Bluedot - EV Charging 4+

Simplicity in maxing rewards when charging a Tesla

Recently I see more credit cards start to offer bonus rewards for EV charging, usually offered together with Gas Station charges. But when I signed up Bluedot there were very few options as good as what Bluedot offers.
I don't use all of Bluedot's features. I tried the free driving and it was difficult for me to remeber to start and stop for every drive and soon I got over it.
What has been working for me is paying all my EV expenses (charging, insurance) through Bluedot card and get 5% rewards. It's just a no brainer. Sign up, get the card number, associate it with my Tesla account and I'm done. I just check back in the app from time to time to redeem my rewards.

Buggy lately

I’ve been loving this app the last few months since I got my EV — between the low flat rate, points for using the card for purchases, and free charging days, what’s not to like; but something happened over the last 3 weeks where it has been terribly inconsistent and buggy. Today is one of their free charging days and conveniently, the app “Could not start charging. Something went wrong.” The advice from the automated in-app support is essentially “keep trying”, which I did over a dozen times over almost 30 minutes. The charging network’s (EVgo) own app connected just fine without any issues though the cost was considerably higher. The inconvenience is approaching the point where the cost of time spent trying to get it to work outstrips the actual & potential monetary savings. It’s incredibly frustrating, especially if you find yourself at a busy charging hub and you’re the moron holding up the cadence trying to get an app to start charging.

Not worth your time

The idea of this app was great initially, $0.30/kWh supercharging and 20% cash back sounded awesome! But after using it - turns out it a misleading company that does not state how you actually get cash back until its too late. Here are their 3 rules for getting cash back as quoted from their website:

1.Your monthly cash out limit is 1000 OP.
2. The minimum cash out transaction is minimum of 250 OP.
3. To cash out, you must first spend at least $50 without charging transaction that month with your card.

Rule 1 and 2 I have no problem with. Rule 3 is the reason I am deleting this app immediately. Heres why:

I normally spend about maybe $5/month supercharging and $75 or so on occasional roadtrips. I will not be able to receive cash back until I spend a minimum of $50/month on NON charging purchases. I only intended to use this card for supercharging. Now they have told me in order to reap the benefits of using the cheaper charge rate and cash back I need to spend a whopping $50 on non charging transactions on their specific stores that I dont shop at like Whole Foods for example.

The time it takes the money to transfer from your bank to the card is an burden and is not worth waiting to buy something until the money arrives. This is just another paypal company making money off micro-investments during that ach clearing time.

Ответ разработчика ,

Jerryi99 - Thank you for sharing your comment with us! We greatly appreciate your feedback. We want to clarify that your $50 expenditure covers Tesla supercharging expenses. This means you can easily cover the full amount at any Tesla supercharger. Furthermore, as a company, Bluedot does not benefit from small investments. The delay in transfer times is beyond our control as it is dependent on the bank. However, please know that we are working diligently to activate the instant money upload feature as soon as possible for your convenience.