Out for the Amazon Visa Card! Beware of a negative Schufa score!
It was recently announced that the cooperation between Amazon and Landesbank Berlin will be terminated. As a result, the use of the Visa card will be discontinued until 30.09.2023. Landesbank Berlin is currently informing its customers of this by e-mail.
What is the Amazon Visa Card good for?
The Amazon Visa Card is free for Amazon Prime users. The advantage: You collect points with every purchase and thus receive savings. A 500 € turnover corresponds to 15 € savings. It is therefore worthwhile for anyone who shops a lot on Amazon.
The strategy of Landesbank Berlin
The Amazon Visa Card will now be discontinued on 30.09.2023. Landesbank Berlin now offers the possibility to extend the use of the Visa Card until 26.03.2024.
However, this has a crucial catch!
The prerequisite is a contract for a new “Visa Card Extra” from Berliner Sparkasse. This costs €19.99 per year and has nothing to do with Amazon. But you don’t have to take the credit card! If you request a contract for the Visa Card Extra before 30.09.2023 and do not sign it, you can still use your Amazon Visa Card until the end of November!
But be careful! Your accumulated points on the Amazon Visa Card will expire if you do not redeem them before your credit card account expires.
If you opt for the card, the term begins on 27.03.2024. Please note the following:
The credit card account for the Visa Card Extra is only offered as an installment account! This means that you must already have a certain proportion of your credit card bill as a credit on your credit card account. To put it simply: you pay part of the bill immediately and part of it in installments!
So make sure you have sufficient funds in your account, otherwise you’ll fall into the interest trap. This is because the interest rate for an uncovered account is a whopping 18.41%! If you had credit on the Amazon Visa Card, you will receive a refund to your current account. There is no transfer to the new credit card account.
No matter which option you choose. Ask the bank to tell you what it knows about you: What does the bank know about you?
What does Schufa have to do with it?
You should be careful with all this credit card confusion. If you are already looking for alternatives to the Amazon Visa Card, you should wait until the card expires. This is because canceling the card, also on the part of Landesbank Berlin, could worsen your own Schufa score. Schufa only receives information about the termination of the credit card. Whether the card was canceled by the bank or the user is irrelevant. According to an interview with golem.de, two credit cards per person are fine for Schufa. Long-term contracts are also viewed positively. A contract of one year or more already counts as long. If there are three or more credit card contracts, Schufa rates the score more negatively.
Conversely, this means: If you currently have more than two credit cards and the Amazon Visa Card is now canceled, this in turn has a positive effect on your Schufa score.
