How you might be able to apply for the Robinhood Gold card (without waiting)

In Tim’s post the other day about the announcement of the new Robinhood Platinum card, he mentioned the Robinhood Gold card, which offers 3% back on all eligible purchases, being of interest “if you can get it”. That reminded me that I’d recently stumbled on a post at Reddit that explains how you may be able to apply for it, no waitlist required. I should note that I’m not sure this will work — there are a number of failure data points, but I thought it was worth sharing for those who have been waiting for the card and have been unable to try to apply.

The Robinhood Gold card launched with a waitlist model, where you had to join a waitlist and wait to be chosen to apply. I spent more than a year and a half on that waitlist before finally getting the email late last fall telling me that I was off the waitlist and could apply. However, Robinhood only gave me a 30-day window in which to apply. I was nearly under 5/24 and not ready to immediately apply. Unfortunately, when I was ready to apply for it recently, the link from my email no longer worked, only bringing me to the part of my account where it said I was on the waitlist for the card. I couldn’t find a way to apply in my Robinhood app or on the website.

Then, I noticed an advertisement for the card at Credit Karma that looked like it would lead to an application page. After a little digging, I found this helpful reddit post that explains how to take advantage of that targeting relationship with Credit Karma.

These are the instructions, as posted by KaiiTK on reddit, with an additional note or two from me:

1. Go to https://www.creditkarma.com/cards/shop (Note from Nick: you need to be logged in for this step)
2. Click “Continue” on a card offer
3. In the URL, grab your ID from:

   https://di.apply.creditkarma.com/ea/application/{YOUR_ID}/…

   Note from Nick: I found the URL structure to be a bit different from one card to another, so I found it helpful to do this part twice: I clicked “continue” on a card offer and copied the URL and pasted it into a notepad file. Then I went back and did the same thing on a different card (I used the Amex Gold card and the PayPal Mastercard). Then, I compared the URLs to find an identical number string in both. For instance, I found the identical 11-digit number in the places marked below with eleven X’s in the URL beginnings below:
   https://ax.apply.creditkarma.com/ea/application/XXXXXXXXXXX/
   https://www.paypal.com/credit-application/co/landing?clickref=11111111&present=clpCOB32CONTROLSIPRIMB&track=cltAFFCKLBO&pubref=XXXXXXXXXXX
   I used the number represented by XXXXXXXXXXX above for step #4.

4. Paste that ID into the Robinhood Gold link:

   https://robinhood.com/creditcard/?cksubid={YOUR_ID}&ckbadge=EX&ckoffertype=LB

   Example:

   https://robinhood.com/creditcard/?cksubid=42211111111&ckbadge=EX&ckoffertype=LB

5. Go to the link and apply

Sure enough, that brought me directly to a page to apply. I used the same browser where I had previously logged into my Robinhood account. I don’t know if it was a case of the browser having me cookied or the ID from Credit Karma passing along info, but when I hit the “Apply now” button, my name and address were prepopulated.

As noted at the top, Reddit has a number of failure data points from folks saying that the application errored out at the last step. Another redditor posted a potential workaround for those who run into an error. Your mileage may vary. Even if you aren’t able to make use of this method, it is at least worth being aware that the card does appear to be available via Credit Karma on at least a targeted basis, so it might be worth logging in there from time to time to see if you get a targeted ad to apply.

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