By : Mr Credit Card

Ralph's Credit Card Review

Summary - Ralph's supermarket are part of the Albertson's chain of supermarket. Their credit card is designed for those who shop a lot there and enables you to earn reward points for doing so. Let's delve into this card right now.

The 3-2-1 Formula - The Ralph's credit card allows you to earn double points for every dollar that you spend at Ralph's stores. When you purchase Ralph's in house brand, you can earn triple points for every dollar that you spend. For other regular purchases, you earn the usual one point.

Bonus Miles - New cardholders will get 2,000 points after you get approved for the card and use it the first time.

What Are Points Worth - Once you earn 500 points, you get $5 reward certificate (worth 1% or 1 cent), which are sent quarterly to you. These can obviously be used at Ralph's stores

Ralph's MasterCard is issued by US Bank, who also happen to issue quite few grocery credit cards. And they also tend to have similar features, with some slight variations. For example, the Fred Meyer's MasterCard allows you to earn 2% rebates at Fred Meyer's store and also 5 cents a gallon at their gas stations. The Kroger 1-2-3 Rewards cards also has the same formula as the Ralph's MasterCard in that you can earn 2 points at Krogers family of stores and 3 points if you buy their in house brands.

So overall, I would say that their rewards is pretty typical of most supermarket credit cards. And they also fair pretty well against warehouse credit cards. For example, the BJ's credit cards allows you to earn double points at their warehouses. So Ralph's comes out slightly ahead because you can earn triple points when you buy their in house brands. The Costco credit card is a slightly different animal because you do not actually earn extra points for shopping at Costco, but instead earn extra rebates on items like gasoline, dining and travel.
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Another card that is worth comparing to for supermarket rewards and rebates is the Blue Cash Everyday from American Express. This card pays 3% cash back at groceries. Essentially, I think this is a better card than most supermarket credit cards because you earn 3% cash back for everything that you buy there. Contrast this to the Ralph's credit card whereby you only earn triple points when buy their in house brands.
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Verdict - The Ralph's Rewards MasterCard is a pretty decent grocery or supermarket credit card. It's reward formula is pretty typical of grocery credit cards. Earning double points when you shop at their stores and triple points when you buy their in house brands is pretty good. Unfortunately, I think that the Blue Cash Everyday beats them because you earn 3% cash back at ANY grocery and not just Ralph's. Furthermore, you do not need to buy any in house brands just to earn the 3% rebates.

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