[getbak]

There have been a couple of good threads recently on this subject. You should be able to find them using the search function.


Personally, I'm not a big fan of cards that don't give you points with a real money value, like Aeroplan or Air Miles, because you can't look at them and say "I have 20,000 points, so that's worth $200 dollars", instead it's "I have 20,000 points, so that can be exchanged for the airfare portion of a flight into a certain 'zone'".

I prefer the plans where points=$$$, so that you can actually compare apples to apples. For that reason, I'd stay away from CIBC (Aeroplan), BMO (Air Miles), and RBC (Avion). Scotiabank and TD both have travel cards where the points actually relate to cash towards travel purchases.

The thing to keep in mind there, though, is if you accumulate enough Aeroplan points in a year, you can receive upgraded perks that might make accumulating as many as possible worth it above just the points you gain (kind of like George Clooney's character in Up in the Air).

Another problem with points is you usually have to accumulate enough to make the full purchase at the time (or buy top-up points to cover what you're lacking), whereas cash back cards will give you the cash back a lot quicker. If you have to wait years before you have enough points to get anything, the points might not be worth it. I'd be leary of any card that promotes "you can get free flights starting at only 15,000 points" because that's usually something like a Calgary-Edmonton flight and you usually can't use those 15,000 points to pay for part of a trip to somewhere else.


The big difference between the travel cards that are worth real money, and the cash back cards is if you actually travel quite a lot. The travel cards usually have an annual fee, but they also provide travel insurance on purchases made on the card that you'd have to buy separately (or risk not having). Also, even though both travel cards and cash back cards may pay 1% on regular purchases, the travel cards usually have some sort of bonus for booking travel using the card that might work out in your favour when all is said and done.


Probably the best thing to do is sit down, look at your normal purchases in a month/year and figure out how many points you would have earned with the different cards you're considering. Then, figure out what the value of those points represents in real dollars.

You might find that a cash back card gives you $75 in real cash in your pocket; a points card might get you enough to get a $100 item out of their catalog; and the travel card might get you $65 off the price of a travel package, but also save you $200 in travel insurance, plus bonus points worth $20 on a future travel package. If you don't travel enough to make the perks of the travel card worth it, it might not be best for you; and if you don't like the merchandise in the catalog, the points card might not be best for you; so even though the total value of the cash back card might be lower than the potential value of the other cards, it might still be best because it's real money that you can spend however you want.