GE Money’s GO MasterCard is a little different to most other credit cards out there as it’s aimed primarily at financing purchases for around the home. This includes such purchases as furniture, electronics, and white goods at GE Money’s retail partners, Domayne, Harvey Norman and Joyce Mayne.

You can apply for this card online on the GE Money website or at any of GE Money’s participating retailers (listed above). Interest is charged at  p.a. on purchases and a through-the-roof rate of p.a. for cash advances, which can be avoided with up to 62 days interest free on purchases (as long as you pay your monthly balance in full).

For purchases made with the GE Money GO MasterCard at the participating retailers (as listed above), there are two special deferred payment options. The first of these is the ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ option. Let’s say you buy a plasma TV from Harvey Norman with 24 months interest free. You’ll get take it home that day and won’t have to make any payments until your interest free period of 24 months is over.

If you can save money during that time to pay off your TV in full before it 24 months is up then this is a smart option for you as you won’t end up paying any interest whatsoever, and you will have had your television the entire time that you were ‘saving’ for it. If this isn’t the case then it probably best to avoid it otherwise you’ll get stung by a very high interest rate as soon as the interest free period is over.

The other payment option available is the ‘Interest Free’ option. This alternative differs from the ‘Buy Now, Pay Later option as you have to make a minimum payment each month throughout your interest free period. This will be whichever is highest of  your monthly bill. As this is the ‘minimum’ amount required you will need to make larger payments in order to avoid paying interest charges at the end of your interest free period.

Despite there being no annual fee, there are a few other fees that should be taken into account. First is the one off set up fee and the other is the  monthly service fee. The monthly fee is only charged if your monthly bill includes cash advances (so does not apply to purchases alone).

There are also GO Rewards available, with 1.25 reward points earned for every dollar spent with your GO MasterCard at Domayne, Harvey Norman, or Joyce Mayne, and 1 point for every dollar spend at any other retailer. While this is an ok earn rate the redemption rate is pretty lame, with something as simple as a hammock (while it is pretty cool) requires 6,870 points in order to get it! That’s a spend of nearly $5,500! For a hammock!

This card is great if you need finance for your household items as it has a huge interest free period and no annual fee, however you will need to be very disciplined with your payments and other expenses. If you can manage it, get another cheaper credit card for other purchases and cash advances so then you can get 100% interest free on major household items while still getting a cheap rate on another card for other purchases.

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This card is on the cusp of being a standard interest credit card, only just making the cut with a purchase rate. This is further reinforced by the cash advance rate.

Balance transfers however, are available for the first 6 months and as a refreshing change, this rate only increases to the purchase rate rather than the cash advance rate (as most other credit card rates do after the introductory period is over).

Benefits of this card include price protection cover and purchase protection. So if you have made a purchase on your credit card and you see the same product offered cheaper a week later, you’ll get paid the difference by GE. Or if your credit card purchase is accidentally lost, broken or gets stolen then you’ll be covered for that too.

It is a card that sits in the middle of the range in terms of its annual fees. It includes up to 55 interest free days on purchases, however it should be noted that these do not come into effect until all balance transfers have been paid.

While this is a good credit card overall, and the lowest interest rates of all the GE Money credit cards, it’s not quite good enough to compete with all the other cheaper, low interest rate credit cards out there.

See our top credit card picks in the Editor’s Choice category

The GE Money Clear Advantage MasterCard is a very basic credit card supplied by GE Money through Wizard Home Loans.

It has no annual fee which is great, however the interest rate compensates for this a bit  for both purchases and cash advances. While this is pretty high for purchases its one of the lowest we’ve seen for cash advances. It also comes with up to 55 days interest free and a balance transfer rate for the first 6 months.

As banks have their own ATM’S to make withdrawals from it might seem like a bit of a disadvantage getting the GE Money Clear Advantage credit card because of the withdrawal fees you’d get using other banks’ ATM’s. But there’s no need to worry.

GE Money and Wizard have teamed up with Westpac to allow people with this credit card unlimited access to Westpac ATM’s free of charge. So if you go with this card you can use Westpac ATM’s for all your withdrawals without the hassle of ATM fees.

GE Money has had a fair crack at providing a good low annual fee credit card so hats off to them. But when it comes down to it, there are better options out there. Sure there’s no annual fee, but other cards that offer better interest rates will cost you less in the long run despite (in some cases) having to pay a small annual fee.

See our top credit card picks in the Editor’s Choice category