TD Bank Clear Platinum Visa with $2,000 Limit: An interesting missed opportunity

The Clear Visa Platinum Credit Card with $2,000 Limit is a credit card that doesn’t have an ongoing APR. This makes it an incredibly rare breed on the credit card market: most credit cards that don’t charge an ongoing APR are charge cards and require you to pay your balance in full each month.

Instead of charging interest on any balance you carry, the Clear Platinum Visa Credit Card with $2,000 Credit Limit just has a $70 minimum monthly payment, which includes the $20 monthly fee. If you charge $1,500 in purchases on your first month and make no payments on your account for the next two months, you’ll owe just $1,340, accounting for the $160 you spent on minimum payments and monthly fees.

This card's interesting features make it a solid choice for anyone who wants to limit surprise fees or interest charges when using credit.

No APR: Carry a balance without incurring interest

The main selling point of the Clear Platinum Visa with $2,000 Credit Limit is the ability to carry a balance without ever incurring interest. Instead, you only pay a $20 monthly fee. This is unlike any other credit card on the market. The closest equivalent may be charge cards, but even that isn’t a great comparison — charge cards charge a fee if you fail to pay off your balance at the end of the month.

This feature means the Clear Platinum Visa can offer some impressive flexibility if you need to make a modestly large purchase and can’t afford to pay in full for a few months.

Rates and fees: Almost zero card fees to speak of

There are almost no credit card fees to worry about on the Clear Platinum Visa with $2,000 Credit Limit. You won’t encounter late payment fees, balance transfer fees, interest fees, or cash advance fees. There’s just one fee this card charges: a $20 monthly fee. 

With few fees to punish you for making mistakes, the Clear Platinum Visa is one of the most forgiving credit cards on the market and might prove a decent choice for people who want to keep their access to credit but are looking for an option that is far simpler than most other cards.

Despite the lack of interest, there are several issues with the card that prevent it from being a good choice for most cardholders. 

Rewards: No additional value on this card despite the credit requirements

The glaring sore spot with the Clear Platinum Visa Credit Card with $2,000 Credit Limit is its credit requirements. Despite carrying no rewards or welcome offers and otherwise appearing like a credit-building card, this card is only available to people with good to excellent credit scores.

While we’re sure there’s someone out there with excellent credit who might enjoy a credit card that doesn’t charge interest, we expect more from cards that sport such high requirements. Having at least a good credit score already qualifies you for plenty of strong credit cards, varying from cash back and travel rewards cards to intro APR cards. All of these types of cards can bring much more value to your wallet for the credit requirements than the Clear Platinum Visa. And if you have good to excellent credit, you’re probably already adept at using credit cards and sticking to best practices — including avoiding interest by paying your balance in full each statement period.

Monthly fee: A significant and unavoidable annual cost

In exchange for not charging interest on a carried balance, TD Bank charges a $20 monthly fee to use the card along with a $50 minimum if you’re carrying a balance. On the bright side, it’s easy to keep track of exactly how much extra you’re going to pay for not paying your card balance.

But once you’ve paid down your balance, you’ll still have to pay that $20 each month, even if you have no charges to your account. This is a stark difference from a standard no-annual-fee credit card: once you’ve paid off your balance on one, you have no other ongoing fees to worry about.

The Clear Platinum Visa’s ongoing monthly fee muddies the waters on just how useful the card is from an interest-saving perspective. A few tweaks to the card’s credit line or required credit score could’ve made this fee less of an issue.

Card features: Lacking for a card that requires strong credit

What you see is what you get with the Clear Platinum Visa Credit Card with $2,000 Credit Limit. There are no unique card benefits aside from cell phone protection and the features you receive from the card’s status as a Visa card.

Many cards that require good to excellent credit will add additional value to their card in the form of statement credits, exclusive offers or concierge services. It’s a strange choice for TD Bank to include no such perks despite the card’s credit requirements and monthly fee. 

The Clear Platinum Visa Credit Card with $2,000 Credit Limit defies typical common card categories. A better method of comparison is to look at what your good to excellent credit score can bring to your wallet instead of the Clear Platinum Visa. 

Given the card’s high credit score requirements, sizable monthly fee and lack of overall rewards, there’s just one type of person who might choose to apply for the Clear Platinum Visa. 

The Clear Platinum Visa fails to make a convincing case for itself despite the interesting calling card of paying a monthly fee instead of interest. If the card were available to people with poor or no credit then this card could have easily become a go-to choice for building credit. But considering the card’s low credit limit and credit requirements, there are simply far more valuable cards to consider than this one. 

Our proprietary card rating system takes into account a mix of factors when scoring balance transfer and low-interest cards, including each card’s introductory APR, intro APR period length, ongoing APR, balance transfer fee, perks and more.

While balance transfer and low-interest cards share a similar ratings rubric, we weigh features differently based on how a card is categorized. We categorize cards that carry an especially long intro APR offer on balance transfers as dedicated balance transfer cards, while cards that offer an especially low ongoing APR are considered general low-interest cards. 

Based on its features, we assigned this card a primary category of low interest and tailored our ratings accordingly. 

We analyzed over 100 of the most popular balance transfer and low-interest cards and scored each based on how its key features stacked up against those of other cards in its category. 

Here’s a breakdown of what gave this card its score: