Mesa shuts down credit card that rewarded cardholders for paying their mortgages

Fintech startup Mesa has unopen down its Homeowners Card, which awarded points to cardholders for paying their mortgages.

A connection connected the Mesa website states that arsenic of December 12, “all Mesa Homeowners Card accounts are closed,” adding, “All recognition cards person been deactivated and you are nary longer capable to marque immoderate caller purchases oregon gain Mesa Points.”

A Mesa FAQ astir the shutdown described this arsenic “a concern determination to adjacent the Mesa Homeowners Card Program entirely.” TechCrunch has reached retired to Mesa for further remark connected its aboriginal plans.

The startup launched conscionable implicit a twelvemonth ago, successful November 2024, with $9.2 cardinal successful backing ($7.2 cardinal successful equity backing and $2 cardinal successful debt). It offered 2 products — owe loans with 1% currency back, arsenic good arsenic the recognition paper with rewards including currency back, travel, and offset owe payments.

At the time, CEO Kelley Halpin told TechCrunch that the startup had “taken what everybody loves astir question and eating cards to re-contextualize that for the homeowner/parent.”

In theory, you could gain points for location expenses by utilizing immoderate recognition paper with rewards, but Mesa said it structured its points programme to incentivize spending related to location ownership.

“So it’s not rewarding you connected question and eating spend; it’s rewarding you connected gas, groceries, your HOA, utilities, location goods arsenic good arsenic your owe payment,” Halpin said.

Bilt, which has a rewards paper that allows customers to gain points connected rent payments, says it volition grow with points for owe payments erstwhile it launches a revamped paper adjacent year.

Mesa’s paper shutdown has been covered by question deals websites similar One Mile astatine a Time and Upgraded Points, which accidental that Mesa cardmembers person been complaining astir declined transactions for the past week, with the institution initially claiming this was lone a impermanent outage.

Now, it seems the lone remaining mode to redeem points earned connected the Mesa paper is done a connection recognition astatine a complaint of 0.6%.