Credit Cards with Free Additional Cardholders

There are various reasons for having a supplementary cardholder on your credit card account:

• Convenience: Family finances are consolidated and easier to track. (E.g. cardholder and spouse use a single account.)
• Insufficient income or lack of credit history: The additional cardholder may have little or no income and credit history. (E.g. a parent supplies an additional card to their child, who is a student or only working part-time.)
• Poor credit history: It may be that a close family member is unable to get a card in their own name because of a problem with their credit history. (But remember that you are responsible for their debt on your card.)
• Earn rewards points faster: With more than one person making purchases, rewards points accumulate more quickly and are consolidated into one account.
• Business credit cards: Trusted employees of a business may receive supplementary cards to manage their business expenses, where the primary account holder is an individual (the business owner) or a company.

The primary cardholder is solely responsible for any debt incurred on the card account. This includes any purchases made or cash advances received by the additional cardholders. Although in practice the account may be managed, and repayments made, by an additional cardholder, the final responsibility rests with the primary cardholder.

The limit varies from card to card. Some cards have no free supplementary cards, while others may allow one only, or up to 10 or more, or an unlimited number.

Yes. Most card providers require supplementary cardholders to be at least 16 years of age.

Yes, if the primary cardholder grants them permission and instructs the bank to give them online access.

Yes. You will find exactly the same range of features – a variety of interest rates and annual fees, balance transfers, rewards points and other complimentary benefits – in both kinds of cards.

No. The card account has a global limit, which is shared by all cards participating in the account.

No. The name on the supplementary card will be the name of the supplementary cardholder. It looks just like a primary card.

No. Each card on the account has a different number. This helps to identify who made each transaction on the account. The monthly statement should identify the card number used for each transaction.

No, in Australia only the primary cardholder interacts with the credit reporting system. However, being an additional cardholder may be a way of establishing a credit history with an individual bank or card issuer.

A supplementary cardholder is not held responsible for the debt by the issuing bank. But for a joint account credit card, the responsibility for the debt is shared by the joint account holders. This is called ‘joint and several liability’. It means that, in the event of a payment default, each of the account holders could be pursued for a part of the debt or the entire debt. However, the largest Australian financial institutions do not offer joint accounts for personal credit cards, so if you want this kind of account you will be limited to the smaller banks or credit unions.