Mesa Homeowners Visa® Signature Preferred Credit Card review: Uniquely robust rewards and credits for homeowners
It delivers unmatched and unique value for homeowners, but we’re not sure these no-annual-fee features will last.
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Snapshot
4.2
Bottom line
Mesa Homeowners Card
Intro offer
N/A
Rewards Rate
1X - 3X
Annual fee
None³
Regular APR
25.24%
4.2
Bankrate score
Reward Details
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Mesa Homeowners Visa® Signature Preferred Credit Card overview
The Mesa Homeowners Visa® Signature Preferred Credit Card is one of the daring new fintech credit cards looking to reward housing and other typically ineligible expenses in the wake of the Bilt Mastercard®. Like with rent, many mortgage lenders usually don’t let you pay with a credit card (at least without overwhelming fees), and the Mesa card provides a unique path for homeowners to rake in rewards. This can be especially helpful nowadays, considering Bankrate data finds mortgage payments are becoming increasingly more expensive than renting.
The Mesa Homeowners card is far from a Bilt imitation, though. It packs perhaps the most comprehensive roster of home-related categories of any rewards card on the market, including lucrative categories we haven’t seen on a credit card before like daycare, general contractor and property tax payments. Not to mention the Mesa card’s unparalleled collection of annual credits — which typically aren’t available with a no-annual-fee card.
However, the card's niche credits and $1,000 monthly spending requirement to earn mortgage rewards — not to mention Mesa’s short track record — could make many homeowners reluctant to apply. We advise prospective applicants to be wary since we’re concerned these features aren’t sustainable enough to keep the card’s current value intact long-term.
Note
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Rewards
- 3X points on home maintenance, improvement, decor, insurance and property tax purchases
- 3X points on utilities, daycare, cable and streaming services, telecom and general contractor purchases
- 2X points on grocery store and gas and EV charging purchases
- 1X points on your monthly mortgage payments (if you spend $1,000 on purchases during that billing cycle)
- 1X points on other purchases
Expert Appraisal: Good
See our expert analysis -
Welcome offer
- Doesn’t offer a sign-up bonus, which is unusual for a rewards card
Expert Appraisal: Weak
See our expert analysis -
Rates and fees
- No annual fee
- 25.24% (balance transfers and cash advances unavailable)
- No foreign transaction fees
- Up to $8 late payment fee
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Up to $25 returned payment fee
Expert Appraisal: Good
See our expert analysis -
Other cardholder perks
- Up to $65 each calendar year toward an eligible big box/wholesale club membership
- Up to $240 in annual pet care credits ($120 each for Wag! and The Farmer’s Dog)
- Up to $200 in annual Thumbtack credits toward home maintenance
- Up to $120 in annual Lowe’s credits
- Up to $100 in credits toward your first Armadillo Home Warranty claim
- Up to a $100 Cozy Earth gift card upon activation
Expert Appraisal: Exceptional
See our expert analysis
Mesa Homeowners Visa pros and cons
PROS
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It’s currently the only card to reward mortgage payments and daycare, let alone such a deep roster of home-related categories.
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Packs perhaps the most annual credits available with a no-annual-fee card.
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Charges relatively minimal rates and fees, including no annual fee, no foreign transaction fees, and a low up to $8 late payment fee (up to a $25 fee for returned payments).
CONS
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You’ll only earn 1X points on your mortgage payments if you spend at least $1,000 during that billing cycle, and you can only earn 100,000 points this way each year.
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Mesa Points are only worth 0.6 cents apiece toward statement credits and 0.8 cents toward Mesa mortgage payments — much less than the 1-cent point value similar cards typically provide toward cash back.
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Unlike many no-annual-fee rewards cards, it doesn’t carry welcome bonus rewards or intro APR offers.
First-year value vs. ongoing value
Despite no welcome offer rewards and a less-than-1-cent point value toward cash back, the Mesa Homeowners card still provides some of the best first-year and ongoing value on the market for a no-annual-fee card. The card’s potential value hinges on whether you can actually use the coupon book-style credits, but the average homeowner could still earn a solid chunk of change from rewards alone — no matter how they redeem them.
To help you gauge whether the Mesa Homeowners card is worth it, we’ve calculated how much value the average spender can expect in their first year and beyond, based on how they redeem the rewards, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest annual consumer expenditures data, our card value formula and a $22,500 estimated annual spend. We’ve also crunched the numbers for the average yearly rewards value depending on how you redeem your Mesa points:
- Statement credits (0.6 cents): $253
- Mesa mortgage payments or gift cards (0.8 cents): $338
- Travel (1 cent to 1.43 cents; travel partner dependent): $423 to $604
| Benefits & Costs | First-year value | Ongoing value |
| Estimated yearly rewards |
|
|
| Welcome offer | — | — |
| Perks (of monetary value) $625 |
|
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| Annual fee | -$0 | -$0 |
| Total value |
|
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Why you might want the Mesa Homeowners Visa
The Mesa Homeowners card provides a unique value on the credit card market for homeowners — especially for households with daycare and pet care expenses. More impressively, though, is its sheer wealth of annual credits toward common household expenses. Perks like these aren’t usually available with no-annual-fee cards.
Rewards rates: The most extensive reward categories for homeowners
The Mesa Homeowners card packs perhaps the largest roster of categories you’ll find related to running a home. The fuel and streaming service categories aren’t too impressive, although they’re certainly a good deal considering you can also earn 2X points at grocery stores with the same card. Plus, there are a few hard-to-find categories like home improvement and utilities. In fact, we usually only see the telecom services category on business rewards cards.
The daycare, home insurance, general contractor, HOA fee and general home maintenance categories are unique to the Mesa card, though. A generous 3X points on these purchases can make it easy to rack up rewards toward your mortgage, cash back or travel, and the daycare category can be especially valuable for parents. This credit card’s categories aren’t nearly as well-rounded as many popular no-annual-fee card’s reward opportunities, but this specialized card can be remarkably rewarding.
The biggest hurdle worth considering is the monthly $1,000 spending requirement to earn rewards on your mortgage, though. For just 1X points on your monthly payment, the average spender will probably have to use the Mesa Homeowners card as their primary rewards card. That could easily be a deal-breaker for such a specialized card in your rewards strategy.
Bankrate Insight
Although this card could be an incredible rewards source if you have more than one home, Mesa makes it clear that you can only earn rewards with one mortgage linked to your Mesa Homeowners Visa Signature Preferred card as well.
There are also reports that if your HOA fees, home insurance and other 3X category-eligible purchases are rolled into your monthly mortgage payment, the Mesa app doesn’t differentiate them. If that’s the case, keep in mind that you’ll only earn 1X points instead of 3X points.
Perks: Exceptional list of unique annual credits
It’s rare for a no-annual-fee card to provide any annual credits, but the Mesa Homeowners card even outstrips credit-carrying outliers like the Blue Cash Everyday® Card from American Express. In fact, homeowners could earn up to $625 in pet care, home maintenance and wholesale club credits each year, with an additional one-time $100 Cozy Earth gift card and $100 Armadillo Home Warranty claim credits to boot.
Despite the jaw-dropping value, these perks can easily be too niche for some cardholders — especially if they don’t have pets. The big box/wholesale club membership and Lowe’s credits are easily the most usable for many cardholders, and together provide up to $185 in value each year. That’s still stellar for a no-annual-fee card, but it’s worth noting that the other perks may not be as valuable in real life as on paper for many people.
Rates and fees: Remarkable value for no annual fee
Not only does the Mesa credit card provide remarkable perks and rewards potential for a no annual fee card, its other fees are also remarkably low. In case you ever miss a payment or have it bounce, the up to $8 late payment fee and up to $25 returned payment fee are quite a bit lower than the typical $40 fee for these missteps. There also aren’t any foreign transaction fees, but this may not be super helpful since the Mesa card doesn’t have any reward categories that are handy abroad (unless you need to buy groceries or refuel a car).
But without intro APR offers, all cardholders can be exposed to the high 25.24% variable APR. This is well above the average credit card interest rate, currently hovering around 20 percent, so another no-annual-fee rewards card may be a wise option if you’d prefer an intro APR offer and lower ongoing rate in an emergency. Balance transfers and cash advances also aren’t possible with the Mesa card, although we wouldn’t recommend a cash advance to begin with.
Bankrate Insight
Confusingly, the cardholder agreement alludes to assessing individual accounts for potential annual, monthly, set-up and maintenance fees. I reached out to Mesa and confirmed that no customer will be charged an annual fee or any of these other potential fees, and that language in the agreement will be adjusted this year.
Why you might want a different rewards card
The Mesa Homeowners card could be remarkably rewarding for homeowners, but your mileage may vary if you’d need to redeem your rewards toward cash back or the annual credits don’t align with your spending. Plus, no sign-up bonus and no intro APR offers could be a deal-breaker compared to competing cards’ first-year value.
Rewards value: Less than 1 cent outside travel
Although Mesa points’ redemption values largely aren’t listed on the issuer’s website (at the time of writing), they’re one of the biggest factors you should take into consideration before applying. After reaching out to Mesa, they provided the following point values for each reward redemption method:
- Statement credits: 0.6 cents per point
- Mesa mortgage payments: 0.8 cents per point (redeemed as cash back, with $20 or 2,500-point minimum)
- Gift cards: 0.8 cents per point
- Travel: 1 cent to 1.43 cents (travel partner dependent)
If you’re not planning to use your points for travel, you’ll get far less bang for your buck than the typical 1 cent per point many rewards cards provide for cash back. Even redeeming your points for cash back toward Mesa mortgage payments will get you less than 1 cent apiece.
But like Bilt’s rewards program (which redeems points at a similar 0.55 cents toward cash back as well), Mesa points are worth much more toward travel. Mesa claims you can receive anywhere from 1 to 1.43 cents per point depending on which travel transfer partner you choose. On the other hand, our Bankrate point and mile valuations show you may be able to earn an even higher redemption value with some of Mesa’s transfer partners, thanks to the 1:1 transfer rate toward airline programs.
So, although the rewards aren’t great for statement credits, they can make this a lucrative no-annual-fee card if you want to save up for travel on household expenses.
Welcome offer: No intro bonus or APR offers
The Mesa Homeowners Visa Signature Preferred doesn’t carry a sign-up rewards bonus or even intro APR offers. This is highly unusual for a no-annual-fee rewards card since they usually provide a $200 intro bonus value (often after spending $500 or $1,000 in the first three months), plus 12-to-15-month 0 percent intro APRs on purchases and balance transfers.
However, it’s worth noting that the most similar competitor, the Bilt Mastercard, doesn’t offer a sign-up bonus or intro APR offers either. Besides, the Mesa Homeowners card doesn’t allow you to transfer a balance to the card anyway, and you can’t finance a mortgage payment with it either. A sign-up bonus would be a great opportunity to offset a mortgage payment, but not having that welcome offer may not be a deal-breaker due to this card’s specialized role.
Sustainability: Will the card’s current value last?
Although the wealth of potential rewards and perks are jaw-dropping for a no-annual-fee rewards card, these benefits also raise the unfortunate question of whether the issuer can (or even plans to) continue offering this much value if the issuer ends up losing money on the card.
For comparison, the Bilt Mastercard rewards rent payments and other purchases with no annual fees, and it has been massively successful at the expense of the issuer (Wells Fargo). In 2024, the Wall Street Journal reported that Wells Fargo was losing money on the Bilt card since more people were earning rewards value from the card than owing interest.
Considering how the Mesa Homeowners card packs even more value for users with its hundreds of dollars in potential annual credits and an even wider range of rewards categories than the Bilt card, I’m a bit apprehensive about whether Mesa will eventually slip in an annual fee, water down the rewards and perks or straight up discontinue the card. The Mesa card doesn’t have one of the biggest U.S. banks helping foot the bill either, so I’m not sure the current features will be sustainable long enough to last out a mortgage.
Granted, Mesa and the issuer don’t make money from cardholders carrying a balance on their mortgage payments (like Bilt and Wells Fargo seem to focus on with rent). But when it comes to new, non-traditional rewards cards — and certainly including the Mesa Homeowners card — early adopters may have to gamble on whether they’ll eventually be stuck with a card they won’t recognize.
Best cards to pair with the Mesa Homeowners Visa Signature Preferred
Since there isn’t another Mesa card to pool your rewards with, the best pairings come down to rewards options that fit your major expenses outside the Mesa card’s categories. A flat-rate rewards card like the Citi Double Cash® Card* or a bonus-category card like the Capital One Savor Rewards Credit Card could be a rewarding partner.
If you’re mainly interested in redeeming your Mesa points toward travel, getting a co-branded airline card with your preferred Mesa transfer partner may help you bank up rewards as well.
How the Mesa Homeowners Visa Preferred compares to other rewards cards
The Mesa Homeowners card serves a unique role in the market at the moment, so the alternatives boil down to cards with slightly different purposes and features. The Bilt Mastercard is the closest competitor, and plans to reward mortgage payments, but currently just rewards rent payments. A flat-rate rewards card is always a solid option for uncommon categories like daycare and household maintenance, and a rare few no-annual-fee cards do have home improvement and utility bill categories.
However, many mortgage lenders don’t allow you to make payments with a credit card (at least without cost-prohibitive fees), so there really is no substitute for the Mesa card for now.
Annual fee
Intro offer
Rewards rate
Earn 1X Mesa Points per $1 of your monthly mortgage payments*. Earn 3X Mesa Points on home and family expenses including home improvement, decor, maintenance, utilities, and daycare¹. Earn 2X Mesa Points on everyday purchases including groceries, gas, EV charging¹. Earn 1X Mesa Points on all other eligible purchases¹.
Recommended Credit Score
A FICO score/credit score is used to represent the creditworthiness of a person and may be one indicator to the credit type you are eligible for. However, credit score alone does not guarantee or imply approval for any financial product.
Annual fee
Intro offer
Rewards rate
Earn 3x Bilt Points on dining. Earn 2x points on travel. Earn 1x points on other purchases, and rent (up to 100,000 points each calendar year). Use the card 5 times each statement period to earn points.
Recommended Credit Score
A FICO score/credit score is used to represent the creditworthiness of a person and may be one indicator to the credit type you are eligible for. However, credit score alone does not guarantee or imply approval for any financial product.
U.S. Bank Shopper Cash Rewards® Visa Signature® Card
Annual fee
Intro offer
Earn a $250 bonus after you spend $2,000 in eligible purchases within the first 120 days of account opening.
Rewards rate
6% cash back on your first $1,500 in combined eligible purchases each quarter with two retailers you choose. 3% cash back on your first $1,500 in eligible purchases on your choice of one everyday category (like wholesale clubs, gas and EV charging stations, bills and utilities). 1.5% cash back on all other eligible purchases.
Recommended Credit Score
A FICO score/credit score is used to represent the creditworthiness of a person and may be one indicator to the credit type you are eligible for. However, credit score alone does not guarantee or imply approval for any financial product.
Is the Mesa Homeowners Visa Signature Preferred Credit Card right for me?
The Mesa Homeowners Visa Signature Preferred serves a unique niche in the credit card market by rewarding mortgage payments and other homeowner-focused categories that typically aren’t featured on a rewards card. The laundry list of transfer partners and annual credits are also unprecedented for a no-annual-fee credit card, and they can pack extraordinary value if they fit your spending and rewards goals.
However, the $1,000 monthly spend required to earn rewards on your mortgage and the coupon-book-style credits, as well as limited rewards value toward cash back can easily be deal-breakers for some spenders. Other Bankrate credit experts and I also can’t shake the feeling that the sheer potential rewards and perk value is too good to last. Ultimately, it’s up to you to decide whether the value for early adopters will be worth the gamble of being saddled with a shell of the same card, a higher-fee variant or even a discontinued paperweight.
With that in mind, the Mesa Homeowners card could be a valuable partner if you’re a homeowner who:
- Can easily spend more than $1,000 across the card’s reward categories each month
- Shops in bulk for pets and young children
- Plans to bank up your rewards for travel transfer partners
- Can adjust your pet care and home maintenance spending to fit the annual credits
- Doesn’t mind re-assessing your cardholder status if the card is eventually overhauled
Frequently asked questions
Alternative picks
The Mesa Homeowners card has a deep roster of uncommon, and even unique, categories and annual credits. If you’re looking for traditional 1:1 cash back redemption value and reward categories for home maintenance and similar household expenses, take a look at these other options:
How we rated this card
We rate credit cards using a proprietary card scoring system that ranks each card’s estimated average rewards rate, estimated annual earnings, welcome bonus value, APR, fees, perks and more against those of other cards in its primary category.
Each card feature is assigned a weighting based on how important it is to people looking for a card in a given category. These features are then scored based on how they rank relative to the features on other cards in the category. Based on these calculations, each card receives an overall rating of 1-5 stars (with 5 being the highest possible score and 1 being the lowest).
We analyzed over 150 of the most popular rewards and cash back cards to determine where each stacked up based on their value, cost, benefits and more. Here are some of the key factors that influenced this card’s overall score and how the score influenced our review:
The information about the Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card, Citi Double Cash® Card, U.S. Bank Shopper Cash Rewards® Visa Signature® Card and Wells Fargo Attune℠ Card has been collected independently by Bankrate. The card details have not been reviewed or approved by the card issuer.
“Discover our brands,” Accor Live Limitless. Accessed on July 7, 2025.
“Celtic Bank Corporation,” Better Business Bureau. Accessed on July 7, 2025.
“Mesa Mortgage, Inc.,” Better Business Bureau. Accessed on July 7, 2025.
“How Your Home Can Take You Places: Introducing Mesa Points Transfer,” Mesa. Accessed on July 7, 2025.
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“Letter to Bilt Members - 2024,” Bilt. Accessed on July 7, 2025.
* See the online application for details about terms and conditions for these offers. Every reasonable effort has been made to maintain accurate information. However all credit card information is presented without warranty. After you click on the offer you desire you will be directed to the credit card issuer's web site where you can review the terms and conditions for your selected offer.
Editorial Disclosure: Opinions expressed here are the author's alone, and have not been reviewed or approved by any advertiser. The information, including card rates and fees, is accurate as of the publish date. All products or services are presented without warranty. Check the bank’s website for the most current information.
