Any advantage to credit cards from Lowes, Home Depot, etc?

[Stephen Tashiro]

Is there any advantage to having a credit card from the big box home improvement stores ? (assuming one is a frequent customer) In particular, can payments on a card be made at the customer service counters in those stores?

[Howard Garner]

5% off with most Lowes cards.
add additional 5% for veteran status
Yes you can pay at the service desk or most manned checkouts.

Howard Garner

[Ed Aumiller]

Not exactly what you are asking, but when I built my sons house.... Home Depot offered 10-20% off on your first purchase when getting a credit card... Lowes had a similar offer... I got a credit card from BOTH... my wife did the same... my son did the same... we made sure the first purchase was in the thousands... We saved at least 5000 on materials....
If you have a big project coming up (remodel, etc).. you may consider this option...

We now use our Lowes card on a regular basis since most credit cards only offer 1-2% back on purchases and the 5% basically pay the sales tax for us...(5.3% in VA)...

JUST be sure to pay it OFF entirely each month to avoid finance charges....

[Brian Elfert]

Sometimes these cards offer six months or more of no interest if you need a short term loan. You have to be absolutely sure to pay it off by the end of the interest free period because they often charge interest at close to thirty percent retroactively if there is any balance remaining.

Menards offers 2% cash back on their card. You can often match that with a regular credit card. For me, it isn't worth remembering to use a store card to get a tiny bit more back in rewards.

[Mark Wedel]

My general philosophy is to get rewards cards where I will maximize the rewards for purchases I need to do, and not need to try to remember what card to use.

If you look at your visa bill and see most of your purchases are at Home Depot/Lowes, then a credit card for that respective store might make sense.

For myself, I went with an Amazon visa, since I buy more stuff from them than any other single retailer, and that + prime gets 5% cash back (well, reward points that can be used to pay for Amazon stuff, so basically the same thing) which is better than most other things.

The reward points for Amazon I consider a bit more like cash vs airline reward points for credit cards, because I'm always buy stuff from amazon, I can always use those points in the next month, where as I fly on airlines less frequently so it might be a considerably amount of time before I can use them, and there isn't a clear value to airline points since it is free tickets/upgrades, and those vary in cost in lots of ways.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

We only have HD locally. My wife's HD card gets us mailed special financing offers periodically. HD doe offer Vet discounts too, provided you ask for it.

[Bruce Wrenn]

Have two Lowes cards, one personal and the other business. Both give 5% off up front. On the business one, I have 60 days after statement to pay off balance, plus "special financing" on purchases of over $299. Home depot card allows ONE YEAR for returns, plus special financing on purchases of over $299. Funny thing about Lowes, is I used to have an "in store:" account. Bought most of materials to build a house on it. Then they shifted to an outside CC. Issued me a card with a credit limit of $1000. Now my personal CC at Lowes has a credit limit about 1.5 time business CC limit. Always pay card off each month, with payments either at service desk, or cash register. Can't use Lowes business card at self service terminals, as there is no way to enter PO #.

[Mike Henderson]

With Home Depot, if you sign up with them and use their app, you will have your military discount in the app (you have to show proof of veteran status when you sign up). That way, you can go to any self service register and check out - and get the 10% discount. Before I did that, I had to get an employee and show my VA card.

The app will have a QR code that you pull up and that's what you scan at the register. You can also enter your project number when you check out, so you can track expenses to each project.

Mike

[Rich Engelhardt]

Lowes - 5% off.
For large - like whole house redo things - work up a material list, take it to the service desk at Lowes and have them submit it to corporate. Corporate will figure out the discounts. They -discounts- are substantial. The "business" card also has some sort of delivery discount - or at least it did pre-Covid. Then it was a flat $25 for anything. Bill payment is done by online payments, like everyone else we pay.

Home Depot discount comes in the form of a huge discount off an item when you first make a purchase - however- the discount is deferred until payment. If you forget you agreed to make the payment at a specified date, you pay full price and an interest charge that makes "Lou the knee cap breaker" blush. (DAMHIKT).
(The 12V Makita 3.5" trim saw and extra battery I picked up without letting my wife the bill payer know turned out to be very costly. ):o

Menards 2% off, access to special deals sent by mail, free tool for your birthday. The 2% comes in the form of a rebate - good only at Menards. The best thing about the Menards card is that the 2% credit is applied to sale prices and is good when Menards runs their 11% rebate on everything - even when the rebate makes the item free.
Menards payments are the easiest. They just "bill the bank". They payments are made via automatic bill payment with out bank. We just verify the amount that has been paid.

[Grant Wilkinson]

In Canada, you need to be careful about having too many cards. Even if you pay them off completely each month, they affect your credit rating. When lenders check your credit rating, the maximum on each of those cards is considered a liability. So, if I have 3 x $10,000 max limit cards, lenders assume that I already have a $30,000 loan against my income. This can affect their decision to give me a car loan or mortgage, for example.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

Several times a year Lowes For Pros has a 10% off promo that lasts for a week. Lowes is the only store card I use. My Menard's 11% rebate funny money keeps piling up. I hope use it for a mini split heat pump for the shop or barn metal for the WoodMizer carport.

[Bill Howatt]

In Canada, you need to be careful about having too many cards. Even if you pay them off completely each month, they affect your credit rating. When lenders check your credit rating, the maximum on each of those cards is considered a liability. So, if I have 3 x $10,000 max limit cards, lenders assume that I already have a $30,000 loan against my income. This can affect their decision to give me a car loan or mortgage, for example.

I don't think that is correct. They go by "credit utilization" which should always be below 30% and having more than one card with a small amount on each is better than one with over 30% on it. Scotiabank recommends using a higher limit to reduce the credit utilization rating as a good solution. A problem with applying for several cards in a short time-frame is that it causes a hard-check of your rating and this can negatively impact your score.

[Rich Engelhardt]

In Canada, you need to be careful about having too many cards. Even if you pay them off completely each month, they affect your credit rating. When lenders check your credit rating, the maximum on each of those cards is considered a liability. So, if I have 3 x $10,000 max limit cards, lenders assume that I already have a $30,000 loan against my income. This can affect their decision to give me a car loan or mortgage, for example.Same here in the USA.
Credit cards and their limits are considered as an unsecured debt - since they have nothing of collateral used to back the loan. Same thing can apply if you have some really high credit lines on a few cards.

The good news is that - if the rest of your credit history is good, unsecured debt counts low against you - if it's reasonable.

[Jerome Stanek]

my home depot uses my cell phone number for my military discount at the register. I had it on my HD app but they changed everything and now it is harder to find. Also I have to log in for the wifi that used to be just go into the store. They do bock Lowes websites so you can't price check

[Rick Potter]

When I was building a new garage/Granny flat addition to the house 5 years ago or so, I got the Lowes commercial business card. I qualified as a business since I have some rentals, but they are pretty loose about it. In addition to the small 6%? discount I bought it for the delivery service.

With the card they will deliver anything for $20. I bought a truckload of drywall, had some appliances delivered, sheets of LP exterior sheeting and Hardi board, and more. $20 a shot. They even forklifted the sheets of 10' 5/8" drywall into the garage.

Since then, I have not used it at all.

[Patty Hann]

In Canada, you need to be careful about having too many cards. Even if you pay them off completely each month, they affect your credit rating. When lenders check your credit rating, the maximum on each of those cards is considered a liability. So, if I have 3 x $10,000 max limit cards, lenders assume that I already have a $30,000 loan against my income. This can affect their decision to give me a car loan or mortgage, for example.
It's true in the US also.
I don't know what time of month the Credit bureaus take a "snapshot" of one's card usage, but if the real time balance on your card(s) is too high (it's the ratio of current balance to available credit) , you get dinged for a month or so with a lower credit score.
I pay off my 3 cards ( 2 VISAs and one Discover ) every month. but my FICO score still bounces around between 815 and 826.

[Bill Howatt]

That ratio is the credit utilization and it should be below 30%. Apparently it is the second most important factor in setting the score after payment history.
Being this is a big factor probably puts a little rationale into having a larger limit (or spread out over cards) is better than having a lower limit and being over 30% on a card - which is somewhat counter-intuitive.

[Allan Dozier]

Use my Lowes business card all the time. Seems I am in Lowes at least every 2 or 3 days. When building and outfitting a house it saves a bunch. BTW, I use mine at the self service checkout at every Lowes I've been to.