Expired: Evolve Bank & Trust Paceline Credit Card: "Shutting Down, All Cards Closed on Feb. 23"

[Update 2023.2] This once-legendary card has finally run out of steam. The issuer officially announced that all cards will be shut down on Feb. 23. If you still have any cashback to use, redeem it as soon as possible. Refunding $60 of the annual fee is at least somewhat fair. This is a good reminder that niche products from small banks are hard to sustain: if the benefits are too generous, people game them into the ground; if the benefits are too weak, nobody cares.

• Official announcement

Evolve Bank & Trust Paceline Credit Card Review

Streaks Requirement

The key to this card was always the Streaks requirement, because completing it doubled the cashback rate: 2.5% became 5%, and 1.5% became 3%. The Apple Watch sign-up bonus reimbursement also required completing this task. Paceline explains the Streaks requirement as follows:

The Program awards “Streaks” to Program Members based on their physical activity, as measured by certain Company-approved third party devices and services.  The amount of physical activity required to earn Streaks is displayed to Program Members within the Mobile Application and is currently 150 or more elevated heart rate minutes per week, with no more than 50 minutes towards that goal coming from a single day.

In other words, the Paceline app tracks your activity, and you need to earn 150 or more elevated heart rate minutes per week, with no more than 50 minutes counting from any single day. For people who already exercise regularly, this was quite easy to achieve.

Boosted Cashback

After completing the Streaks requirement, the card’s cashback structure was as follows:

5% cashback in certain categories, including:

• Athletic apparel: Nike, Adidas, lululemon, Vuori, Athleta, Reebok, etc.
• Gyms: From Planet Fitness, Orangetheory, and CorePower Yoga to your local Pilates studio
• Sporting goods: Dick’s Sporting Goods, Big 5, your local bike shops, etc.
• Fitness equipment: Peloton Bike or Tread, Tonal, Mirror, iFit, and Echelon, etc.
• Grocery stores: including Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s.
• Drugstores: CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid, etc.

All other categories earned 3% cashback (up from 1.5%)

Apple Watch Sign-Up Bonus

This card had an Apple Watch as its sign-up bonus. After applying and receiving the card, you needed to reserve an Apple Watch 7 in the app, priced at $429. Under the terms, you had to complete the required weekly task in Paceline, which is the Streaks requirement mentioned above. Reimbursement was issued weekly over 12 months until the full $429 had been reimbursed. So to receive the full reimbursement, you still needed to keep the card for at least a year.

Earn up to a total of $429 in weekly statement credits over the course of 12 consecutive months. In order to qualify for reimbursement each week, you must: (1) maintain your Card Account status in good standing; and (2) achieve your Paceline activity goal as defined in your Paceline account documents. Neither Apple nor Evolve Bank & Trust are participants or sponsors of this program. Terms and conditions apply.

My Take

From a cashback perspective, this card really was too good to be true. Earning 3% on all purchases and 5% in a bunch of categories was already amazing, and those categories even included drugstores and grocery stores, where people could easily liquidate spend through third-party gift cards or Visa gift cards. My personal view was that these cashback rates were never going to be sustainable long term. Once the venture funding ran out, the benefits could be cut at any time. That said, I did think the Apple Watch sign-up bonus would probably be honored.

So my recommendation was: if you had already applied for most of the major credit cards, had some understanding of MS, and wanted to push further, this was the kind of card you could jump on quickly and milk while it lasted. But if you wanted a long-term keeper card for excellent cashback, I would not recommend it; you were better off sticking with products from larger, more stable banks.

If you were determined to apply, I recommended reading the following posts and especially their comments carefully to reduce risk as much as possible:

• Doctor of Credit’s write-up on this card (the comments section contains a lot of important information)
• Miles per Day’s experience holding this card (includes a lot of his own DPs)
• Miles per Day’s update on this card

Application

• Because this card was relatively new and the bank was fairly niche, there were not many relevant DPs yet.

Application Link: