Credit Card Recommendations

[Torture]

Originally Posted by MoneyGuy

You can redeem one expense multiple times? If I have a $300 Hotel bill I can redeem it many times until my points are used up? My wife does the redemptions and I’ll have to point this out.

Red Flag Deals forum has an excellent thread on credit cards. There is some discussion now on this card.

Yep. Same if you have a $50 taxi or uber, just keep redeeming until you're out of points. You can also redeem if you have less points than the total. It's easy enough to redeem that it might as well be cash back.

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by MoneyGuy

I’ve been using a Capital One MasterCard card for years but they’re now cutting their reward miles from 2 to 1.5 per dollar spent and eliminating their 10,000-point anniversary bonus. Thoughts on options? I don’t mind an annual fee but now I’m not putting as much on my card so I’d consider a no-fee option.

I've been looking at the HSBC World Elite Mastercard to replace my Capital One card after the whole rewards miles fiasco. They have a $100 anniversary bonus and great redemption for "travel" from what I can tell. i.e. Capital One's balance erase for travel expenses and pays 1.5% but 3% on travel related expenses (not doing much of that lately tho).

Reviews on it are pretty great and aside from the slightly higher fee I don't see that much of a drawback on paper.
https://www.rewardscanada.ca/hsbc-we...rd-review.html

Anyone have this card and care to comment on the pros/cons?

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by Old Yeller

The worst part is that I've got hundreds of thousands of reward miles that we usually save up for international flights as it's the best straight across value. Cash back option loses me a significant amount of money.

I realize this is the epitome of a first world problem during a global pandemic.. but god dammit this card was awesome.

Can't you just buy an Air Canada gift card and erase the balance? I don't think Capital One can just tell whether you bought a gift card or an actual ticket off the AC website. It "should" just be counted as a travel expense you can erase.

I've looked into Costco giftcards for my balance and that looks like it would work at the same rate as the travel expense on redemption based on the website.

[Calgary14]

It looks like the MBNA World Elite Mastercard is a decent option for anyone planning to ditch their Capital One Card

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by Calgary14

It looks like the MBNA World Elite Mastercard is a decent option for anyone planning to ditch their Capital One Card

Yea this is the other one of two cards that are pretty good replacements for the Capital One card. Bad thing about this one though is the lack of travel insurance compared to the others choices. I also couldn't stand MBNA's call centre practices back when I had one of their cards in University.

Also MBNA has gone through a points devaluation with their cards like BMO did in 2018 so you might want to hold off signing up. They previously are devaluated 100 points=$1 to 120 points=$1. Seems a bit risky to switch.
https://creditcardgenius.ca/blog/mbna-rewards-changes/

[Wormius]

Has anything surpassed the Scotia Momentum Infinite Visa yet?

I ran comparisons with no-fee cards and this still works out better for our type of spending - mostly groceries, gas, recurring bills.

[Calgary14]

^For heavy grocery spending the Amex Cobalt is good as well, 5% back for groceries, $120 annual fee (charged $10 monthly) with a decent signup bonus. The only snag is some places dont take Amex (almost all do that I have seen except Superstore). The Amex Cobalt (and Scotia Momentum) really work well when buying gift cards at grocery stores, I buy Amazon gift cards at Sobeys quite often for the 5% back

[White Out 403]

https://brimfinancial.com/

This card is 2% on everything

My front runner

Or https://www.mbna.ca/en/credit-cards/...te-mastercard/

I need a Mc for Costco and these are the best 2% options I can find thanks to redflagdeals

https://www.rogersbank.com/en/rogers...ercard_details
Actually this looks better. Same as capital one now but with no annual fee. A no brainer to switch.

[Calgary14]

The Brim World Elite card has a $199 annual fee ($0 for the first year) but no FX fees is nice

[Swarly]

I've been using the Westjet RBC World Elite Mastercard for a few years now. I haven't done extensive number crunch on this card vs others but I like having a free vacation every couple years. It's MC world elite but with a higher focus on travel bonuses. The companion flight each year alone is worth the $120 fee to me. Also free first checked bag for primary card holder and up to 8 guests on the same reservation. If you travel with Westjet even once a year you should have this card just to pay for that trip. 2 people with free check bag is $50 each way of the trip, nearly pays the card fee there.

[White Out 403]

Originally Posted by Swarly

I've been using the Westjet RBC World Elite Mastercard for a few years now. I haven't done extensive number crunch on this card vs others but I like having a free vacation every couple years. It's MC world elite but with a higher focus on travel bonuses. The companion flight each year alone is worth the $120 fee to me. Also free first checked bag for primary card holder and up to 8 guests on the same reservation. If you travel with Westjet even once a year you should have this card just to pay for that trip. 2 people with free check bag is $50 each way of the trip, nearly pays the card fee there.

We have that card to save on our trips to Cape Breton.

Edit I think maybe we'll just use this card full time.

[FlameOn]

Keep in mind the Brim financial card travel insurance plan is not anywhere near as good as the others. Only 15 days travel insurance and lower dollar figure coverage compared to other cards, 31 days typical for other world elite cards and better insurance total coverage terms.

So if you do not have separate insurance via work for travel Brim may end up costing you more if you go on longer than 2 week trips.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by Swarly

I've been using the Westjet RBC World Elite Mastercard for a few years now. I haven't done extensive number crunch on this card vs others but I like having a free vacation every couple years. It's MC world elite but with a higher focus on travel bonuses. The companion flight each year alone is worth the $120 fee to me. Also free first checked bag for primary card holder and up to 8 guests on the same reservation. If you travel with Westjet even once a year you should have this card just to pay for that trip. 2 people with free check bag is $50 each way of the trip, nearly pays the card fee there.

This is a pretty good card, I concur. The free check in bag thing is huge. Linking this card to a Petro Points card and fueling up at Petro Canada locations can help power it up from the fuel usage POV and there are occasional emails for some really interesting discounts on random things. The cash back on it is reasonable. It's a fantastic travel card, but when it comes to groceries, it seems kinda meh to me. Redemption is mostly on travel, which I don't always end up doing, so I ended up splitting a bunch of my regular expenses from it to other cards with easier redemption and use it solely for travel.

I generally shop at Superstore, so I use the PC World Elite. It's totally crap for overseas travel, but decent for groceries and gas at their partner locations. Redemption of the points for groceries is easy. It's nice not to have to trek another PC optimum card with you and if you pair it with the optimum app, you can double dip on points constantly when you grocery shop.

[Swarly]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

This is a pretty good card, I concur. The free check in bag thing is huge. Linking this card to a Petro Points card and fueling up at Petro Canada locations can help power it up from the fuel usage POV and there are occasional emails for some really interesting discounts on random things. The cash back on it is reasonable. It's a fantastic travel card, but when it comes to groceries, it seems kinda meh to me. Redemption is mostly on travel, which I don't always end up doing, so I ended up splitting a bunch of my regular expenses from it to other cards with easier redemption and use it solely for travel.

I generally shop at Superstore, so I use the PC World Elite. It's totally crap for overseas travel, but decent for groceries and gas at their partner locations. Redemption of the points for groceries is easy. It's nice not to have to trek another PC optimum card with you and if you pair it with the optimum app, you can double dip on points constantly when you grocery shop.

Ya, from a pure cash perspective it's not the best day to day card to use as some of them offer a bit higher rewards on groceries or gas or are easier to redeem. But for me psychologically, I love the feeling of having an all inclusive vacation fully paid for every 2-3 years. It feels like a bigger reward to me than getting $10-20 off my grocery bill every week. Even tho the grocery savings over 2-3 years is actually higher total value than my trip cost. It's like a forced vacation savings which otherwise might happen less often, $10-20 just disappears into the ether for me.

[JackJack]

I've been a Capital One Aspire World Elite for probably 15 years.

Where is everyone seeing this change (loss of anniversary bonus and rewards decreasing from 2 to 1.5 times). I'm trying to find it online and am unable to find it anywhere.

Mind you, when previous changes were made to the card, they grandfathered my account. So maybe it doesn't impact me?

[MoneyGuy]

Originally Posted by JackJack

I've been a Capital One Aspire World Elite for probably 15 years.

Where is everyone seeing this change (loss of anniversary bonus and rewards decreasing from 2 to 1.5 times). I'm trying to find it online and am unable to find it anywhere.

Mind you, when previous changes were made to the card, they grandfathered my account. So maybe it doesn't impact me?

It came in a letter to card holders a few days ago.

[JackJack]

Originally Posted by MoneyGuy

It came in a letter to card holders a few days ago.

Ah ####. Thanks man. I'll check the mail!

[Calgary14]

^I've had the Capital One card for years as well and got my letter last week. Right now it looks like the MBNA World Elite card is very comparable so long as they don't devalue their points now too. It also has price protection which is very handy on black Friday, boxing day etc (max $500/year) - for anyone unfamiliar you can claim a price drop within 60 days on anything you buy with the card up to $100/item

[White Out 403]

Originally Posted by Swarly

Ya, from a pure cash perspective it's not the best day to day card to use as some of them offer a bit higher rewards on groceries or gas or are easier to redeem. But for me psychologically, I love the feeling of having an all inclusive vacation fully paid for every 2-3 years. It feels like a bigger reward to me than getting $10-20 off my grocery bill every week. Even tho the grocery savings over 2-3 years is actually higher total value than my trip cost. It's like a forced vacation savings which otherwise might happen less often, $10-20 just disappears into the ether for me.

For me because we have the WJ card (2 of them) it makes sense to just use this one full time, and not worry about having another card to eek out extra value. We fly (family of 4) every year to CB to this is a lot of savings and the WJ dollars are gobbled up easily

[Calgary14]

For any WJ card holders looking to save on the annual fee I was able to get mine waived again, I paid it but then had second thoughts on keeping the card so they gave a $120 statement credit. Worth the conversation with customer service if you are on the fence about keeping the card