Your Guide to the Maurices Credit Card

What the Maurices Credit Card Actually Is

The Maurices credit card is a retail credit card issued by Maurices, the clothing retailer with over 1,000 stores across the United States. This card works differently than a standard Visa or Mastercard that you can use anywhere. Instead, it's designed specifically for shopping at Maurices locations and on their website. When you use this card, you're borrowing money from the card issuer to pay for your purchase, and you'll receive a monthly bill that you need to pay back.

Learn How to Access Your IHG Rewards Credit Card Account →

Maurices is known for carrying clothing aimed at women, particularly juniors and plus-size styles, with a focus on casual wear, workwear, and seasonal fashion. The credit card is one way the company encourages repeat shopping. Many retailers offer their own branded cards because it helps them track customer purchases and encourage loyalty through rewards programs.

The card comes with an interest rate (called an APR, or Annual Percentage Rate) that applies if you don't pay your balance in full each month. This rate varies depending on your creditworthiness. The card issuer will report your payment history to the three major credit bureaus—Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion—meaning how you use this card can affect your credit score.

It's important to understand that a retail credit card is a real financial obligation. You're not just earning rewards; you're also taking on debt if you carry a balance. The card comes with terms and conditions that spell out fees, interest rates, and payment requirements. Before using any retail credit card, you should have a clear plan for how you'll pay off purchases.

Takeaway: The Maurices credit card is a store-specific card that lets you buy now and pay later, but only at Maurices. It's a borrowing tool that can help or hurt your finances depending on how you manage it.

Rewards, Discounts, and Promotional Offers

One of the main reasons people use the Maurices credit card is the rewards structure and promotional discounts. Maurices regularly advertises special offers tied to cardholders, such as additional percentage discounts on certain days or exclusive sales. For example, cardholders might receive 20% off a purchase or early access to seasonal sales that the general public doesn't get until later.

Learn How to Add Money to Your Cash App Card →

The card typically earns rewards points on purchases made with the card at Maurices. The points structure usually works on a tiered system—for every dollar spent, you earn a certain number of points. Those points accumulate and can be redeemed for discounts on future purchases. The exact redemption rates change, but common setups allow you to redeem points for $5, $10, or $25 off once you've accumulated enough.

It's crucial to understand the math behind these rewards. If you spend $100 at Maurices and earn 5 points per dollar, you've earned 500 points. If 500 points equals a $10 discount, that's a 10% return on your spending. However, if you're buying things you wouldn't normally purchase just to earn points, or if you're paying interest on the balance because you didn't pay it off, those rewards can cost you more money than you save. Interest charges pile up quickly. A $500 balance at a 24% APR costs roughly $10 per month in interest alone.

Maurices also periodically runs flash promotions—limited-time offers announced through email or in-store that might include "$25 off a $75 purchase" or "40% off your entire transaction on Saturday." These promotions are designed to drive traffic and increase spending. Cardholders are usually notified first about these deals, which is a genuine advantage if you're shopping anyway.

Takeaway: The rewards add up only if you pay your balance in full each month. If you're carrying a balance, interest charges will quickly erase any savings from discounts or points.

Understanding Interest Rates and Fees

The Maurices credit card, like all credit products, comes with an interest rate that applies when you don't pay your full balance by the due date. The APR (Annual Percentage Rate) for this card typically ranges from 18% to 24%, though the exact rate you receive depends on your credit score and credit history. Someone with excellent credit (a score of 740 or higher) might get the lower end of that range, while someone with fair or poor credit could be charged closer to 24%.

Get Your Free OneMain Financial Credit Card Guide →

To understand how this works in real terms: if you carry a $1,000 balance for one month at a 22% APR, you'll owe about $18 in interest charges. That might not sound like much, but if you keep that $1,000 balance for a year without paying it down, you'll pay roughly $220 in interest alone. This is why carrying a balance on a high-interest retail card can become expensive quickly.

The card may also come with additional fees, though many retailers have reduced or eliminated annual fees in recent years to remain competitive. However, you should always check your cardholder agreement for information about late payment fees, returned payment fees, or other charges. A late payment fee might be $25 to $40 if you miss a payment, and that fee is separate from the interest you'll owe. Additionally, making a late payment can trigger a higher APR, sometimes called a "penalty rate," which could increase your interest rate significantly.

There's also an important grace period to understand. Most credit cards, including retail cards, come with a grace period—typically 21 to 25 days—during which no interest is charged if you pay your full balance by the due date. This means if you charge something on day one of your billing cycle, you have until the due date to pay it off interest-free. However, if you only make a partial payment, interest accrues on the remaining balance from the purchase date, not from the due date. This is why paying in full is financially advantageous.

Takeaway: Interest is your biggest expense with this card. At 20%+ APR, carrying a balance costs substantially more than the rewards or discounts you'll earn. The grace period means you can use the card interest-free if you pay in full each month.

How the Maurices Card Affects Your Credit Score

Using any credit card—including the Maurices card—creates a footprint in your credit history. Every payment you make (or don't make) gets reported to the three major credit bureaus. This information becomes part of your credit report and influences your credit score, which is a three-digit number (typically ranging from 300 to 850) that lenders use to assess your creditworthiness.

"Learn About Accepting Credit Card Payments Online" →

Your credit score is built on five main factors: payment history (35%), amounts owed (30%), length of credit history (15%), credit mix (10%), and new credit inquiries (10%). The Maurices card can impact most of these. If you make payments on time, that helps your payment history. If you carry a high balance relative to your credit limit, that hurts the "amounts owed" portion of your score. For example, if your Maurices card has a $1,000 limit and you carry a $900 balance, that's 90% utilization, which negatively impacts your score. The same balance with a $5,000 limit (18% utilization) looks much better to credit scoring models.

Opening the Maurices card account also adds to your credit history, which is positive long-term but can cause a short-term dip. When you apply for new credit, the issuer performs a "hard inquiry" into your credit report, and this inquiry stays on your report for about two years. Multiple hard inquiries in a short period can signal to lenders that you're desperately seeking credit, which makes you look riskier.

The positive side: if you use the card responsibly and pay on time, it demonstrates that you can manage credit, which builds a stronger credit profile over time. Someone with a credit mix that includes different types of credit (a car loan, a mortgage, and credit cards) typically scores higher than someone with only one type. Additionally, keeping an old account open—even if you don't use it frequently—helps maintain a longer average age of accounts, which boosts your score slightly.

The negative side is that one missed payment can significantly damage your score. A payment 30 days late might drop your score by 100 points. A payment 60 days late could drop it even further. These late payment marks stay on