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The FIT Mastercard® is an unsecured credit card with an initial credit limit of up to $400. Although it’s designed for people who want to rebuild or improve their credit scores, it doesn’t require a security deposit as many similar cards do. However, it does come with expensive fees, including an annual fee, processing fees, and monthly fees after the first year.
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Quick Review
Unlike many credit cards designed for rebuilding or improving your credit score, the FIT Mastercard® is unsecured. This means you don’t have to put down a security deposit that determines your credit limit.
The initial credit limit for the FIT Mastercard® only goes up to $400 (depending on your creditworthiness). However, if you make six on-time payments, you can double your credit limit. This means that you could have, at most, a credit limit of $800 after 6 months.
While this isn’t a particularly low credit limit, it isn’t high enough to justify the card’s fees. When you open your FIT Mastercard® account, there’s a steep annual fee of $99 (paid right away) plus an $89 account-opening fee, meaning you’ll have to pay $188 in fees before you even get started. There’s also a very high APR, meaning you’ll get hit with a lot of interest charges if you don’t pay off your balance at the end of each month.
In its favor, the FIT Mastercard® reports credit activity to all three major credit bureaus, making it a decent option for credit building. All in all, though, it’s an unnecessarily expensive option, and we recommend looking for alternatives.
FIT Mastercard® Important Details
Basic Card Details
- Credit card issuer: Bank of Missouri
- Credit card servicer: Continental Finance
- Regular APR: 29.99% (variable)
- Annual fee: $99
- Grace period: 25 days
- Initial credit limit: Up to $400
Additional Information
- Double your initial credit limit by making on-time payments for the first 6 months.
- Cash advances are available.
- Foreign transactions are available.
- Balance transfers are not available.
- $30 one-time fee for additional cards (i.e., adding an authorized user to your account)
- Credit reporting to three bureaus.
- Free credit scores for account holders.
- Zero liability protection.
- Mastercard® benefits (e.g., fraud and ID theft protection, TransUnion credit report monitoring, and emergency assistance for lost or stolen cards).
- Option to join the Continental Credit Protection program (which cancels some or all of your debt if you lose your job, become disabled, or pass away).
FIT Mastercard® Feature Breakdown
Fees
- Annual fee: $99
- Monthly maintenance fee: None in the first year; $6.25 per month after that ($75 per year)
- Processing fee: $89
- Cash advance transaction fee: $5 or 5% (whichever is greater)
- Foreign transaction fee: 3%
- Late/returned payment fee: Up to $40
- Additional card fee: $30 (one-time fee for adding an authorized user to your account)
Interest Rates
- Regular APR: 29.99% (variable)
- Cash advance APR: 29.99% (variable)
- Minimum interest charge: None
If you don’t pay your credit card balance in full each month, you’ll be charged interest. The interest you’ll pay each year depends on your credit card’s APR (which stands for “annual percentage rate”—it’s just another way of referring to your card’s interest rate).
Grace Period
The FIT Mastercard® credit card gives you a 25-day grace period (beginning on the first day of the new billing cycle). The grace period allows you time to pay your bills in full without racking up any interest charges.
If you pay off your balance in full by the due date, your purchases during the grace period won’t accumulate interest. However, if you carry a balance from previous billing cycles, you’ll have to pay interest on any charges you make to your card during the grace period.
Rewards
The FIT Mastercard® credit card doesn’t give you any rewards.
Many rewards cards are unavailable to applicants with poor credit or limited credit histories. However, cards with cash back and rewards points do exist for holders of lower credit scores. So if rewards are important to you, keep researching to see if you can find more suitable cards.
Benefits
In terms of benefits, the FIT Mastercard® credit card offers the following:
- Free credit scores: You’ll get free access to your VantageScore 3.0 credit score from Experian when you sign up for e-statements.
- Zero fraud liability protection: This means that you won’t have to pay for any purchases on your card that you haven’t authorized (e.g., if your card gets lost or stolen).
- Mastercard® ID Theft Protection: This includes fraud and ID theft protection, TransUnion credit report monitoring, and emergency assistance if your card is lost or stolen.
- 24-hour assistance for lost or stolen cards: This gives you an emergency phone number to report your card lost or stolen. It entitles you to emergency card replacements, and you can also ask for emergency cash advances.
- Discounted Mastercard® airport concierge services: This means you’ll enjoy a 15% discount on Mastercard® airport meet-and-greet services.
- Continental Credit Protection Program: You can opt into this by paying $0.99 for every $100 you have in debt. The program allows you to cancel some of your debt if you lose your job or become disabled (in which case it will cover up to 12 consecutive minimum monthly payments for you). It’ll also repay in full any outstanding balance you have on your card if you pass away.
Cash Advances
A credit card cash advance is when you use your credit card to withdraw money from an ATM. Cash advances are allowed on the FIT Mastercard® credit card but only after your account has been open for 95 days.
The cash advance fee is either $5 or 5% of the amount of each advance—whichever is greater. The cash advance APR is the same as the purchase APR at 29.99% (variable).
Balance Transfers
A balance transfer is when you move debt from one credit card to another (which is a common form of debt consolidation). The FIT Mastercard® doesn’t offer balance transfers.
Credit Limit
Initially, the FIT Mastercard® will give you a credit limit of up to $400. However, there are opportunities for credit limit increases.
Credit Limit Increases
The FIT Mastercard® website says that you can double your credit limit after 6 months by making the first six monthly minimum payments on time. After that, FIT Mastercard® will review your account periodically to see if you’re eligible for more credit limit increases. Note that the maximum credit limit is $3,000, so you won’t get more than this amount.
Credit Reporting
Credit reporting is an important part of building credit, as your credit report is based on the information your lenders send to the credit bureaus.
Lenders aren’t legally required to report your credit history; many report to only one or two of the major credit bureaus, if any. Fortunately, the FIT Mastercard® reports to all three credit bureaus (Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion), helping you to improve your credit score quickly.
Credit Building
Because the FIT Mastercard® reports to all three major credit bureaus, it’s great for credit building. However, you must keep up with your monthly payments to benefit your credit score. Your credit will suffer if your payments are late or missed.
Credit Score Requirements
The FIT Mastercard® is marketed as an option to help you rebuild or improve your credit score and as a “perfect credit card for people who have struggled to get credit in the past.”
The servicer, Continental Finance, also describes itself as “a servicer of credit cards for consumers with less-than-perfect credit.” Continental Finance recommends many of its cards for holders of “bad” credit. FICO scores under 580 are considered to be “bad” or “poor,” so even if your score is lower than this, you may still be eligible for the FIT Mastercard®. 1
Application and Approval
You can apply for a FIT Mastercard® credit card:
- By phone: Call (866) 513-4598.
- Online: Go to the FIT Mastercard® website.
- By mail: If you’ve received a preselected offer by mail, it should include an acceptance certificate. To accept the offer, complete the certificate and mail it to Continental Finance.
When you apply for the FIT Mastercard®, you’ll have to give the following information:
- Your full name
- Your Social Security number
- Your date of birth
- Your address (no P.O. boxes)
The credit card needs this data to check your credit. They’ll then use the information from your check along with other details (e.g., your monthly income) to decide whether they’ll approve your application and, if so, which borrowing terms they’ll offer you.
In most cases, according to Continental Finance, you should get an instant decision about your application. However, some applicants may have to provide additional information to help with the decision, in which case the application could take up to 30 days.
Once FIT Mastercard® approves your application, your new card should be in the mail within 3 business days.
Managing Your Account
You can log into your FIT Mastercard® credit card account online to:
- Make a payment
- View previous statements
- View recent transactions
- View payment history
- View your balance and other important credit info
- Enroll for online credit card statements
Alternatively, you can use the iOS app or Android app.
You can also call (866) 449-4514 to hear automated information about your account 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
As well as making payments online, you can send payments to the address listed on your monthly billing statement.
Customer Service
If you need help with your FIT Mastercard® credit card, you can call customer service at (866) 449-4514. They’re available 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. on weekdays or 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekends (EST).
For general inquiries and correspondence, you can also write to:
Continental Finance
P.O. Box 3220
Buffalo, NY 14240-3220
Lost or Stolen Cards
If your FIT Mastercard® credit card is lost or stolen, or if you notice something that looks like unauthorized use of your card, call (800) 556-5678 to report it.
Alternatively, send a notification in writing immediately to the same address as the one for general inquiries and correspondence:
Continental Finance
P.O. Box 3220
Buffalo, NY 14240-3220
Should You Get the FIT Mastercard® Credit Card?
FinanceJar Verdict
We only recommend the FIT Mastercard® if you’re having major difficulties getting approved for other credit cards. It has expensive annual and monthly fees along with a steep account-opening fee, no rewards, and very little in the way of benefits. On top of that, the low maximum credit limit is hardly worth the annual cumulative cost of the card.
You can find cheaper, better cards even if your credit is far from ideal. Before you consider the FIT Mastercard®, check out some other credit cards available for your credit score range, including:
Note that secured cards require a security deposit, and the size of this deposit will often determine your initial credit limit. While secured cards can sometimes be more expensive than the FIT Mastercard® in the short term, if you can find secured cards with no or lower fees, they’ll cost you less in the long term.
Who is this card for?
- Credit card applicants who want speedy processing: One advantage of the FIT Mastercard® is the quick and easy application process. The application form is straightforward to fill out, and Continental Finance says that it takes less than a minute to see if you’re approved.
- Low credit score holders who don’t want to pay a deposit: If you need a credit card as a way to get a short-term loan, the FIT Mastercard® is one solution (albeit not the best one). However, since you’ll still need to pay an $89 processing fee to open your account plus a $99 annual fee, we recommend instead looking around for secured credit cards that require only a small deposit. Some secured credit cards allow you to pay a deposit of $49–$99 and will even give you a credit limit that exceeds your deposit amount.
- Holders of lower credit scores who want a credit boost: One advantage of the FIT Mastercard® is that people with credit problems are often eligible. If you’ve been rejected for other cards, you may still be able to get approved for this one. If your FIT Mastercard® application is successful, you can use it to start building your credit score by paying your monthly bills in a timely manner. Once you boost your credit score, you’ll be able to upgrade to cheaper, better cards with more favorable terms.
Comparable Cards
To decide whether the FIT Mastercard® credit card is right for you, take a look at how it measures up against other credit cards on the market.
FIT Mastercard® vs. Credit One Bank® Platinum Visa® for Rebuilding Credit
Like the FIT Mastercard®, the Credit One Bank® Platinum Visa® for Rebuilding Credit is an unsecured credit card for people who need to improve their credit.
The two cards have similar annual fees: the Credit One Bank® Platinum Visa® for Rebuilding Credit has an annual fee of $75 in the first year then $99 per year after that; the FIT Mastercard® always has an annual fee of $99.
However, the Credit One Bank® Platinum Visa® for Rebuilding Credit has several advantages over the FIT Mastercard®.
- No processing fee
- No monthly fee
- A lower APR for purchases and cash advances at 26.99% (variable)
- Cashback rewards (1% cash back on nearly all your monthly utilities and expenses like gas and groceries, internet, cable, or satellite TV bills)
Given the lower cost and higher benefits, the Credit One Bank® Platinum Visa® for Rebuilding Credit is a much more lucrative deal than the FIT Mastercard®.
FIT Mastercard® vs. Surge Mastercard®
The FIT Mastercard® and the Surge Mastercard® are both Continental Finance credit cards for people with less-than-perfect credit.
Both cards give you pretty similar offers, and they share the following features:
- No rewards, welcome bonuses, or intro offers.
- No cash advances for the first 95 days after you open an account.
- The same cash advance fee (5% or $5).
- The same foreign transaction fee (3%).
- The same late fee ($40).
- The same grace period (25 days).
- You can apply for a credit limit increase and get up to twice your initial credit limit if you make all payments on time for 6 months.
The major differences between the two cards are:
- Annual fee: The Surge card gives you potentially cheaper annual fees of $75–$99.
- Monthly fee: In the second year, the Surge Mastercard® and the FIT Mastercard® both have monthly fees, but the Surge Mastercard® has monthly fees of $0–$10, and the FIT Mastercard® has monthly fees of $6.25.
- APR: The APR for the Surge Mastercard® is 24.99%–29.99% (variable), so it’s likely to be lower than the APR for the FIT Mastercard®.
- Credit limit: The Surge Mastercard® offers a potentially higher initial credit limit of $300–$1,000, whereas the maximum initial credit limit for the FIT Mastercard® is only $400.
Neither of these cards is highly recommendable, but the Surge Mastercard® is likely to be slightly cheaper and may give you a higher initial credit limit. Because the Surge Mastercard® normally offers better terms overall, we recommend applying for this card before you consider the FIT Mastercard®.
FIT Mastercard® vs Total Visa® Credit Card
The Total Visa® credit card is another unsecured Bank of Missouri credit card, which, like the FIT Mastercard® credit card, is a good option for people who want to improve their credit scores.
The two cards have the following features in common:
- An $89 account-opening fee.
- Monthly fees of $6.25 after the first year.
- No rewards, intro offers, or cash back.
However, the Total Visa® credit card has several disadvantages compared with the FIT Mastercard®:
- It doesn’t allow foreign transactions.
- It has a fee for credit limit increases.
- It has a higher APR than the FIT Mastercard® at 34.99% (fixed).
- It has a lower initial credit limit of $300.
- It only considers you for credit limit increases after one year.
The most notable advantages of the Total Visa® credit card are that it has much cheaper annual fees than the FIT Mastercard®, and offers inexpensive cash advances (as there are no cash advance fees in the first year, and the fees from the second year are relatively low at 3%).
As such, if you plan to make a lot of cash advances or are willing to accept a lower credit limit in exchange for a cheaper annual fee, the Total Visa® is a better option.
