The TOP 5 WORST Credit Cards In 2024

[Music] What's up guys, it's Graham here. So normally, on the channel, we talk about the best credit cards to help build your score, give you unlimited cashback rewards, reward you with sign-up bonuses, and do all of that with unparalleled customer service. But today is not that video. Instead, I've scoured through dozens of credit cards, read hours of fine print, and subjected myself to some of the worst terms imaginable just so that I could come up with what I believe to be the five worst credit cards in existence that should be avoided at all costs.

That's because the fact is, most people have absolutely no idea what they're signing up for, and they think egregious points like this are normal until they look at their statements, see the monthly fees racking up higher than the cost of filling up their gas tank, and not knowing that all of this was preventable ahead of time had they just seen a video like this.

And listen, for legal reasons, obviously all of this is just my own opinion based on information that's publicly available on their websites, and some of the points are emphasized for the sake of trying to be funny. That just means you should always do your own research, come to your own conclusion, and this is obviously for entertainment purposes only.

So, with all of that jargon out of the way, if you appreciate a video like this that you could send off to your friends and family with the notes saying, "I told you not to get that credit card," just do me a favor and hit the like button for the YouTube algorithm and subscribe if you haven't done that already. So, thank you guys so much, and also a big thank you to Experian Boost for sponsoring this video, but more on that later.

First, let's start off with something simple that a lot of people have without even realizing it, and that would be number five: the Starbucks Rewards Visa. Now, I'll be the first to admit that if you're a frequent user of Starbucks coffee, it's entirely possible to get your money's worth many times over. But the true extent of your coffee addiction has to be somewhat insatiable to make it worth it.

Let me explain. As you can see, on the surface, it looks like a normal credit card issued by Chase, except wait, what is that? Is that a mermaid? I mean, I guess the technical term is a siren, as named after the mythical sea creature. But to get this card, you better like Starbucks a lot. By signing up, you're not going to get cash back, zero interest, or free travel like the traditional credit cards offer. Oh no! With this, you'll get stars for every dollar you spend on eligible Starbucks purchases. From there, those stars could be redeemed for drink customizations, brewed coffee, handcrafted drinks, and more—all for the low price of just wait, 49 dollars a year.

Well, surely that must mean it's good, right? Right? Well, to soften the blow, they'll waive the annual fee for the first year, and they'll give you 4,500 stars as a bonus when you spend 500 in the first three months. Plus 300 bonus stars when you use it to load your registered Starbucks card, which means you're basically pre-paying from your Starbucks credit card to buy Starbucks from within the app.

All right, either way, those 4,800 points are worth approximately 192 dollars of free coffee, which on the surface isn't terrible. You'll also be getting a complimentary drink every single month worth up to ten dollars. So in the first year, you could get all the way up to 312 dollars' worth of free Starbucks coffee. You'll also get anywhere between one and three stars depending on where you spend your money, and to maximize the rewards you'll have to load money into the Starbucks app and then use that to buy the coffee once it's already locked away, which according to the Points Guy is worth the equivalent of getting four percent back.

All of that is to say that if you're gonna make this card worth it, you better be prepared to drink a lot of coffee, as in 108 hot coffees, 44 premium coffees, or 24 protein boxes just from the sign-up bonus. Then every year thereafter, in order to compensate for the 49 annual fee, you'll either need to take advantage of their complimentary monthly drink or purchase an average of 294 four-dollar drinks every single year at an average redemption of four cents per purchase in addition to their complimentary monthly drink.

So long story short, yes, you can absolutely make this card worth it if you go to Starbucks on an almost daily basis because you're addicted. But besides that, there are plenty of other options that get you almost the same benefit without requiring that you have to spend those at Starbucks. For instance, the Chase Freedom Flex just straight up gives you 200 cash when you spend 500 in the first three months, and they'll give you 10 points per dollar spent at Starbucks this summer, which works out to a 10 ROI.

There's also the American Express Gold Card that automatically gives you four times points per dollar spent at restaurants, so it's almost the same thing, except you could use those rewards towards any coffee shop without having to spend five dollars on liquid sugar.

But that's just the beginning, and these next ones keep getting progressively worse. Like our second choice, the Credit One Platinum Visa for rebuilding credit. You may have heard of them through their non-stop solicitations every time you open up your mailbox. Regrettably, when I was first building my credit, I thought to myself, “Hey, I should probably get this. It looks kind of like the Capital One, so what's the harm?” Lesson learned.

Now, it's not their 24 percent interest, eight percent cash advance charge, or 39 dollar late fee that bothers me the most. Instead, it's the 99 dollar annual fee charged after the first year's 75 fee, with monthly charges of 8.25 for pretty much absolutely nothing. In fact, just to break even on the card's one percent reward on select purchases, you would have to spend 9,900 dollars a year within their select merchants simply to not lose money.

But don't just take it from me, let's see what their verified happy customers have to say about their product. “My credit was excellent two months ago, but because of some random fee, they reported the payment as delinquent and knocked it down over 50 points. Why would I check the card when I'm never using it? I wish I could give them a zero, but it is not possible. That's why I gave them a one. Customer service is a joke. You try calling; they laugh and they tell you you are wrong.”

Anyway, thankfully I was able to cancel my Credit One credit card within about a year from opening it, and it's been over a decade since I've had to deal with them. But had I known about their practices sooner, I would have much rather have gone with something like the Discover It secured card, with no annual fee, one to two percent cash back, and automatic rewards matching for the first year.

But like I mentioned, this list gets progressively worse, and before we go onto the third option, I just want to point something out. Almost all of my personal least favorite credit cards are geared towards those with a low credit score and have no other option to turn.

However, most people are not aware that ninety percent of the top lenders use FICO scores to evaluate your creditworthiness and that you could get yours for free from our sponsor, Experian. I'm actually really glad they reached out because I've legitimately talked about the products and services in my prior videos for free.

It's a product that I've really liked and recommended for anyone who's looking to improve their score. But for those unaware, Experian is a service that allows you to take control, track your FICO and credit report, see exactly what's affecting your score both positively and negatively, and see exactly when your FICO score changes so that you could better understand exactly what's going on.

They also offer a service called Experian Boost, which is a completely free opt-in service that links your accounts and tracks your on-time phone and utility payments by adding them as a positive trade line on your Experian credit file, thereby helping boost your score. On top of that, most people are not aware that checking their own credit report has absolutely no negative impact on their score, and there’s no credit card required.

Experian offers everything that you need to see a report and help improve your score all in one place. So if you're interested, get started today by clicking the link down below in the description and signing up for a free account with Experian, or you could also download the Experian app. That way, you could take back control of your score, work to increase it even higher, and then brace yourself for the next option on the list: three, the Continental Finance MasterCard.

Except from the way I see it, there's nothing Continental about it, especially when there's an option to accept mail offers, just knowing that someone was unlucky enough to get this delivered to their mail without immediately throwing it away. So what's so bad about it? Well, as they say, Continental Finance is one of America's leading marketers and servicers of credit cards for consumers with less than perfect credit. And you would think to leave it there if you're not weird like me to read through 17 cardholder agreements to find all the atrocities hidden in the fine print. Believe me, it is wild.

Like once you apply, they may determine that you need a security deposit as collateral up to the full amount of your credit line—which, oh right, that's standard if you're building your credit, no surprise there—but wait! What's this? Set-up and maintenance fees will be assessed before you begin using your card and will reduce the amount of credit you initially have available, or basically right off the top before you even begin using your credit card.

99 dollars is taken out, so if you have a 500 dollar credit limit, congratulations, now it's only 401. If you want an additional credit card, that’ll also cost you another thirty dollars. After the first year, they'll also charge you another ten dollars a month as a monthly maintenance fee, bringing your total annual cost to 199 dollars. So there you go, you just played yourself.

And if that's not bad enough, they also have a late payment fee up to forty dollars, which basically means it's probably just going to be the full forty dollars because why would they charge you any less than the absolute maximum that they're able to? Oh, and did I mention that you get no rewards at all? Yeah, seriously, you're paying them up to 200 a year for the privilege of getting to pay them up to 200 a year. Makes absolutely no sense.

But at least on the bright side, you get this wonderful pop-up as soon as you try to click out of their offer. So, in terms of what I think, if you're looking for a well-respected, affordable credit card while you're just starting out, you're probably best off with the Bank of America Cash Rewards Card, which gives you a 200 dollar cash bonus when you spend a thousand dollars in the first 90 days, with no annual fee, zero percent interest for the first 15 months, and up to three percent cash back in the category of your choice. That is a lot better than lighting 200 a year on fire.

These next two credit cards take a slightly different approach, and instead of targeting people with low credit and the inability to spend five minutes reading negative reviews online, the MasterCard Black Card is much more sophisticated. They capitalize on your desire to pretend that you have an American Express Centurion card for ten times the price now.

You know, this is for the people who enjoy the finer things in life like 495 dollar annual fees when their website is literally luxurycard.com. Now, I think the whole point of luxury is not having to say it's luxury, but you know what? I digress. Anyway, the 495 dollar annual fee is cheaper than both the American Express Platinum and the Chase Sapphire Reserve at 695 and 550 respectively. And from the looks of it, they make it appear as though the MasterCard Black Card actually gives you these superior rewards, but is that actually the case?

Let's start with the two percent airfare redemption. Yes, it is true that you will get two percent back when you're redeeming for points, but what they don't tell you is that you only get one point per dollar spent, which completely defeats the point—pun intended. Just consider this: take the Chase Sapphire Reserve for example. If you spend one thousand dollars on travel, you will get three percent back in points, and at a one and a half percent redemption rate, that's worth 45 dollars.

On the other hand, with the MasterCard Black Card, sure, you get a two percent redemption rate, but when they only offer you one point per dollar spent, that leaves you with just twenty dollars worth of value. So the net amount that you're actually left over with is up to fifty percent less. The same thing also applies to their cash back redemption. Yes, you get one and a half percent cash back, but if that's what you really wanted, you would be much better off with the Citi Double Cash Card, instead, which gives you unlimited two percent cash back without any annual fee.

And then they show off the card's weight like, what? I didn't even know there was a competition to see who had the heaviest credit card. Now, on the bright side, they at least make an effort to appeal to the luxury cardholders by giving them a 100 dollar travel credit, which is still 200 dollars less than the Chase Sapphire Reserve. And for the most part, you're getting all the same perks as every other premium credit card, except you're giving up all the additional earnings potential just for the sake of putting a heavier piece of metal in your wallet.

Don't even get me started on their commercial, by the way. The entire thing follows a model and her daughter while she wakes up from her 50th floor New York penthouse, sails by yacht, and has no actual footage of her using the card. Now it's definitely not a scam, and it's not like they're taking advantage of uneducated customers who have nowhere else to turn to, but from my perspective, it's just a bad imitation of the Centurion card. A better option, like I mentioned, would simply be the Chase Sapphire Reserve, and even though the annual fee is 55 dollars higher, you do get 200 dollars more back on travel every single year, along with a really, really profitable signup bonus. So it's effectively 145 dollars cheaper every single year, and it's not going to weigh down your wallet.

But if you thought that was bad, oh no, the worst defender of them all is the MasterCard Gold Card. For the low, low price of just 995 dollars a year, you could get a 24-karat gold-plated credit card to fit perfectly alongside with your ego. With this premium price, you'll get all the benefits of the exact same two percent redemption on airfares, the MasterCard Black Card's two percent cash back—which you may as well just take that because the airline redemption is the exact same thing—and a 200 dollar travel credit instead of a hundred dollar travel credit.

So wait, let me get this straight: you pay 500 dollars more a year for a 100 dollar additional travel credit and half a percent more in cash back while getting to swipe a 24-karat gold-plated credit card that you could purchase online for 189 dollars? You do realize that just to make up for that extra 400 dollar difference between cards, you would have to spend eighty thousand dollars extra every single year on that card just to break even on the annual fee. It makes absolutely no sense, especially when the rewards are terrible compared to every other credit card for a fraction of the price.

Now, I do find it interesting that they offer you a complimentary subscription to Luxury magazine, where each issue showcases an artist's work as the cover art, making it a limited edition collector's item. So I went to Sotheby's to see where I could find my latest issue of Luxury magazine, and to my surprise, couldn't find anything. Same thing with eBay, Craigslist, and Facebook Marketplace. I guess everyone's just holding on to them, right?

Besides that though, that's it. They don't even offer you a sign-up bonus, unlike every other credit card at this price point, which is typically worth anywhere from 750 to fifteen hundred dollars when redeemed for travel. That makes this credit card net almost two thousand dollars more offensive for a 24-karat card that you could buy online for 189.

Okay, but in all seriousness, for the price of this atrocity, you could get both the American Express Platinum and the Chase Sapphire Reserve and still pay less when you account for the additional perks. So it's anyone's guess who would actually get this. But even though those are my personal least favorite credit cards of all time, if you're wondering, “But Graham, what are some of the best credit cards I could get?” Don't you worry; I'll link to a video down below in the description that goes over my personal favorites as well, right after, of course, you subscribe and hit the like button for the YouTube algorithm.

So with that, city guys, thank you so much for watching. Also, feel free to add me on Instagram. Thank you guys so much for watching, and until next time.