Residents of Texas can join the Texell Credit Union and apply for their Signature credit card which has no annual fee and offers a signup bonus of 50,000 points.
You will earn 50,000 bonus Reward Points if you spend at least $5,000 within 90 days of your card open date. Once you qualify for this bonus, the points will be applied within 60 days. You can join Texell Credit Union by joining the American Consumer Council.
The credit union also offers a Platinum card, but that one does not have the bonus, only the Signature card. Other features of the Signature card:
- Earn 2 points on utilities, charities and memberships
- 1.25 points everywhere else
- Extended warranty protection
- 0% intro APR for 6 months; 4.99% intro APR for 24 months
Hat tip tom0963
Anyone else got the data-breach email from Texell dated 2020-09-03? Regarding an incident that happened in 2020-05-14? Check your spam folders if you don’t even have an account with Texell.
These jokers wanted my income verification; had I sent them one, it’d have been part of the security breach, I’m sure.
Their employee somehow had my full SSN in their email account that was accessed by a third party, WTF is that?! Negligence. Employees have no reason to see anyone’s SSN at all; not to mention store SSNs in their email account, fully unencrypted and jazz. Absolutely outrageous. Yet they treat this like normal business. SSN should only be accessible to the algorithms; it should not even be possible for employees to view SSN, let alone export it unencrypted, and store in their email account.
This one is a bit of a pain.
1) As part of the opening process, they’ll send you documents to sign, scan and send back. On one of these, your banker will have helpfully added bullshit insurance coverage for your account balance. If you catch it, it means another round of exchange. If you don’t, well you’ll have to do more documents to get it removed, physical documents.
2) They won’t let you add external payment accounts initially. For us it took 2 months and multiple phone calls.
3) Once you add and verify the external account, they will limit the amount you PAY from the account to $2k a week. They don’t tell you this until you try to pay off your balance.
4) When you cash out your bonus, it will apply as a payment and by default change your appearing due date to the next cycle. It’s just a sneaky way to hopefully get you to miss paying off your balance.
5) The interface and website are absolutely hideous. Just awkward to navigate, find what you want etc.
In conclusion, there are easier ways to make $500. I’d consider giving handjobs on the street before dealing with these asshats again.
Denied. Reason: “Too many accounts opened in the last 12 months.”
I’ve only opened three cards total this entire year. Granted, two of the cards were opened in the last three months, but still, their manual review process seems pretty strict.
I successfully opened the Signature Bonus card. But in order to get that opened, you will need to become a member by joining the American Consumer Council (which is free with promo code “consumer”). I also opened up a Savings account which they asked. A lending consultant will also call you regarding the application. Tedious but not bad experience.
I pulled the plug on this one since I have some upcoming purchases that will easily get me to the 5k requirement. Applied online and received a phone call a couple hours later to tell me I had been denied. They said more details to come in a letter, I did not push for more info.
Too bad, this one is 0/3 from the recent TX account deals I tried to open so I’ll take a break for a bit.
Experian
Clicked “Confirm” and says “something wrong” in the final step…
Did it ever work for you?
My successfully submitted just now. The applications seem to be manually reviewed and decided in an hour.
To qualify for membership at Texell Credit Union you must: live, work, worship or attend school in Bell County, Texas or; live, work, worship or attend school within ten miles of either our Georgetown or Leander branches or; have a family member that is a member of Texell or; live in Bell, Coryell, Falls, Lampasas, McLennan, Milam or Williamson County and would like to join the American Consumer Council.
Meant to add the part about ACC, let me add now.
Not sure where this longer list came from, but their main membership page is slightly different; note that with the links description below, the Credit union is open to ALL texas residents if they join the “Texas Consumer Council”:
https://www.texell.org/about-us/membership
Membership
Eligibility
Membership is open to persons who meet one or more of the following qualifications:
Live, work, worship, or attend school in Bell, McLennan, Travis or Williamson County, Texas.
Have an immediate family member who is currently a member of Texell Credit Union.
Texas residents who are an existing member of or would like to join the Texas Consumer Council.
https://loans.texell.org/
This is where I got it, after clicking the apply button. It asks whether you are elogible, and this is below it.
I am not eligible based on what I found, but I do live in TX so would love to be able to apply.
Their loan application page, just probably hasn’t been updated…
I would just click the qualified button and move on this if you’re interested.
Based on their own membership page you qualify based on what you’ve stated and I even found a 2019 annual report which indicated 2018 results and that:
“Texell now serves anyone who lives, works, worships or attends school in Williamson County, Texas AND
all Texas residents who are members of or wish to join the Texas Consumer Council.”
Yep. Make sense. Probably will pull the trigger this weekend. Will report back
“Redeem Points for: Cashback, Gift Cards, Brand name merchandise and Event Tickets”
Found cash value at <$0.01 ($.007 to $.0083) until you redeem at least 15k points for $150 to checking/savings/credit card:
https://rewards.texell.org/product.php?seq=13&product=39270&brand=00430&model=1001-0015&gift=true
Gift card redemptions all appear to be same redemption as well, so no perks for that.
Thanks. Looks like “Credit Card” redemption min is 2100 points for $15, …, 12000 for $100, then 15000 for $150, also at same 1cpp are $250, $350, $500, $750 and $1000. Seems pretty reasonable, if you ask me. “Savings” and “Checking” options seem the same as above, too.