American Eagle Outfitter Credit Card Review
REVIEW

The retailer American Eagle Outfitter has a store credit card and a Visa credit card for folks who regular shop at their stores. Obviously, these cards gives you rewards for shopping at American Eagle stores. We'll look at these two cards right now.

The American Eagle credit card allows you to earn rebates at AE, aerie, ae.com, aerie.com and 77kids.com. You will earn 1% "extra savings" for all regular purchases. New cardholders get a 15% discount for their first credit card purchase. Cardholders will also get a 20% off birthday coupon (you need to give them your email address for this). Cardholders are also invited to "savings events" four times a year. Once you are approved for the credit card or store card, you will be enrolled in the AE Rewards program. This is where your "extra savings" rewards come into play. Earn up to a certain number of points and you qualify for certain discounts at American Eagle stores.
 

It is worthing comparing AE with other cards from "clothing stores". The Gap Visa allows you to spend 5 points for every dollar that you spend at GAP. The LL Bean Visa allows you to earn 3 points for every dollar you spend at LL Bean. The Old Navy Card allows you to earn 5 points for every dollar that you spend at their stores.

So in terms of reward, it appears that their peers have much better credit cards. AE used to allow card members to earn 4 points per dollar at their stores. But they have since reduced it.

I also searched for the usual credit cards with shopping portal to see if you could also earn rebates from shopping at American Eagle Outfitters. And true enough, I found one - and it is the Discover® iT Card.

For those of you who are not familiar, Discover has a shopping portal called shopdiscover.com. They have over 100 online merchant partners. When you go to AEO.com from your Discover account and shop online using your Discover Card, your purchases will be tracked and you will earn 5% rebates, which is more than the "4% rewards" that you earn with the AEO credit card. Furthermore, you do not have to use your rebates at AEO. You can redeem for cash or gift cards.

You will not find these info at Discover's website (only cardholders can see it). So here is a screen shot what how this works.
 

Clicking on the American Eagle Outfitter icon takes you to a page with the fine prints and terms and conditions. Clicking on the "start shopping" button takes you to aeo.com.

The American Eagle Outfitters credit card has a nice store and visa credit card that will appeal to those who really shop their often. There is though, a big problem IMO. And that is you do not earn any extra rebates from spending at their stores. They used to allow you to earn 4 points for every dollar that you spend at their stores. But now, all you earn in the regular one point per dollar. This pales compared to most of their peers. As for me personally, I've never thought it is a good idea to get a specialized store credit card because I just happen to things from many stores. If I were to get every store credit card that I shop at, I will need a bag to put all my credit cards! I suspect that the folks who get this card will have a few teenage kids who love getting their clothes from here.

For those of you who cannot resist the urge to look for ways to save, I suggest you consider a card like the Discover It where you can take advantage of their shopping portal.
 

There are also some of you who are considering this card because it is a "store" card and you have heard that they tend to be more lenient in their approval for folks who simply have average credit. If you happen to fall under this category, you might also want to consider other "credit friendly" cards like the Barclays Rewards MasterCard.