New Walmart OnePay Credit Cards: Up to 5% Back for Loyalists

Walmart has relaunched its credit card program for the second time in just a handful of years, this time in partnership with financial technology company OnePay as well as a familiar issuer in Synchrony Bank.

There are two new possibilities for applicants, both with a $0 annual fee:

• The OnePay CashRewards Card is an “open-loop” Mastercard, meaning it can be used essentially anywhere. It earns an unlimited 5% cash back at Walmart for Walmart+ members and 3% cash back at Walmart for non-members. All other purchases earn 1.5% cash back. Cardholders earn cash back as OnePay Points, which are worth 1 cent each and can be redeemed as a statement credit or as a deposit into a OnePay Cash account.

• The OnePay Walmart Spend Card is a “closed-loop” card, meaning it can be used only at Walmart and Walmart.com. Per the card’s terms and conditions, it doesn’t have a standard ongoing rewards structure, although bonuses may be made available from time to time.

As of this writing, both cards offer a modest welcome bonus: $35 cash back when you spend at least $75 on the card within 30 days of account opening.

When you submit an application, you’ll first be considered for the more flexible and rewarding OnePay CashRewards Card. If you don’t meet the credit qualifications for it, you’ll then be considered for the store-only OnePay Walmart Spend Card. The issuer offers a pre-qualification process so you can see ahead of time which card (if either) you’d qualify for, with no initial hard inquiry on your credit and thus no impact on your credit scores. If you then formally apply, however, a hard inquiry will be conducted.

While you don’t need a OnePay account to get a Walmart credit card, you will need the OnePay app to manage your card.

The OnePay CashRewards Card can be rewarding for Walmart loyalists, and unlike many other store credit cards, it earns actual cash back (not “store credit” or “points”), meaning you can use your rewards toward whatever you like.

But the card will be most valuable if you also have a Walmart+ membership, which — unlike the credit cards — does come with an annual cost of $98 per year (or you can choose to pay $12.95 per month).

Walmart+ offers multiple benefits, including savings on eligible gas fill-ups, access to video streaming platforms, free delivery on groceries with a minimum order, and more. If Walmart is where you do most of your shopping, you could fairly easily justify the cost of a Walmart+ membership with those perks alone, not even taking into account the elevated rewards you’d earn with the OnePay CashRewards Card.

Still, depending on your spending habits, you may find the new Walmart credit card to be less rewarding than its previous iteration, the Capital One® Walmart Rewards™ Mastercard®, which as noted above is no longer available. While that card earned only 2% back on in-store Walmart purchases, it offered 5% back on purchases at Walmart.com and on items purchased through the Walmart app — no Walmart+ membership required. It also earned a useful 2% back on travel and restaurant spending. The new OnePay CashRewards Card has no bonus categories outside of Walmart spending, though its rate of 1.5% back on everything else is better than the previous card’s 1% rate there.

But if you’re not a Walmart devotee, a general no-annual-fee rewards credit card would be a better and potentially more lucrative fit. If you are a frequent Walmart shopper but don’t want to cough up a yearly membership fee, consider a card that offers high rewards for online purchases, including those made on Walmart.com.