Great Card If
- You’re already a SoFi customer
- You want a no annual fee cash-back card that helps you save, invest, and pay down your debt
Don’t Get If
- You want a card that earns flexible rewards
- You want a card that offers bonus categories
The Ideal Cardholder
The SoFi card is best suited for those who have a SoFi loan, or utilize a SoFi Money and/or SoFi Invest account.
The SoFi card is also a solid option for those looking for the following card benefits:
Cell Phone Insurance Protection
If you pay for your cell phone bill with your SoFi card, you’ll receive complimentary cell phone insurance coverage, up to $1,000, that covers the actual cost to replace or repair your stolen or damaged phone.
The maximum reimbursement is $800 per claim, and $1,000 per 12-month period. Each claim requires you to pay a $50 deductible, and your coverage is limited to 2 claims per 12-month period.
World Elite Mastercard Benefits
Since the SoFi card is a World Elite Mastercard, you’ll also receive the following benefits:
- $5 Lyft credit for every 3 rides taken in a month, once per month
- Free annual Shoprunner membership
- 3-month free trial of DashPass for non-members, plus a $5 discount on two orders each month for DashPass subscribers
- 5% back on every HelloFresh order
How To Use Your SoFi Cash-back for Max Value
Pay Down a SoFi Loan
SoFi’s first-ever consumer product was its loan product. Namely, the service allowed you to consolidate and refinance your student loan debt at more favorable rates. Now the platform even offers the ability to apply for and take out a personal loan directly through the app.
While both these services can be helpful depending on your situation, both are debt obligations that you’ll certainly want to get paid down. This is where the SoFi card can help because as you earn your 2% cash-back rewards, you can then apply those rewards directly towards your loan balance to help you pay it off more quickly.
Invest With SoFi
Looking to grow your net worth? SoFi’s investment platform allows you to purchase stocks and even cryptocurrencies directly through the app. You can buy and sell virtually any public stock through the platform, along with 28 different crypto assets. Plus, you can redeem rewards from your SoFi card to help boost these balances even further.
You can earn rewards on every purchase you make, then redeem them to grow your investment account, where ideally they will then grow even further. Talk about a win-win!
Save With SoFi
The SoFi Money account is a cash management account that allows you to earn a 0.25% APY on your deposits, has no account fees, and free ATMs at 55,000+ Allpoint locations. You can handle all of your bill payments using it, and if you set up direct deposit, you’ll automatically get your paycheck up to 2 days early each time you get paid.
Just like with a SoFi loan or a SoFi Invest account, you’ll earn 2% back when you redeem rewards towards your SoFi Money account. However, if you’ve already built up an emergency fund and your bills are paid for this month, you might be better off redeeming your rewards to pay down debt or invest, as both of those options will help you save more or grow your money faster over time.
Statement Credit
Finally, SoFi gives you the option to redeem rewards as a statement credit to offset purchases you made with your card. But when you redeem this way, you cut the value of your rewards from 2% back to just 1% back.
Because of this, we highly advise against redeeming this way. Not only can you do much better than earning 1% back on purchases with another card, but if you genuinely want to offset purchases made with your card then it would make more sense to earn 2% back by redeeming to your SoFi Money account, and then using those funds to pay the balance on your SoFi card.
How To Earn More SoFi Cash-back
Using Your Card for All Your Purchases
Since the card doesn’t have any bonus categories and instead rewards you with 2% cash-back on all of your purchases, this is really the best and only way to earn as much cash-back as possible. This way, you’ll know that every purchase you make is earning you 2% back towards paying down your loan or adding to your SoFi Invest or SoFi Money account.
Alternative Cards to the SoFi Credit Card
Citi® Double Cash Card
Those looking for a card with a bit more flexibility when it comes to rewards should consider the Double Cash card. As with the SoFi card, the Double Cash card earns an unlimited 2% back on all purchases you make with the card with no annual fee.
However, instead of being limited to redeeming your 2% rewards towards a SoFi loan, or into a SoFi Money/Invest account, you can redeem your cash-back as a statement credit, direct deposit, check, or convert to ThankYou Points that can then be pooled with a premium Citi ThankYou Rewards card for high-value travel opportunities.
Fidelity® Rewards Visa Signature® Card
The Fidelity Rewards card and the SoFi card are similar as both offer 2% cash-back on all purchases with no annual fee. Fidelity then allows you to cash out these awards into a Fidelity Brokerage account, Fidelity Cash Management Account, Fidelity Retirement Account, and basically every other account type that Fidelity offers.
So, essentially, deciding which card is right for you mainly comes down to which company you prefer to handle your finances through.
The information regarding the Fidelity® Rewards Visa Signature® Card was independently collected by Upgraded Points and not provided nor reviewed by the issuer.
The information regarding the SoFi Credit Card was independently collected by Upgraded Points and not provided nor reviewed by the issuer.
Disclaimer: Any comments listed below are not from the bank advertiser, nor have they been reviewed or approved by them. No responsibility will be taken by the bank advertiser for these comments.
0 comments
Any thoughts or questions? Comment below!
Email needed if you'd like comment updates. It will NOT be published.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.