Cabela's CLUB Visa: Is It Still the Best Outdoor Catalog Card After the Bass Pro Merger?

calendar Jul 2, 2026 / · 9 min read · Cabela's Bass Pro Shops Capital One REI outdoor gear co-branded cards hunting and fishing catalog shopping  ·
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Cabela's CLUB Visa: Is It Still the Best Outdoor Catalog Card After the Bass Pro Merger?

The merger between Bass Pro Shops and Cabela's closed in September 2017, creating what is widely recognized as the largest outdoor sporting goods retailer in North America. Running alongside that store deal was a second transaction most cardholders never noticed at the time: Capital One acquired World's Foremost Bank, the in-house bank Cabela's had operated to run its credit card program independently for over two decades. That acquisition moved the Cabela's CLUB Visa from a card issued by a brand-owned bank into the Capital One portfolio, and over the years since, those changes have worked their way through the card's issuer infrastructure, account management, and most importantly, where earned CLUB Points can actually be spent. This post examines what the card looks like today, what the merger changed in practice, and how the CLUB Visa compares against the REI Co-op Mastercard for outdoor catalog shoppers deciding which card belongs in their wallet.

Card Overview

The Cabela's CLUB Visa is issued by Capital One and earns CLUB Points on purchases. The card's best earn rate applies at Cabela's and Bass Pro Shops stores and their online catalogs — the most direct, tangible benefit of the 2017 merger for existing CLUB cardholders. Before the acquisition closed, points earned on the Cabela's card were redeemable at Cabela's only; the merged program allows CLUB Points to be applied toward purchases at Bass Pro Shops as well. For a shopper who visits both banners, that change effectively doubled the catalog square footage their rewards could cover.

Away from the two flagship brands, the card continues to earn points on everyday spending — gas, restaurant meals, and general retail purchases — at rates that vary by category. As with most co-branded outdoor cards, the earn rate on everyday spending is lower than the in-store rate at the brands, but it keeps the card useful between gear orders rather than sitting unused until the next catalog season. CLUB Points redeem as credit applied at checkout at Cabela's and Bass Pro Shops, covering the combined catalog of hunting, fishing, camping, boating, archery and general outdoor equipment that the two brands offer across their retail and mail-order footprints.

Capital One's acquisition of the card program from World's Foremost Bank also brought the account infrastructure into a major bank's ecosystem. Account management, credit decisions, payment processing and app support all shifted to Capital One's platform, replacing the legacy World's Foremost Bank systems. For most cardholders that translates into a visible quality-of-life improvement: Capital One's mobile app and online tools for tracking balances, viewing CLUB Points totals and managing payments are better supported than what a narrowly focused in-house bank could maintain. The practical effect is less friction in managing the card between catalog orders, and a clearer view of accumulated points without logging into a separate portal.

What Changed After the Merger

The most significant change for existing Cabela's cardholders was redemption scope. Before the merger, World's Foremost Bank ran the CLUB program as a Cabela's-specific loyalty currency — points earned at Cabela's, spent at Cabela's. The Capital One transition and the broader brand integration changed that to include Bass Pro Shops, expanding the pool of retail locations and catalog pages where CLUB Points have real purchasing value. A single card now covers both brands, which matters concretely for a hunter who outfits at a Bass Pro Shops store near home and orders specialty catalog items from Cabela's online.

The issuer change also shifted the card's credit underwriting and account management to Capital One's practices and models. Capital One makes credit decisions using its own standards, not World's Foremost Bank's criteria, and ongoing account terms — including variable APR and credit line management — now follow Capital One's policies. For new applicants, that is simply the current state of the card; for longtime cardholders who opened their CLUB Visa years ago under World's Foremost Bank, the transition moved their account to a bank they may not have chosen independently.

One thing the merger did not change is the CLUB Points model's fundamental structure. CLUB Points still accumulate as you spend and convert to credit applied at checkout — there is no transfer to airline miles, no cash-back option, and no points-to-statement-credit conversion outside the Cabela's and Bass Pro Shops ecosystem. That is by design: the program is built for shoppers whose outdoor gear budget genuinely runs through these two catalogs, and the rewards make sense only for someone who will spend them back at the brands. Flexibility outside the brand ecosystem is not what this card is engineered to provide.

Cabela's CLUB Visa vs. the REI Co-op Mastercard

The REI Co-op Mastercard is the most natural comparison card for an outdoor catalog shopper evaluating the CLUB Visa — and it is also issued by Capital One, which makes the comparison a study in how one bank structures two very different co-branded outdoor cards for two distinct outdoor audiences.

The REI card is built around the REI Co-op membership ecosystem and earns rewards that apply toward REI purchases. It carries no annual fee and sits alongside the REI Co-op dividend that qualifying member-owners already earn on REI purchases, adding a card-level rewards layer on top of the base loyalty return. For a shopper whose outdoor catalog runs through REI — trail running shoes, climbing gear, paddling equipment, tents, outdoor apparel — the card's rewards cycle back into the same purchasing habits cleanly, with no external redemption step.

The Cabela's CLUB Visa targets a different slice of the outdoor market: hunting, fishing, archery, boating, and the broader Bass Pro Shops catalog that spans everything from trolling motors to archery targets. These two cards do not serve the same shopper in most cases, and the comparison is less about which card is objectively superior and more about which catalog dominates a shopper's outdoor spending. An angler or deer hunter concentrated in the Cabela's and Bass Pro Shops ecosystem has little practical use for REI Co-op rewards, which can only be applied toward REI. Conversely, a trail runner or kayaker who shops REI's catalog will not find CLUB Points useful, since they do not extend to REI or any outdoor retailer outside the Bass Pro and Cabela's family.

The practical evaluation for a shopper considering both: choose the card tied to the catalog you actually order from. If your gear dollars consistently go to Cabela's or Bass Pro Shops, the CLUB Visa earns and redeems within that ecosystem. If they go to REI, the Co-op Mastercard does the same within that one. A shopper who genuinely spends across all three brands might reasonably carry both, since there is no overlap in redemption and each card's rewards can only be spent at its own brand — CLUB Points at Cabela's and Bass Pro, REI rewards at REI. Neither card takes anything away from the other; they just operate in separate reward ecosystems attached to adjacent but distinct outdoor catalogs.

Key Benefits for Catalog Shoppers

  • Earn at both Cabela's and Bass Pro Shops — The post-merger expansion of CLUB Point redemption to both brands means outdoor catalog shoppers no longer need to pick one banner to maximize; a single card covers both, and points earned anywhere in the combined ecosystem redeem anywhere in it.
  • Capital One platform — The move from World's Foremost Bank to Capital One brought the card into a major bank's app and account-management infrastructure, with mobile alerts, real-time balance and points tracking, and a wider network of customer support resources.
  • Combined catalog reach — CLUB Points can be redeemed across the hunting, fishing, camping, archery, and boating catalogs of both Cabela's and Bass Pro Shops — a combined outdoor retail footprint that covers more specialty gear categories than any single competing retailer's catalog.

How to Apply

Applications and current terms for the Cabela's CLUB Visa are available through the Cabela's credit card page, with Capital One handling credit decisions and account servicing. A variable APR applies to any balance carried month to month, so reviewing the current rate in the issuer's terms before applying is the right first step. The REI Co-op Mastercard application is available on REI's site, also processed through Capital One, for outdoor shoppers whose catalog spending is REI-centered rather than Cabela's- and Bass Pro-centered.

Bottom Line

The Cabela's CLUB Visa has improved in one concrete way since the Bass Pro merger: CLUB Points now redeem at both Cabela's and Bass Pro Shops, covering a bigger piece of the North American outdoor catalog ecosystem than the card could reach as a standalone Cabela's product. The issuer shift to Capital One modernized the account infrastructure without changing the earn-and-redeem mechanics that make the card useful for its intended audience.

Whether it is the best outdoor catalog card depends entirely on where you actually shop. For the hunter, angler or boating enthusiast whose gear spending concentrates in the Cabela's and Bass Pro Shops ecosystem, the CLUB Visa's elevated earn rate at both brands and the post-merger redemption expansion make it the most logical card for those catalog habits. The REI Co-op Mastercard serves an adjacent but distinct audience — outdoor enthusiasts whose catalog is REI's trail, climbing and lifestyle assortment. These two cards are not real competition for the same customer; they serve different outdoor catalog niches that happen to share the Capital One logo on the back.

The one caution that applies to both applies to every co-branded catalog card: the rewards are locked to the issuing brands and only have value if your spending flows there with enough regularity to accumulate meaningful points. CLUB Points are worth carrying toward if your gear purchases genuinely concentrate at Cabela's and Bass Pro Shops; they stop making sense the moment your outdoor spending migrates to REI, Backcountry, or any other catalog outside the Bass Pro family. Used for what it is designed for — regular catalog and in-store purchases at both brands, with balances paid in full so interest cannot erase the rewards — the Cabela's CLUB Visa remains the card best aligned with the shopper it was built to serve, and the merger made it more useful rather than less for that audience.

References

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