If you’re not keen on using credit cards in lieu of cash, but still would like the convenience of using a card for making purchases, then you’ve probably considered using a debit card instead. Many banks and financial institutions are now offering free ATM bank cards and debit cards to their customers to give them easy access to their accounts. But there’s a debit card issuer that deserves a mention for having great incentives for customers: PerkStreet Financial offers cash back when you use their debit card.
Cash Back Debit Card Rewards from PerkStreet Financial
This boils down to saving up to $600 annually just by using the PerkStreet card and spending like you do normally. There are particularly attractive rewards that PerkStreet Financial is offering; to start with, you can earn 5% cash back for purchases in certain spending categories that you make throughout the year on your debit card.
Note that these spending categories can be pretty specific and will be mentioned and described in the PerkStreet blog, their Twitter account (@perkstreet) and Facebook page. For instance, during the months of June and July, the categories are in line with the stuff you buy during the summer such as gas for your car, items from home improvement stores like Menards, Lowe’s or Home Depot and ice cream from top brands (Cold Stone Creamery, Dairy Queen, Ben & Jerry’s).
But this is not all. What’s even better is that for the first three months upon opening your PerkStreet Financial account, you’ll earn 2% cash back on all non-PIN purchases that you make. And after the three months are up, you’ll earn a certain amount of cash back when you spend, based on your PerkStreet Financial checking account balance for a given day. Here’s how it works: suppose you made some non-PIN purchases on a particular day and you placed it on your debit card. For these purchases, you’ll earn 2% cash back if your existing checking account balance is $5,000 or higher on that given day. If your balance is lower than $5,000, then you’ll earn 1% cash back instead.
Your cash back can be used for 3 types of perks (rewards): coffee, music downloads or gift cards (e.g. retailer gift cards and the Visa Gift Card). You’ll need to choose the type of perk you want to receive, but you can also switch to any perk at any time, without penalties. Also, there’s no limit to the total cash back amount you can earn.
PerkStreet Financial Checking Account Details
Now that we’ve covered the incentives for joining PerkStreet, let’s take a quick look at the kind of account you’ll have. Here are some other great things to note about this account with PerkStreet Financial:
Opening a checking account with PerkStreet can earn you more cash than you would with other high yield checking accounts. It only takes a minimum of $25 to open an account that has no monthly fees (when the account is kept active) and no minimum balance requirement. As a customer, you’ll then get free checks, the convenience of using a great number of available ATMs, and free bill pay and online banking features.
It should also be easy to transfer funds to and from your account as there are direct deposit and online transfer features. You can also set up mobile alerts on your account to warn you of changes in your balance.
PerkStreet’s rewards are at par with or may even be better than what is offered by many credit card rewards programs. Usually, debit cards aren’t so generous with the benefits, but this one from PerkStreet stands out as a unique debit rewards card. This may be a great alternative for those consumers who appreciate online banking, who prefer to use ATMs (without fees) and who would like to enjoy card rewards but are averse to using a credit card.
Finally, you’ll want to keep an eye on PerkStreet Financial’s cash back terms and conditions. This particular offer is set to expire on September 15, 2010.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Not a bad idea — debit cards with rewards. Similar to a rewards checking account though? Still, I agree that it offers a reasonable alternative to credit cards that have benefits. Are there any more products like this in the debit cards space?
Sounds like a good idea, but if you have bad credit or are on chex systems you cannot open up a checking account.
@John Rowe, you can get much better rewards from credit cards, and if you pay each month there’s no interest! You won’t see anything like that with a debit card.
Sounds good to me, just make sure your credit is good enough to start this plan. Would be a great first debit card for students or other young adults.
I just blogged about the new 2% cash back upgrade too! Its definitely one of the richest debit card offers out there and I like the direction of PerkStreet Financial, but for most students or low-income consumers, keeping $5,000 in the bank to earn 2% cashback might be difficult unless you stat moving money around from different accounts. But overall, I think its a worthy debit card if you can optimize that 2% cash back. Good review!
I am generally against Credit Cards for the most part,with a few exceptions: establishing credit, identification, emergencies, purchasing something that you may want to return, or in order to avail yourself of the consumer credit card protection laws such as a dispute resolution process through your credit card issuer. If you have to get a card, one with 2% cash back sounds great! But be careful not to buy things you would not ordinarily buy just to get the 2% cash back.
I just interviewed Dan over at PerkStreet last week – I like their product a lot. My only concern is necessary spending since any purchases are rewarded with more money. It could get out of hand, but if you have a lot of discipline that card is perfect.
There are several problems with this bank, so I would warn potential customers to be aware of the fine print. Although PerkStreet’s website has the appearance of being clear about their policies, I found that not to be the case. These “fine print” policies seem designed to (1) make it difficult to move money out of the account, and (2) to limit the cash back that you can earn. Below are examples.
(1) They have a limit of $1500 on incoming online transfers in an entire *month*! They don’t tell you about this anywhere except when you actually try to move money into your account. When I called them about it, they said that they have this restriction for new customers and I was still in my first month. After a couple more calls, I realized that they will increase this limit to $2500 after six months.
Stated reason: Security.
Suspected motive: To limit the amount of money you can spend to get cashback.
(2) They have a limit of $500 on outgoing online transfers. So, say you move $5000 into your account to get 2% cashback. You are stuck with that money with them for the rest of the month (unless you adopt a slower paper check route).
(3) They have a limit of $1500 on daily expenses and explicitly say on their website that it can be waived simply by making a phone call. I had to book two one-way international flight tickets that cost a total of over $1500. I booked these and called them to waive the limit. They refused to do so because I was still in my first month. There is no notice about waivers not being allowed in the first month anywhere. As a result, I have to now spend much more money re-booking that ticket just because PerkStreet does not allow me to spend my own money.
Stated reason: Security for new customers. They claim that all banks have spending limits on debit cards. Really? Bank of America did not.
Suspected motive: Limiting spending => limiting cashback.
(4) When I tried to circumvent the limitation in (1) above to move more money into my account using FedEx, there was another surprise! The first FedEx check takes not 1 day as stated, but about 9 days for some reason. Again, some vague security reason that is incomprehensible to rational beings is given as an explanation.
Bottom line: It is not easy to get much cashback because of their restrictive policies on what you can do with your money. And they make it harder to move money out of the account while not giving any interest on it. As for the 5% cashback, they are on such specific and tiny items that I have never been able to get 5% cashback so far.
My name is Jason Henrichs and I work for PerkStreet. I’ve corresponded with AV since his experience and also worked with our customer service team to improve the information he was delivered. We are always working to improve the experience and any customer’s feedback is appreciated. We are taking action on the areas of AV’s experience that can be corrected, but there are several parts of his claim that I’d like to better explain.
Unfortunately fighting fraud is a tremendous burden that has several impacts not just for the bank but for the customers as we establish a relationship. For AV’s first point, the limit does go up over time and with the deeper relationship. There are several ways you can get money in the account besides our free online transfer- by pushing the money from the other account, setting up direct deposit or sending a check. We recognized that this would limit a new customer’s ability to meet the $5,000 threshold which is why we put in a 90 day grace period where you earn 2% no matter what. If we were looking to bait and switch to keep your balance captive we certainly wouldn’t have done that. We keep a small share of the interchange earned when a customer uses the card and give most of it back to the customer. It is in our best interest to make sure customers can spend as much as they want while balancing the fraud exposure to us and to the customer.
On the daily limit, I’ve worked with the customer service agent on how to better handle the situation and apologize that it was not a stellar experience.
For your last point on the check, it is clearly stated in FAQs what the hold times are but let’s face it, wading through FAQs is a pain so you naturally picked up the phone where the representative was not clear in her explanation. Again, I’ve worked on the education that she should have inquired whether you were a new customer because their is an extra hold time for the first 30 days.
Unfortunately banks have done little to engender trust so we’re fighting little by little to do better and earn that back. IM- I hope you’ll give us a shot. We aren’t perfect but I can assure we have many customers who love us. And I don’t know many other banks that have their COO writing a lengthy reply to an irate customer on a Saturday because he genuinely cares about making banking better.
Any customer or potential customer can contact me directly if they have questions or suggestions: jhenrichs -at- perkstreet.com