Hi Jen,
I will continue your credit card posts, from a Canadian perspective. J
American Express in Canada recently stopped the ability to churn cards, by creating a rule that only new card holders can get the card bonus. Since I have had most of the cards at least once, I need to start looking a little further afield for cards.
I also recently read an interesting article on One Mile at a Time, assessing the different methods of getting points (here), and found it interesting that using your airline credit cards for everyday spend is like paying 2 cents per mile, because you could be using a cash back card instead. That made me realize I should look into the cash back cards available in Canada. The MBNA Smart Cash has 5% back on groceries in the first 6 months, which is great. After that, the Scotia Momentum Infinite Visa gives 4% back on groceries, although it has a $99 annual fee so I read that only people who spend $400/month or more on groceries/gas should get this card. We do spend more than that, although about half of our spending is at costco, which I don’t think is considered groceries. And the annual fee is waived the first year.
There was also an interesting blog post by Don’t Call the Airline about how Canadians can get American credit cards. It has me thinking I could use my parents’ Maine address and try to apply for some. Perhaps you could use that technique to get Amex cards. The article is here.
Anne
That post on the cash back vs. point cards was really interesting. I hadn't really thought about it like that before. Especially since a lot of my flights that I have been looking at redeeming are coming out between 1.5 and 2.0 cents per mile. So this is saying that these are not good value at all if I am earning at 2.0 cents of cost. I made a little table for myself just to see how the bonus categories affect the comparison (below). With the cards we have now we are able to earn the 2X on restaurants, grocery stores, travel (parking, airfare, tolls, etc.) and 5X on gas for this quarter (then 2X). But there still ends up being a lot of just everyday non-bonus spend. Maybe I will explore the cash back cards!
ReplyDeletespend $1,000.00
2% cash back $20.00
points at 1:1 1,000
cost points 1:1 $0.02
points at 1:2 2000
cost points 1:1 $0.01
points at 1:5 5000
cost points 1:1 $0.004
On the AMEX Transfer front, that is exactly how I ended up getting my AMEX cards (I have two now). It is interesting because AMEX was happy to approve me, since they are considering my Canadian history, but the other banks not yet. It is such a great opportunity though because it lets me build my credit here.