Synchrony Venmo Credit Card Overview

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Full review

Synchrony Venmo Credit Card

Fully automatic 3%, 2% cash back

  • Welcome bonus: $200 (Spend $1,000 within 6 months of account opening)
  • Rewards: 3% on your highest spending category, 2% on your second-highest, 1% on all other purchases
  • Redemption: Redeem directly for cash back
  • Annual fee: $0
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Cash Back Rewards

The biggest selling point of this card is how its cash back is calculated. In each billing cycle, your top spending category earns 3% cash back, your second-highest spending category earns 2% cash back, and everything else earns 1%. The following 8 categories are eligible for the 2%/3% rates. (Terms and details)

  • Travel
  • Dining & Nightlife
  • Groceries
  • Entertainment
  • Bills & Utilities
  • Health & Beauty
  • Gas
  • Transportation

The Travel category includes:

  • airlines, hotels, motels, and resorts; plus cabins, cruises, cottages, hostels, and more.

The Dining & Nightlife category includes:

  • restaurants, carry out, drive-throughs and delivery; plus, bars and liquor stores.

The Groceries category includes the following. It’s especially nice that wholesale clubs and convenience stores are included.

  • convenience stores, bakeries and delis, wholesale clubs, and more.

The Entertainment category includes:

  • movie theaters, concerts, game stores, books, amusement parks, music stores, and more.

The Bills & Utilities category includes:

  • phone and internet, streaming services, electric, gas, water and more.

Ground transportation includes:

  • rental cars, taxicabs, ride share merchants, limousines, bus lines and passenger railways. This category also includes tolls, parking meters and parking garage fees.

The Health and Beauty category includes:

  • Drug stores and pharmacies that sell prescription drugs, over-the-counter medicines, vitamins, and may also sell related items such as cosmetics and toiletries, and cosmetic stores that sell beauty products. This category also includes sports and recreation facilities that require membership such as health clubs, tennis, golf and swimming clubs.

The Gas category includes:

  • Service stations that sell engine fuel.

Keep in mind that these spending categories depend on the merchant’s MCC. Large merchants are usually coded correctly, but smaller stores can occasionally be miscoded. If you plan to make a large purchase, it may be worth testing with a small purchase first.

For example, if you spend $1,000 on travel, $500 on dining, and $2,000 at grocery stores, then all of your grocery spending earns 3% cash back, all of your travel spending earns 2%, and dining plus all other categories earn 1%.

If you want to reliably earn 3% cash back, the simplest strategy is to use the card only in one category, since 2% is not especially compelling when cards like Double Cash offer a stable 2% return. But if you don’t have another 2% card, you could still focus on two categories.

Cons

  • For rewards above the base 1% rate, each category is capped at $10,000 in spending per year.
  • It’s not especially easy to get approved; it generally requires a relatively strong credit score.

My Take

Synchrony is a smaller issuer, and this card has a very low tolerance for unusual spending patterns. Too much overseas spend can trigger fraud controls, but too little can also trigger them. In short, it’s a pretty frustrating card. One advantage, though, is that Synchrony is not very sensitive to bill pay. Dining and Grocery work well for Alipay in China, while Bills & Utilities is currently the category used by WeChat Pay. That makes this card very useful in China, with the main downside being how easily it can get flagged.

If you have significant spending through WeChat Pay, this card can reliably get you 3% back, which is pretty solid. Even for transactions above 200rmb, the 3% fee can be offset by the 3% cash back. WeChat Pay is now accepted very broadly, so this card can be worth applying for specifically for that 3% return.

How to Apply

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