The Knot Credit Card Review

A brief History Of The Knot - The Knot is an online community that was foundered by four ladies back in 1996. It was initially funded by AOL ($1.6mm) and launched their website theknot.com in 1997¹. In December 1999, they raised $35 Million in an Initial Public Offering. Since then, they have grown to become to go to wedding resources. In 2005, they had started another website called "The Nest" which is an online community for newly weds. Then, in December 2005, The Knot and The Nest partnered with American Express to issue their affinity cards. If you have read our review of The Nest Credit Card, you would get a sense of Deja Vu because the features are almost identical.

The Structure of The Knot Card - Since The Knot partnered with Amex, the reward program used for this card is the Membership Rewards (MR) Options version. This is the lower tier version of the MR program and it is the program used for Amex no annual fee credit cards like the Blue and the Blue for Business card. Unlike the regular MR, you cannot transfer points to their airline and hotel partners.

Since this is an affinity card, you would expect that perhaps you can earn double points when you make purchases at the Knot. Unfortunately, you can only earn one point for every dollar you spend on the card for all your purchases. Yep, no double or triple points. This is a little disappointing because many other retail store credit cards give you anywhere between three and five points when you use their affinity card to purchase their products. In fact, I think this is one of the things that make this card not attractive. For example, we have the LL Bean card and the GAP Visa, both of which allow you to earn more than one point when you shop at their stores or buy their products.

The one consolation is that you will get discounts and savings at the Knot. In addition, you will also get a wedding planning binder to help plan for your wedding.

New cardholders also get 5,000 bonus points. You will receive 10,000 bonus points if you spend $15,000 a year on your card.

Did We Recommend This Card - This card was quite a tough call. And it will always be a tough call with regards to retail store or affinity cards because you really have to either spend a lot with them or are determined to use your points to redeem just their products. But there are a couple of issues I have with this card. Firstly, you will likely to make a lot of purchases if you intend to get married sometime in the very near future. And as far as I am concerned, married is (at least for half of us) a once in a lifetime affair. And even if it was not, it would be spaced out over many years! Secondly, you cannot use points to redeem for "The Knot" products.

My suspicion is that there will folks who know they will make lots of purchases from the Knot as they approach their wedding. For these people, perhaps getting this card may entitle them to some extra discounts. But you cannot use this card in advance, earn points and redeem them for "The Knot" products because you are actually Membership Rewards Options points! Furthermore, I am really put off by the fact that you cannot earn more than the standard one point when you shop with the knot. Hence, at the end of the day, this card appears to be like the "Blue from Amex" but with the extra discounts from "The Knot". I can't recommend it for the purpose of earning rewards to redeem for "The Knot" products though it in itself is like the Blue card (which is not a bad card).

I believe many folks found this to be an issue because this card (along with the Nest Credit Card) has been discontinued after American Express and the Knot ended their partnership agreement.

References
1. XO Group: Company Milestones