23.49% at the time of this review! With that high of an interest rate compounded, paying off a balance would cost you an arm and a leg to say the least! To me, this doesn’t sound like it’s giving the cardholder any value!
Signup Offer
Like most department store charge cards, Belk’s offers a promotion for getting the card – they give you fifteen percent off your first purchase with it. This may sound like a deal, but to me it just seems like bait. Why? Because after that, the card doesn’t offer much at all!
Also when I read over the fine print closely, I noticed there was a cap in reward points that you can earn a billing cycle, and that really bothered me. What it comes down to is that signup promos like this are nothing special – department stores always offer these things – so that’s no reason to choose a card if it’s going to be a bad deal in the long run.
Limited Use
Because the card is not associated with a major payment network like MasterCard or Discover, you can’t use it anywhere besides at Belk stores. So except for using it at Belk’s, it really serves you no use at all. And I don’t know about you, but my purse is already cluttered with enough stuff, so the last thing I want to do is apply for a Belk credit card when I can only use it at one place!
Inferior Rewards
I don’t know about you but this is the whole reason I use credit cards – the rewards! They call it the Belk Rewards card so you would think it would give us great rewards, right? Well, think again...
You only earn one point for every dollar you spend. Once you accumulate 400 points, they send you a coupon for $10. That equals out to be only a 2.5% rebate. When you consider that just about every charge card out there nowadays gives you at the very least 1% cash back, this isn’t anything special. Add in the fact that it has an outrageous interest rate and you can’t use it anywhere else... it’s hard to justify applying for the Belk credit card.
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