Aspiration Credit Card Review: Saving The Enviornment

A credit card that is designed to align itself with values that help its users help the environment. Does that sound strange to you? It may be an unfamiliar concept to most of us, but that doesn’t mean it is not extremely attractive.

Thankfully there’s now a way for us to support the environment while using a service that is also useful for us. It can be a win-win situation for everyone involved. Improving your finances doesn’t mean you can’t make the world a better place!

Aspiration seems to have put a lot of thought into this concept, which is why they have come up with a great plan when making the Aspiration credit card. Provide its users with a credit card that results in millions of trees being planted when used.

The company expects to plant 125 million trees by 2030, an ambitious goal that serves all of us living on planet Earth.

Imagine how much carbon an average car can produce when driving 19,000 miles. As an approximation, by using one of their cards once a day for a year, that is how much carbon you can neutralize.

This is huge!

And, of course, you will still receive a lot of financial benefits in the process. After all, that’s what we are all about here at Turbo Wallet.

This card might have just been launched earlier in October of this year, but it surely packs a punch. As its popularity grew online after the announcement, the waitlist was flooded by requests. As of right now, it is only available for order in the US, but Aspiration is working on going international.

So, what is exactly what makes this card so great? Well, let us tell you all about it in this Aspiration credit card review. Let’s get started!

What Is The Aspiration Credit Card?

Aspiration is a financial technology company that takes environmental protection very seriously. It strives to help those who share this cause through several services. Based in California, its goal is to intertwine business and finance with good practices for our planet.

The company offers credit and debit cards, grants for organizations sharing its goals, and services for businesses interested in improving carbon footprint numbers. One of their general objectives is to create sustainability-as-a-service, a concept that it has helped popularize.

How does the company expect to do that? Well, by forming a community of conscious companies and customers that grows large enough to positively impact the environment. These connections will also allow the quality of the services offered by Aspiration to improve.

With an astounding 55,000 fee-free ATMs for its debit card, the coverage is immense. This guarantees high chances that you will find one of those ATMs close to you. Debit card use can also be turned into planted trees through Aspiration’s ‘Plant Your Change’ program.

That being said, we are deviating from the topic at hand. This is an Aspiration credit card review, after all. Having introduced the company behind the product, it is time to look at the card itself.

Made by the giant, experienced corporation MasterCard, these cards feature chips. This technology is considered one of the most reliable and secure ways to operate with cards today, reducing the risks of using them.

You will be able to use these cards in all the usual ways, and rest assured that terms and conditions are clear. All the while trusting convenient state-of-the-art card technology.

The Aspiration credit card is all about expanding the company’s mission to a new product that provides ease of use and financial benefits. The card achieves this by providing its users with benefits like Cashback, preferential fees, and a welcome bonus.

Let’s take a deeper look at the Aspiration Zero credit card, which is how this product is known.

What Rewards Does The Aspiration Credit Card Offer?

The Aspiration credit card offers 2 main rewards to its customers, in addition to other benefits we will talk about later on. Let’s kick this part of this Aspiration credit card review by talking about the environmental rewards.

Environmental Reward

Aspiration plants a tree for every purchase made with one of their credit cards and gives the cardholder the option to round up. If the customer decides to do so, the company will plant an extra tree with those cents.

This means that using the card once a day will get you close to compensating for your carbon footprint, and you will likely reach that carbon-neutral goal pretty quickly.

Let’s be honest here: We love this concept. Even if you are not a client yet, all of us should be thankful for the more than 33 million trees this company has already planted. The world can never be green enough, after all.

Financial Rewards

The financial reward, which is the most important for a site like ours, comes in the form of cashback.

By using the Aspiration credit card, you will receive 0.5% cashback on qualifying transactions. This can be increased to 1% if you get to carbon zero during the month, effectively rewarding you for helping the planet.

With no caps to this reward, which is a common strategy from credit card issuers, you will be able to save money on all your payments. The card’s welcome bonus further increases this financial benefit!

If you spend at least $3,000 during your first 90 days, you will receive a $300 discount in the following statement. That means you are basically being given $300 just for using your card! You might think this offer sounds too good to be true, but once we discuss fees, you will see it is as good as it sounds.

What Are the Financial Considerations of the Aspiration Credit Card?

Well, saving the planet is cool, and everything, but how good is this card? Let’s crunch the numbers and find out. This is an Aspiration credit card review, after all, not an Aspiration credit card promo… No matter how much we like it.

Annual Percentage Rates

These numbers, as with most credit cards, can vary based on the Prime Rate. Still, they stand pretty competitive in comparison to other cards available in the market. What kind of APR can you expect when asking Aspiration for a card? Well, this depends on your credit score.

In the case of purchases and balance transfers, the APR can vary between 11.65% up to 21.45%, while for cash advances, it stands between 18.25% and 23.25%. As we said before, this is pretty competitive for the market, as most cards will tend to have higher APRs.

Still, we always recommend trying to pay your statement in full. This is because accumulating credit card debt is rarely a good strategy compared to other types of lending. A detail to consider is the due date for your statements. It will always be 25 days after the closure of each billing cycle.

This gives you a bit more time to get your numbers in order, which is nice! Remember that many other credit cards have this number down at 21 days. Four days might not sound like much… Until you wish you had them

Annual Fees

The annual fee of the Aspiration credit card is $60. This is something we don’t love about this product, as there are a lot of cards out there with no annual fees. However, when you take the welcome bonus into consideration… The annual fee doesn’t seem to be too much of a problem.

That being said, there are cards out there that have more expensive annual fees. Keep in mind, other credit cards have yearly membership fees above $90 and even up to $500. 

While “no annual fee” cards do exist, pay attention to the whole terms of service before comparing cards. However, there’s often a catch there. An annual fee might show up out of nowhere after some time, or it will be compensated in some other manner. Aspiration’s annual fee has the benefit of increasing the transparency of the card’s conditions.

Other Charges

There are other charges you need to consider with any credit card… And Aspiration is no different.

Balance transfer fees are charged when you transfer a balance from one card to another, which can be a valuable financial tool. This fee stands at $5 or 3% of the amount transferred, whichever is greater.

In the case of cash advance fees, you will pay either 5% of the amount or the $10 minimum. If you travel abroad, consider that foreign fees stand at 2% of each transaction.

Lastly, late payment fees can be as high as $10, and returned payment fees have a ceiling of $35. We recommend avoiding this situation as much as possible, though! Getting to that point will not only result in fees but also hurt your credit score.

Is Aspiration Credit Card Right for You?

All in all, what we see here is a company that actively tries to push all of us together towards building a better future. This project can sound like a marketing gimmick for the most skeptical, but rest assured, this is a viable product. And not a bad one either, as many of their features may align with your needs.

Having Aspiration’s credit card is a low-risk endeavor if done responsibly. Also, considering all the services which Aspiration has to offer, there is a chance you may enjoy contracting several of them.

It is of public knowledge how much Aspiration has done for pushing back against all of these issues that haunt our planet. So whether its intentions are good or not is a question we wouldn’t ask ourselves.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide has been rising in a stable manner since before we even knew it was a problem. So our efforts for helping the health of our planet have proven to be falling short. Is there a way out then?

Well, we certainly hope there is, albeit it probably involves commitment on our part. We are aware that this might sound cheesy… But helping the planet is something we all should try to do, and getting additional rewards in the process is just a big plus!

We know choosing a credit card is an important business, and as rates change, your usual cards can become less convenient. For that very reason, we believe everybody should pay attention and be on the lookout for new, interesting offers. This is especially true as technology moves faster than ever before.

Also, society tends to shift its focus towards practices that are hopefully better for future humans and us. As consumers, it is nice to have corporations accompanying this change and letting us jump in.

Let’s be clear; there are better cashback rates out there when using other credit cards. However, when it comes to environmental rewards, no card will be able to be offered to you except for Aspiration’s credit card. Helping the environment and others is extremely rewarding.

If you are a person whose ideals align with Aspirations and would like to have a positive impact, this credit card is the right for you.

Sure, the financial rewards will not be extremely high… But they will be good enough! If you want to sleep better by knowing you are leaving a better place for younger generations, go and apply for the Aspiration credit card. We promise you will love it.