Navy Federal Credit Union (NFCU) today announces that they will be refreshing the American Express MoreRewards card. The card currently offers:
- Card earns at the following rates:
- 3x points per $1 spent at supermarkets and gas stations
- 2x points per $1 spent at restaurants
- 1x point per $1 spent on all other purchases
- No annual fees
- No foreign transaction fees
- No balance transfer fees
- Points are same as those on other NFCU cards (e.g GO REWARDS & Flagship)
- Points are worth 1¢ towards travel and there is a minimum redemption of 5,000 points (1,000 for digital downloads and 3,000 for gift cards)
The card will come with two new 3x categories: dining & transit. In addition when you sign up for the new card you’ll be offered 30,000 points and 0% APR on purchases for the first 12 months. The card will start accepting new applicants in September.
Fred Meyer codes as supermarket for 3x, Walmart does not.
I really wish Navy fed would combine their rewards programs
They won’t do it, because NFCU wants to see the breakage. Combining points across multiple cards would result in more redemptions, and that would drive up costs. The same logic is behind their $50 minimum redemption.
If 3% dining is added to the More Rewards card, what happens to the Go Rewards card? Go Rewards is all about 3% dining. Everything that Go Rewards does now, More Rewards will soon do better.
NFCU’s refresh of More Rewards is long overdue. When the card was first announced in a joint press release with Amex two years ago, they claimed it would be a great card. When it finally opened for applications, it turned out to be merely a 3% groceries and gas card — with the indignity of a $50 minimum redemption. Adding dining and transit will make it a good complement to the Flagship Rewards. Anyone with that two-card combo would never need either the Go Rewards card or the Cash Rewards card.
Meanwhile, my Chase Sapphire Reserve gives me 4.5% on dining and transit, so the refreshed More Rewards card would not help me.
Be careful of Navy, they recently shut down 300+ people in association with MS. I have insider information that Navy is trying to keep the money they have locked. Its been about 2 weeks now if my info is correct. Essentially they are worse than BOFA. I know people who are locked up with 400k+.
Navy is trying to confiscate these funds so be aware – you have been warned.
Is this real? I heard from my friends they are locked but I thought they were getting their money back
400k+ on one person? that was a lot of MS for that individual
I have about 300k tied up. Called and they told us they will be reporting to the DoD. I told them they are not Defense and is a bank that is worse than BOFA. They hung up on me
$300k per billing cycle? $300k/3%=10M MS, you must be cycling credit limit 400 times per billing cycle….why don’t you redeem points to cash incrementally before it reached to that big number?
oh, you mean 300k points tied up, so $3000 cash.
Thats a pretty good card now for people who like having one catch all. Neat.
Well that’s still fantastically useless for experienced card holders. Dining/Transit/Supermarkets/Gas are all 4%+ categories. At least it’s better than your average CU card that earns 1x for every $2 spent
do you have to wait any period of time between opening accounts or receiving bonus on the NAVY FCU Flagship or Amex cards?
I assume you are referring to the Amex Gold and Chase Sapphire Reserve. Both of those have annual fees. In my mind, this competes with the Wells Fargo Propel.
What card(s) are you claiming give 4% back as standard for groceries??
See Kent’s response below:
Amex blue cash preferred, amex gold, amex everyday preferred. Those are the constant ones, plus plenty of rotating or choice category ones (huntington business voice).
Amex offers bonus category for US locations only, unlike Chase. This card is by NFCU, many military people get stationed or deploy overseas at some point, and Amex bonus category is pretty much useless. I’ve tried it at on-base commissaries and it’s supposed to be considered US, and they don’t even get bonus properly.
Having just lived overseas, I was able to get the 4x dining multiplier on all the food vendors/restaurants on base since they went through the MWR (US) for registration purposes. Commissary still gave me only 1x though.
Actually, getting 3% on groceries *outside the US* with no foreign transaction fee or annual fee is very hard to come by. The only other such cards I know of are the Huntington Voice MasterCard and the Andrews FCU Visa Titanium. Of course you’re probably better off with one of those for foreign use than an Amex card.
Still waiting on
Frank to back up his opinionated post that there are atandard 4% back cards out there for groceries.
The Amex Everyday Preferred gets 4.5x on US grocery stores if you have 30 or more transactions in a billing cycle (otherwise 3x, which is still worth over 4%). Amex Gold gets 4x. Amex Blue Cash Preferred gets 6%.
The Amex Everyday card (no AF) gets 2.4x if you have 20 or more transactions in a billing period (otherwise 2x), which is also arguably worth 4% or more.
But again, for all of these, the bonus specifically only applies to US supermarkets.
@Kent thanks for the info. I am on the look out for one.
It’s good to know about Andrews. My SO has a USBank Rewards Visa which was converted years ago from the original Sierra Trading Visa. It has 4% rebate on sporting goods and bar. FTF was eliminated a couple of years ago. We received a mail a few days ago stating this visa card will start to earn 3% rebate on groceries and gas, 2% on restaurants and clothing instead from September. It still has no FTF.
What cards gets UNLIMITED 4xon gas or groceries?
For gas, look at:
– Wells Fargo Propel (3x) transferred to their Visa Signature card for a 50% bonus (making 4.5x).
– Fort Knox Fed. Credit Union Visa Platinum: 5% cash back (apparently the application process is PITA).
To my knowledge there aren’t limits on any of these, but don’t take my word for it — read the fine print.
It was 40k a few weeks ago (till 6/30) and it was semi-public. Still a nice refresh.
You can also redeem the points as statement credit at 1cpp or deposit directly into the savings account.