Today I received a credit card invitation from WaMu card services. The name of the card is WaMu Real Rewards Visa Platinum Card which offers 7,000 bonus points after first purchase. I have already had a WaMu Visa Platinum Card on hand which provides free credit score monthly based on my TransUnion credit report every month (The review on this card can be found here.) . So this card is not so attractive to me (not to mention the 7000 points). However, this seems to be a new credit card product from WaMu which is currently the 9th largest credit card issuer in US. I want to briefly introduce this card here.
The basic benefits of this card
This WaMu Real Rewards Visa Platinum Card actually is previous Providian Real Rewards Card. As many of you may have already received this card, this card offers 7,000 bonus points after first purchase which can be redeemed as a $50 gift card. If you request a balance transfer at the card application, you can receive a 0% fixed APR on purchases until January1, 2010! That’s equal to 18 months 0% APR on purchases. There is no minimum amount required to do the balance transfer, so if you can transfer $100 and then pay off it in 1 or 2 months, you lose nothing but a small amount of interests. However, the 0% APR on purchases is really sweet. Besides the 0% APR, you can also get 1 point for every 1 dollar spent on this card. After you accumulate a certain amount of points, you can redeem them for a gift card from BestBuy, Target, Macy’s, Hertz, Circuit City and so on.
What else?
This is a Visa Platinum Card, so you can enjoy the built-in benefits from Visa Network like $0 liability for unauthorized charges, free auto rental collision damage waiver and many others. Plus, this card also provide free online access to your FICO credit score like other credit cards from WaMu. With WaMu credit card, you can receive automatic credit line reviews every 6 months. If you don’t make any mistakes with your WaMu credit card, your credit limit will increase automatically. These benefits seem so tempting.
However, I also receive some complaints from my readers about WaMu. He told me that his WaMu Platinum Card was closed due to the following three reasons:
- Inactivity for the last several months
- Serious delinquency
- Too many accounts recently opened
My answer is: If you use your WaMu credit card regularly and manage your credit in a normal way, you can enjoy the benefits brought to you from WaMu credit card. Anyway, if you don’t have a credit card from WaMu, you can try this one or maybe other credit card products from WaMu.
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June 5th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
HI how do we get this offer, can you please provide me the reservation code. thanks
June 5th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Hello. This is a targeted offer. Usually WaMu will buy customers’ information including address, name and others and send out their invitations to potential customers. Because it contains my persoanl information there. I can’t give out my code.
August 1st, 2008 at 11:51 am
hmm.. thank you very much. usefull information
August 3rd, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Cool. It took almost a day to find this info. Thanks! Good job.
August 5th, 2008 at 7:12 am
I love your blog…really. Did you already hear about water on mars?
September 24th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
Good post - strong combination of APR offer with Rewards. Not an easy find.
October 2nd, 2008 at 1:38 pm
I received and offer from WaMu to aply for a wamu visa platinum card with 0% fized APR until 2010. I was wandering should I apply for this card. I have been recently dicharged from chapter 7 bankruptcy in January 2008 and still in the process of re-establishing my credit. I will hate to apply for this card and get turned down. I tried calling the customer service to ask about the credit guildlines but it seem as if my call was directed to India and I did not understand what the guy was saying. What should I do?
October 2nd, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Hi Cynthia, I would say it’s risk to apply for this card if you have bankruptcy record. Please remember: invitation is not equal to approval!
October 12th, 2008 at 10:23 am
I received pre-approved offer from WAMU for same card. I am not much interested in 0% APR but $50 reward after first purchase is something attractive. Where can I find list of merchants that can be used to redeem %50 gift card? They have listed circuit city, best buy, macy etc but I need to know complete list. I checked WAMU’s web site but it did not mention anything about this credit card there. I tried to check WAMU real rewards site but it needs login information to proceed further. I just want to find out how and where I can redeem 7000 reward points that I will get after first purchase.
October 12th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Sunil, they never give out all of the information you want. The only way you can get all of the information is apply for this card and register the card online. Toooo bad
October 22nd, 2008 at 6:59 pm
There’s a bunch… It’s like 30-50ish decent sized retailers. You’ll definitely find something useful to blow the $50 on. I wouldn’t take Circuit City if I were you though, since they might be out of business before you get it.
If it say “pre-approved” you have at least a 75% chance of getting approved. Much lower if it doesn’t. WaMu approves plenty of people with prior bankruptcies.