By : Mr Credit Card

Kroger Credit Card Review

Summary - Kroger owns a family of supermarket chains. They include Kroger, King Soopers, City Market, Dillons, Baker's, Smith's, Fry's and QFC. The Kroger credit card (officially called the 1-2-3 Rewards MasterCard) allows you to earn Kroger Reward Points. But, as we will find out, there are several kinks with this card that is not apparent at first glance. And we have also found a better card that allows you to earn even more rebates at Krogers.

Fred Meyer Reward Formula - The Kroger credit card allows you to earn double points for every dollar that you spend at Kroger's family of stores. However, you will not earn double points at their gas stations. If you buy their in house brands, you will earn triple points. Regular purchases gets you one point for every dollar that you spend on the card.

Bonus Points - New cardholders will get $25 off their next Kroger purchase when they get approved for the card and use the first for the first time.

What Are Kroger Reward Points Worth - Though the Kroger card allows you to earn double and triple points at their store, their reward payout is actually pretty disappointing. Why? Because 1,000 points only gets you a $5 of free groceries. This is worth only 0.5%!

Kroger's credit card is issued by US Bank and it appears that it has some similarities with other US Bank issued supermarket credit cards. Like the Ralph's and Fred Meyer cards, you can earn double points when you shop at their stores. Like the Ralph's Reward MasterCard, you can also earn triple points when you buy their in house brands. So at first glance, one would think that the rewards are pretty standard and comparable with it's peers. Until we start looking at how much their reward points are worth.

Almost all supermarket reward points are worth 1% (Fred Meyer, Ralph's, even BJ's). That means that 1,000 points gets you a $10 rebate. But in the case of Kroger, the rewards are only worth 0.5%. Based on this criteria, it is the worst compared to other supermarket reward programs. Therefore, although you can earn the same amount of points as other cards like Fred Meyer, the reward points are worth less (more like worth only half!)

The other thing to mention is that this card will not allow you to earn double points at their gas stations. The Fred Meyer credit card allows you to earn rebates at their gas station (though their rebate formula leaves much to be desired). The Costco credit card allows you to earn 3% cash back at gas stations.
 

When you are researching supermarket credit cards, you can't help but also look at the Blue Cash Everyday from American Express. That is because this is the only card that pays 3% cash rebates for grocery spending. And from this perspective, the Blue Cash Everyday is a far superior card, especially considering the fact that Kroger's reward points is worth only 0.5%!
 

Verdict -Compared to all other supermarket credit card, the Kroger reward points are only worth half of what others are giving. And if you only shop at Krogers and there isn't any Blue Cash Everyday card, then you would be forced to get an inferior reward card. Fortunately, Amex has the Blue Cash Everyday and it comes to the rescue by allowing you to earn 3% cash back at ANY grocery store (not just Krogers). Even if you only shop here at Kroger, I would suggest you avoid this card and get the Blue Cash Everyday instead.