Capital One’s Cardlab
Jan 15th, 2008 by Carlos
This is one of those rare cases where a TV commercial brought me straight to the product’s website. Capital One had an on yesterday where a mad scientist was trying to “bring life” to his new creation (á la Frankenstein) but instead of a monster he was creating the perfect credit card.
I know, so tired, like all of their ads. But what the ad also got across was that users can add the specific reward features they want, á la carte. This is huge and it’s the first time I’ve ever come across it.
As someone who uses his card for everything, this kind of concept appeals to me.
I’ve played around on their site and, while the options aren’t that robust, it’s a very smart move to allow users this kind of flexibility. We’ve seen this succeed with Saturn and with Dell, so why not with credit cards?
One weird thing is that the site asks what credit level you are at to start things off, which is kind of silly because I don’t know how many people are going to be honest. But after that the reward options are pretty neat. If you pick certain reward levels (like 1.5% cash back on all purchases), other options get blacked out, which means you’ve used up your “permissions” to add more rewards to your card.
For example, I built a card with 1% cash back on all purchases but added a 25% annual bonus, so if I get $200 dollars back at the end of the year (which is my average with my current card, which returns at the same 1% level), I would get an extra $50. No annual fee and I can choose a 0% introductory APR.
The next step is adding an image to your card, which is cool but totally irrelevant in terms of finances. This may prove to be a major draw for some people though. You can pick from their predetermined images or you can upload your own.
Then you review what you’ve ordered and apply as you would any other card. It’s pretty cool and pretty intuitive. And for that, I have to say, “Well done.”
Now, if you have credit-card debt or have problems budgeting, please stay away from the site. It is NOT going to help you.
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