This Nordstrom Credit Card Offers Early Access to the Retailer’s Annual Anniversary Sale (2024)

Store-branded credit cards won’t offer you the best rewards for your spending typically, but if you are a Nordstrom fan, and want to shop their annual anniversary sale before anyone else, this retailer’s offering can deserve a place in your wallet.

The Nordstrom Visa credit card, issued by TD Bank, earns 2 points per dollar spent on Nordstrom purchases until you’ve bought $5,000 or more from the store in a year, then the payout jumps to 3 points per dollar. On all other purchases, you’ll make 1 point per dollar. (Nordstrom does offer another credit card, the Nordstrom Retail Credit Card, which offers similar rewards but can only be used to make store purchases.)

Points can then be exchanged for store credit, with one point equaling 1 cent. So 1,000 points will earn you $10 to spend at the store.

While Nordstrom’s rewards aren’t top of the market, especially when compared to flat cash back credit card options, the card does come with a big fringe benefit for devotees of the department store: early access to the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale, which begins each year in July.

Depending on how much you’ve recently spent with the retailer, you can shop the savings event four to six days before the general public. (This year, that starts as early as July 11.)

Are the fees worth the rewards?

For most Nordstrom customers, the store-branded credit card’s biggest advantage is that it grants them early access to the retailer’s anniversary sale, which is held every summer and features apparel, shoes, accessories and home goods for the coming fall and winter seasons. All cardholders, regardless of how much they’ve spent at the store, can shop the sale four days early.

Those who’ve purchased at least $5,000 worth of goods from Nordstrom in the past year can browse the sale with a five-day head start, while spending $15,000 or more at the retailer in a year gets you in six days before.

The Nordstrom Visa credit card also rewards your spending at Nordstrom—or wherever else you shop. This means if you charge $3,000 a month on your card, as the typical Wall Street Journal reader does, and $500 of that goes toward Nordstrom purchases, you’d earn 43,000 points in a year, or $430. Double the share of your $3,000 monthly budget that you spend at the retailer to $1,000 a month and you’d rack up $550.

While that’s a decent rewards rate, the Nordstrom card comes with a big catch: Points can only be redeemed for store credit, in 500-point or $5 notes at minimum, severely limiting your flexibility in using them. And points expire if your account shows no activity for 12 months, meaning you could potentially lose out on your earnings should you take a break from shopping with the store.

If you’re just an occasional Nordstrom shopper, you will almost certainly do better with a non-store branded cash back card that will reward all your spending rather than Nordstrom’s offering. You’ll earn a greater sum of money back, which can then be spent however you like, not just at Nordstrom.

Card details you might miss

Buy Side from WSJ places the most emphasis on the rewards offered when judging credit cards, but there are many other terms and perks you should know about Nordstrom’s store credit card when deciding if it’s right for you.

Here are some additional benefits the Nordstrom Visa credit card offers:

• Between three and five personal double points days—special times you select when your spending nets you twice as many rewards.
• A $200 to $300 alterations credit that can be applied to any Nordstrom buy in need of tailoring.
• Unlimited free alterations, free same-day delivery, and waived credit card fees, such as a late payment fee, if you spend $15,000 or more in a year at the store.
• No foreign transaction fees

It is worth noting that not all of these perks are exclusive to credit card users, including early sale access. Those who sign up for Nordstrom’s debit card offering can tap these same benefits, though their points earning is capped at 2 per dollar no matter how much they spend with the retailer. Similarly, those who sign up to the Nordy Club program without taking out a credit card or debit card can also use some of these perks and earn 1 point per dollar from their store spending.

Who benefits most from this card?

Nordstrom’s Visa credit card makes the most sense for serious fans of the retailer—people who shop there regularly and deeply value accessing the store’s annual anniversary sale early to nab the most-coveted deals.

More casual Nordstrom customers, who don’t care about beating the crowds to shop the anniversary sale or won’t make full use of the card’s other perks like free alterations or double points days, will find themselves better served by a non-store-specific card that pays a top flat cash back rate, like The Wells Fargo Active Cash card.

This card, which gives 2% back on all purchases and doesn’t come with a rewards cap or annual fee, will earn someone spending $3,000 a month $720 in cash back a year. That’s considerably more than you’d get back with the Nordstrom card, even if you spent $500 a month at the store, and you can spend those earnings however you want, be it on more Nordstrom items or something else entirely—unlike with the Nordstrom card’s rewards.

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