not sure about the card but I bought the satellite subscription over a year ago and let it expire. There is so much you can do with that gps its unreal. You can look at google earth and save an image and then upload it directly to your gps. Its awesome, I will never pay for outdated BirdsEye stuff again.You can make what ever maps you want as long as their are some kind of reference points on the map. I took a picture of my youngest daughter and put a lat & long. numer in for her eyes and it overlayed my topo map on my 550T. The GPS rocks and once you get into the can do's of the unit there isnt much you cant do with it.