Union Plus Prepaid Review (5.10% APY + $20 Bonus)

This is the second post in our weekly series that’s posted every Thursday, every week we talk about a different product that offers a high interest rate for consumers. You can see more posts in this series by clicking here, last week we looked at the Control Card (5% APY + $20 bonus).

• Interest Rate: 5.1%, rate drops to 2% without a direct deposit
• Minimum Balance:  None
• Maximum Balance: Up to $5,000 gets the full 5.1% rate. Balances above this get a rate of only 0.10% APY
• Availability: Nationwide
• Direct deposit required: Yes, no minimum mentioned but most likely needs to be $50+ a month. Any ACH transfer should work, click here for a list of data points (these are for Mango, but it’s basically the same card).
• Additional requirements: None
• Hard/soft pull: Soft
• Credit card funding: No
• Monthly fees: $2 (charged on 30 day cycle), waived if you load $500 or more in the 30 days prior
• Insured: FDIC
• Length of promotion: Since at least 2012

The Offer

Direct link to offer

• Receive an interest rate of 5.10% APY on balances up to $5,000 when you have a direct deposit.

• Receive a bonus of $20 enroll in their direct deposit service. You’re considered qualified when you complete two direct deposits totaling $50 within 90 days of account opening.

The Fine Print

• Direct deposit bonus will post within 30 days of completing the requirements

Avoiding Fees

This account does not have any sign up fees or early account termination fees. But it does have the following fees (their fee page can be accessed here).

• Balance Inquiry at ATM (you can check this for free online or by calling them): $0.50
• ATM Withdrawal: $1.50 plus any owner operator fees, here is a list of financial institutions that don’t charge owner/operator fees.
• International Currency Conversion: 2% per transaction
• Monthly Subscription Fee: $2 (charged on 30 day cycle), waived if you load $500 or more in the 30 days prior. Call customer service to find out when your 30 day cycle starts/ends.

It’s fee free to withdraw funds from your account and you can do this up to six times per month.

Our Verdict

This card is targeted at Union members, but you do not have to be a member to be approved (even if you did, you could join Working America members for free). It’s also the same underlying card (Rev Worldwide) as the Mango prepaid, although marketed slightly different.

I prefer these cards to rewards checking accounts, as the requirements to get the full interest rate are much easier to complete. If you pay the $2 monthly fee, you’d be effectively getting an APY of 4.62% (assuming you have the maximum balance of $5,000) which is lower than the rate of 5.28% that Mango offers after the monthly fee is taken into account.

Even if you did direct deposit $500 per month to avoid the monthly fee, you’d still be getting a maximum of 5.1% so Mango would still be a better option. I’d recommend the Union Plus card to people that already have a Mango account and want to get a high interest rate on more than $5,000.

If you’re not familiar with high interest checking accounts or prepaid accounts with high yield savings accounts, I’d recommend reading this post first.