Credit Card News
Dick’s Sporting Goods and Synchrony Relaunch Credit Card
A popular sporting goods chain is refreshing its rewards credit card offerings with enhanced benefits.
About the New Dick’s Credit Card program
This week, Dick’s Sporting Goods revealed updates to its credit card offerings. Issued by Synchrony, the updated Dick’s Credit Card and Dick’s Mastercard allow customers to earn even more rewards on purchases.
The headlining feature of the new cards is the ability to earn 10% back in rewards on qualifying in-store or online purchases. This includes purchases at Dick’s Sporting Goods as well as Dick’s House of Sport, Golf Galaxy, Golf Galaxy Performance Center, Public Lands, and Going Going Gone!. Alternatively, cardholders can get up to 24 months of special financing on qualifying in-store purchases.
With the Dick’s Mastercard, customers can also earn 1% back in rewards on all other purchases made wherever Mastercard is accepted. Meanwhile, the Dick’s Credit Card can only be used at the Dick’s family of stores. Note that rewards can only be used for qualifying Dick’s brands purchases and cannot be redeemed for a statement credit.
As a bonus perk, cardholders also enjoy automatic Dick’s ScoreCard loyalty program Gold status after using their new card at a Dick’s store. Plus, new cardholders can currently earn a $30 bonus reward after opening the card and using it on a qualifying purchase at one of the eligible stores. Neither the Dick’s Mastercard nor the Dick’s Credit Card carries an annual fee.
These new cards replace the former ScoreRewards Mastercard and ScoreRewards Credit Card, which were also issued by Synchrony. Those cards only offered 2 points per $1 spent on qualifying Dick’s Sporting Goods purchases (in-store and online), while the Mastercard version also earned 1 point per $3 spent on other purchases. Those who have the previous card will automatically be moved to the corresponding new product.
What They’re Saying:
Announcing the updated cards, Dick’s Sporting Goods’ CFO Navdeep Gupta said, “Our athletes are at the center of every decision we make, and this relaunch is all about giving them even more value from a card they already love. Introducing 10% back in ScoreCard Rewards is just one of the many ways we are enhancing the shopping experience for our members and evolving our credit offering.”
Gupta added, “We’re proud to build on more than 20 years of partnership with Synchrony to deliver a program that continues to grow alongside our athletes.”
My Thoughts:
It is interesting to me that this news from Dick’s comes just a few weeks after Academy Sports relaunched its rewards credit card. I don’t know if this speaks more to the popularity of co-branded store credit cards or the state of sporting goods sales, but it seems notable.
Anyway, 10% back in rewards is pretty generous for a store credit card. It’s also an improvement over the previous product. Looking closer, though, it may be as dramatic a shift as it seems.
Since rewards are redeemed at a rate of 300 points to $10, 10% in rewards is really 3 points per dollar. That is still better than the previous 2 points per dollar, but expressing it as a percentage instead of points per dollar certainly makes it sound more impressive. Similarly, while the prior card’s 1 point per $3 spent sounds atrocious, it’s really the same thing as the current 1% back.
With all of that, per usual, I’d only recommend this one if you’re a frequent Dick’s Sporting Goods (et al) shopper. Otherwise, you can do a lot better with other rewards credit cards.