Opensky Gold Card Review

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You Can Only Be Invited To Apply.......

The Opensky Gold Credit Card is Opensky's venture into the world of unsecured credit cards. However, you cannot apply directly for this card. In fact, you have to be invited. More precisely, only cardholders of the Opensky Secured Visa Credit Card will be pre-approved and offered a chance to get this card.

You would need to have the Opensky secured credit card for six months before your account will be evaluated for the Gold unsecured version. You must have paid all your bills on time and preferably in full. Opensky will undoubtly also monitor your credit reports and look out for positives changes as well.

Should you go ahead and apply if you (as a secured credit card holder) get pre-approved for this card? Well, let's first look at the terms and conditions and then how it compares versus it's peers.

Card Details

Annual Fee	$59
Starting Credit Limit	$500

At this moment, Opensky does not list the terms and conditions of this card on their website. But from what we have gathered from folks who have been offered this card, the annual fee is $59 and the starting credit limit is $500. Will this card ever increase it's credit limit? We cannot say for sure now, but we do know that Opensky will increase the credit limit of their secured credit card without additional security deposit. Hence, I would be willing to bet that the Opensky Gold unsecured credit card would also increase your credit limit over time.

Competition

Card	Annual Fee	Starting Credit Limit	Credit Limit Increase
Opensky Gold	$59	$500	Not sure at this moment
Mission Lane	$0 - $59	$300 - $1,000	Yes - after 7 months and thereafter
Merrick Bank	$0 - $72	$550 - $1,350	$1,100 - $2,700 after 7 months

One of the key things you will notice of the Opensky Gold unsecured credit card is that they only charge an annual fee and do not charge any monthly fee or one-time processing fee that are common in many unsecured subprime credit cards.

There are two cards that the Opensky Gold Card should be compared to. The first is the Mission Lane Visa. It has an annual fee that ranges from $0 to $59. The starting credit limit varies but Mission Lane will evaluate you for a credit limit increase after 7 months if you pay your bills on time. Cardholders have also seen their credit limit increase to over 3,000 to $4,000.

The other card to compare with is the Merrick Bank Double Your Line Card. It has an annual fee that ranges between $0 and $72. The starting credit limit ranges from $550 to $1,350, which will double after 7 months to between $1,100 and $2,700 if you pay the first 7 monthly bills on time.

Both cards allow you to get pre-approved first without any impact on your credit score before you apply.

Pros: What We Like

Reasonable Annual Fee - $59 is a very reasonable annual fee for a subprime unsecured credit card.

No Monthly Fee or Processing Fee - Unlike many other subprime unsecured credit cards, the Opensky Gold does not charge any monthly fee (on top of the annual fee) or one-time processing fee.

Reasonable Starting Credit Limit - $500 isn't the highest but is a reasonable starting credit limit compared to it's peers.

Cons: What We Don't Like

Unsure About Future Credit Limit Increase - At this stage, there is just too little data points as to whether the Opensky Gold will increase your credit limit from the initial $500. I suspect they will but we are not sure at the moment.

Our Take: To get or not?

So if you already have the Opensky secured credit card for a while and you get a notice in your app or via mail that you have been pre-approved for the Gold unsecured version, should you go ahead and apply? If you are looking to jump from a secured to unsecured credit, I see no reason why you should not. The annual fee is reasonable and so is the starting credit limit. The only unknown (as of now) is whether that credit limit might increase over time.

If this is a concern for you, then I suggest you also go through the pre-approval process for Mission Lane as well as the pre-approval process for Merrick Bank to see if you can get a better offer. Both a soft pull and will not affect your credit score. Both cards also have a track record of credit limit increases over time. If you get pre-approved for all three, there is nothing stopping you from apply to all or perhaps two of them (including the Opensky).

In fact, this is one reason for a rebuilder to start with the Opensky credit card. Not only can you get an unsecured pre approval, you might also get a credit limit increase with the need for additional deposit from Opensky after six months as well.

To sum up, I would the Opensky Gold credit card a preliminary score of 4 star out of 5 for its' reasonable annual fee and starting credit limit. It's lack of track record on credit limit increases prevents us from giving it a higher credit rating at this moment.