Burlington Credit Card Review

Based on verified issuer data, the Burlington Credit Card comes down to one question: how much of your shopping already happens at Burlington, Cohoes Fashions, or MJM Designer Shoes. Nick’s one-line verdict: on the standard $100/month profile, this card returns $60 net in year one and $60 net in year two, 5% back with a $0 annual fee, plus an illustrative $10 off a $100 first purchase, but every one of those numbers evaporates the moment a dollar is spent anywhere else.

10% off your first purchase when you open and use the card is the hook, and None stated — applies to one first purchase (excludes gift cards prior purchases layaway). Cardholders report the ongoing rate is simple: one point per dollar, 100 points redeemable for a $5 Rewards certificate, a flat 5% back with no second tier and no “everywhere else” rate to fall back on.

That last part matters more than it sounds. This card is closed-loop. It cannot be used at any retailer besides Burlington, Cohoes Fashions, and MJM Designer Shoes, and it earns nothing on any purchase made elsewhere. The math below is real, but it only applies inside that lane.

Who This Card Is For

This card fits three kinds of shoppers, based on verified issuer data on its single flat rate.

A regular Burlington, Cohoes Fashions, or MJM Designer Shoes shopper spending around $100/month earns 5% on every purchase, worth $60/year. That’s the standard profile used throughout this review, and it’s the cleanest case for carrying the card.

A family shopping seasonally, stocking up for back-to-school or holiday deals at around $200/month during peak season, earns the same flat 5%, worth $120/year. Cardholders in this pattern get more total value simply because more of their existing spend already happens in-brand.

Someone drawn mainly by 10% off your first purchase when you open and use the card should go in with eyes open. In-store applicants must use the discount the same day as approval, and online applicants get a somewhat more forgiving 2-day emailed-code window, but both are tighter than most competitor store cards’ sign-up windows.

One profile should skip this card entirely: anyone who wants a card usable anywhere besides these three stores. Unlike the open-loop Ross Mastercard, this card earns $0 outside Burlington, Cohoes Fashions, and MJM Designer Shoes. Anyone at real risk of carrying a balance should also stay away, given the flat 33.99% APR.

Fair (640+) is the confirmed approval bar, single-sourced to The Points Guy’s dedicated review. See what credit score you need for a store credit card for how that figure compares across the category. (Issued by Comenity Capital Bank, the same bank behind several other store cards reviewed on this site.)

Sign-Up Bonus: Is It Worth It?

The Burlington Credit Card offers 10% off your first purchase when you open and use the card, and None stated — applies to one first purchase (excludes gift cards prior purchases layaway).

Net first-year value comes entirely from the ongoing rate: $60 ongoing rewards minus $0 annual fee equals $60 net in year one, using the standard $100/month profile. The 10% first-purchase discount sits outside that number. On a $100 first purchase, that’s another $10 off, illustrative only, scaled to whatever the reader’s actual first purchase costs, not a fixed dollar bonus folded into the headline figure.

Is this a realistic offer to capture? The no-minimum-spend requirement is genuinely easy to clear; there’s no dollar threshold to hit before the discount applies. The catch is timing. The same-day in-store usage window is tighter than most competitor store-card offers, including this site’s own Sephora Credit Card review, which gives 30 days to use its offer. The online 2-day emailed-code window is more forgiving, but still asks a reader to act fast.

In practice, that means applying without a plan to buy something specific, soon, is the wrong approach here. A reader needs a purchase already in mind before opening the account, especially for an in-store application where the whole window closes at close of business.

That timing asymmetry is worth naming plainly: an online applicant effectively gets a full extra day of breathing room over an in-store applicant, purely because of how the code is delivered. Neither window is generous by store-card standards, but the gap between them is real.

Earning Rewards: The Math

On Burlington, Cohoes Fashions, and MJM Designer Shoes purchases, this card earns 5% back (1 pt/$1; 100 pts = $5), that’s $60 a year on $100/month spent exclusively at Burlington and its sister stores. Here’s the full math using the standard worked profile:

There’s only one row here on purpose. This card has no second earning category and no separate “everywhere else” base rate, because there’s no everywhere else it can be used. The 5% figure comes directly from the redemption math itself: 1 point per $1 spent, 100 points redeemable for a $5 Rewards certificate. That conversion already is the dollar value; there’s no separate points-value calculation layered on top the way a transferable bank-points currency would need.

A family spending $200/month seasonally earns the same flat 5%, worth $10/month and $120/year, twice the standard profile’s figure on twice the in-brand spend.

Here’s the honest comparison. A flat 2% cash-back card earns (2/100) x $100 x 12 = $24/year on that same $100/month, if that spending could happen anywhere. This card earns $60/year on the identical $100/month, but only if every dollar of it happens to be spent at Burlington, Cohoes Fashions, or MJM Designer Shoes specifically, 2.5x the flat-2% card’s return on in-brand spend.

The asterisk matters as much as the headline number. That same $100 spent anywhere else earns $0 on this card, while the flat-2% card would still earn $24/year on it regardless of merchant. This card can never substitute for a general-purpose card. It only wins on Burlington-family purchases, and it loses, earning $0, on literally everything else.

Redeeming Rewards

Redemption here is simple and single-path: points redeem in 100-point increments for $5 Rewards certificates. 100 points equals $5, 500 points equals $25, 1,000 points equals $50, and 2,000 points equals $100. There’s no award chart and no points math beyond that flat 1-cent-per-point rate.

There’s a genuine thing to watch, though. Per The Points Guy, redemption certificates expire just 60 days after issuance, and unredeemed points expire 12 months after posting. That’s a real use-it-or-lose-it risk, not a hypothetical one, and it’s the same 60-day certificate window carried by this site’s Ross Mastercard review, a useful comparison point since both are Comenity-family off-price apparel cards.

On the standard $100/month profile, a $5 certificate issues every month, since 100 points is earned in exactly one month of spend at that level. That timing works in a cardholder’s favor: certificates don’t have to sit and accumulate before converting, they just need to be spent within 60 days of showing up.

There are no transfer partners here, and nothing to transfer. Rewards redeem directly and only at the three sister stores. Overall complexity is low, with the one real discipline being tracking that 60-day certificate clock.

Fees and Costs

$0, no annual fee, ever. This is a permanent $0, not a first-year waiver. Because there’s no fee at all, there’s nothing to break even against here — see how that break-even math plays out on cards that do charge one for comparison.

APR runs a flat 33.99% variable, with no separate intro, cash-advance, or balance-transfer tier disclosed. Carry a balance and the rewards disappear fast. A $3.00 minimum interest charge applies whenever interest is owed, and late payments carry a $30-$41 fee.

There is no introductory or promotional APR of any kind on this card, confirmed by omission from both official Comenity disclosure documents.

None isn’t a travel perk here, it’s simply not applicable. This card is closed-loop and can’t be used anywhere outside Burlington, Cohoes Fashions, or MJM Designer Shoes, domestically or abroad — the same reason why a closed-loop card sidesteps this fee entirely applies to other single-merchant store cards on this site.

This card does not appear to offer balance transfers, operating as a closed-loop, single-merchant-family account rather than a general-purpose credit line. Neither official Comenity document explicitly states “Not Applicable” in words for this row, so this is an inference from the absence of a balance-transfer line item, not a flat certainty.

Put together, the fee structure is straightforward. There’s exactly one number that matters here beyond the $0 fee: the 33.99% APR, and the only real strategy this card asks of a cardholder is paying it off before that number ever applies.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• No annual fee, ever
• A solid 5% effective rate at Burlington and its sister stores, on par with this site’s other 5% off-price closed-loop cards like the TJX Rewards Credit Card
• A no-minimum-spend 10% first-purchase discount

Cons

• 100% closed-loop, earns $0 anywhere but these three stores
• A flat 33.99% variable APR, higher than same-category peers TJX Rewards Credit Card (30.49%) and Ross Mastercard (30.49%)
• The sign-up bonus’s tight same-day in-store usage window
• Reward certificates that expire in just 60 days

How It Compares

TJX Rewards Credit Card is another closed-loop, off-price apparel store card, and the closest structural peer this card has. It shares the identical flat 5% back rate, 5 points per $1 there versus 1 point per $1 here, and an identical 10%-off-first-purchase sign-up offer, but carries a lower 30.49% APR versus this card’s 33.99%.

The two cards earn identically at 5%, so the real difference is APR and redemption timing. TJX’s lower 30.49% APR and points that don’t expire, only the certificates do, make it the safer hold for anyone carrying any balance risk.

Ross Mastercard shares the same issuer, Comenity Capital Bank, and the same off-price category, earning the same 5% at Ross and the same 10%-off first-purchase offer with an identical 640/Fair credit score reporting. The open-loop Mastercard version also earns 1% everywhere else Mastercard is accepted, and it shares this card’s exact 60-day Reward-Certificate expiration risk.

Ross Mastercard’s open-loop flexibility, 1% everywhere else, is a genuine edge over Burlington’s pure closed-loop structure, though both share the same certificate-expiration trap and a similarly steep 30.49%-plus APR.

These two competitors already have their own head-to-head on this site: see Ross Mastercard vs TJX Rewards Credit Card for the full breakdown.

Old Navy’s four-brand family card is a different flavor of closed-loop apparel card, spanning Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic, and Athleta rather than a single off-price banner. Its 1% flat rate is a fifth of this card’s 5%, though its 30% first-purchase discount is the more generous welcome offer of the two, and its 33.24% APR runs a hair below this card’s 33.99%.

Nick’s Verdict

Based on verified issuer data, this card makes sense for someone who genuinely and regularly shops at Burlington, Cohoes Fashions, or MJM Designer Shoes and is comfortable holding a second, single-purpose card just for that spend. It doesn’t make sense for anyone wanting one card that also works elsewhere, or anyone at real risk of carrying a balance given the flat 33.99% APR.

For a reader spending $100/month at Burlington or its sister stores, this card returns $60 net in year one and $60 net in year two, plus an illustrative $10 off a $100 first purchase, with a $0 annual fee in both years.

The honest finding: this card’s 5% effective rate is solid and on par with the strongest same-category peers on this site, but it comes with a higher APR than those peers and a genuinely tight 60-day certificate expiration window.

See how this card stacks up against the field in our Best Store Credit Cards roundup.