MoneySense Published 2017 Canada’s Best Credit Cards

Canada's Best Credit Cards

After questionably selecting the WestJet World Elite MasterCard as Canada’s best travel credit card for a few years in a row, this year personal finance magazine MoneySense came up with better rankings that are more aligned with reality. We will never know what kind of compensations took place behind the scenes, if any, or what else made MoneySense pick the WestJet World Elite MasterCard year after year as the best travel credit card that has a low return (1.5% on everyday purchases) and does not provide trip cancellation insurance and concierge service.

Another mega website, Rewards Canada, also uses a questionable practise of selecting the American Express Rewards Gold credit card as the best travel credit card in Canada. Worse yet, this site is even pumping up 1 to 2 articles per month talking about all the good things Amex Rewards Gold has to offer, without mentioning what it does not offer. And why should it? The more good things these affiliated sites can say to promote credit cards, the more money they will make; each time someone clicks on these affiliated links to get credit cards, they make money from the credit card provider. So you will definitely not hear anywhere that Amex Gold is not suitable to stand as the best travel credit card because although it charges a hefty $150 annual fee, it’s lacking very important travel insurance trip cancellation and does not provide any concierge service.

This year, MoneySense picked top credit cards for several categories such as rewards, no-fee, travel rewards, and students rewards. Here are the top 3 credit cards for cash back and travel rewards:

2017 Canada's Best Travel Credit Cards by MoneySense

1. BMO World Elite MasterCard

2. Scotiabank Gold American Express

3. American Express Gold Rewards

2017 Canada's Best Cash Back Credit Cards by MoneySense

1. Scotiabank Momentum Visa Infinite Card

2. MBNA Rewards World Elite

3. SimplyCash Preferred Card from American Express

Massive Equifax Data Breach & My 3 Hacked Credit Cards

Equifax Data Breach

In my last post, I talked about my CIBC AC Vonversion Visa Travel credit card that was hacked. Since then, there were 2 other credit cards that were compromised.

One of these two cards had one fraudulent charge and then their fraud detection system shut off the account. The other credit card had about 20 attempted fraudulent charges that were coming from all across the globe, but none of them was successful.

I was puzzled, as there was no connection between these three cards. I never had them together in my wallet or purchased online, one card had only one transaction 4 months ago and the other card had only 2-3 charges at an electronic store and groceries.

The connection became clear to me when Equifax declared that there was a huge data breach that affected 143 million customers. I have plausible reasons to believe that all my affected cards were scammed because of the Equifax breach; the time frame matches and it makes so much sense because that’s the only connection I can see linking these 3 cards together.

Credit card reporting companies like Equifax will never tell you the real story. They won’t tell you up to what level or exactly what sort of information from your files was leaked, or how many credit cards or clients were leaked. They are vague providing any information and I do not trust them with the information they are providing. Also, how can you trust someone who broke your trust in the first place by failing to protect your valuable information?

I have posted a video and in this video, I will discuss all this and will tell you what you should do because of this data breach. The link is here: Massive Equifax Data Breach & What To Do

CIBC Air Canada Card Was Compromised

CIBC AC Conversion Visa Prepaid Card

About 2 weeks ago, I found out that my CIBC AC Prepaid Visa card was compromised. However, this card was never stolen or lost.

When trying to load my card online, I noticed scammers made 9 fraudulent transactions. The small transactions were made via PayPal and 2 large transactions were made from Malaysia. One of these was Expedia Malaysia and the other one was an airfare purchase from Malaysia.

CIBC is not the back office for this card. A third party prepaid credit card provider I2C (http://www.i2cinc.com/) in California is the back office and provides support maintaining this card and they don’t take calls, so I had to talk to CIBC customer service and file a complaint form. I was told that it could take up to 40 days to complete the investigation and reverse those charges.

The reason I use this card is because I can control how much credit availability the card can have and it’s especially handy when you are travelling. So scammers were able to extract only around $200 due to low availability.

What surprised me most is that I2C’s fraud detection system totally failed, as there were 9 transactions and they raised no flags whatsoever. In the past, I dealt with fraudulent activities on my credit cards and their systems flagged and blocked my cards after 1 or 2 transactions. After 9 transactions, my AC Conversion card had no more balance left for the scammers to take out and that’s why it stopped. No fraud detection system stopped it.

I will link a video I made on this on the top left and here: My Travel Visa Card Was Compromised. I will give some tips to help you protect yourself from credit card scams in that video as well.

Meridian Visa Infinite Travel Rewards Card: Should You Keep It?

Meridian Visa Infinite Travel Rewards Card Review

The Meridian Visa Infinite Travel Rewards Card is a travel rewards credit card that lets you earn rewards points for everyday purchases that can be used for travel, merchandise, gift cards, or special events.

The Cost

Annual Fee = $99 (First year free). Additional cards = $30

Minimum annual income required = $60,000 (personal) or $100,000 (household)

Rewards Points Snapshot

– Earn 1.5 points for every $1 spent in all credit card purchases

- Earn 3 points for every $1 spent in foreign currencies

– No caps, no tiers, no restrictions

First Time Bonus

None

Anniversary Bonus

None

Features & Benefits

– Complimentary 24/7 Visa Infinite Concierge.

– Emergency Medical Insurance (48 days<59, 23 days=60–64, 15 days=65-75, None>76, Amount: 5 M/per person).

– Travel Accident Insurance (up to $1,000,000 CAD, No age limit).

– Auto Rental Theft and Collision/Loss Damage Insurance (Up to 48 days)

– Trip Cancellation Insurance ($2,000 each).

– Trip Interruption Insurance (Unlimited).

– Flight Delay Insurance (Not clear – No mention of after how many hours, Looks like $2,000, but please call Meridian to confirm).

– Lost and Delayed Luggage (Not clear - No mention of after how many hours, Looks like $500-$1,000, but please call Meridian to confirm).

– Extended Warranty Insurance (1 additional year, $50,000 lifetime limit).

– Purchase Security (90 days, $50,000 lifetime limit).

– Price Protection Insurance (60 days, $100 per item, $500 per year limit)

– Mobile Device Insurance (Up to $1,000)

What’s Missing

– Hotel/Motel Burglary Insurance

Meridian Visa Infinite Travel Rewards Card - My Take

The Meridian Visa Infinite Travel Rewards Card is a new entrant on the Canadian credit card market. The rewards points earning rate is not that great because it generates only 1.5 percent return on everyday purchases. However, the 3 percent return on foreign purchases would offset the 2.5 percent foreign transaction fees and there will still be a half percent return. Most Canadian cards charge foreign transaction fees. If you want to know which cards do not charge foreign fees, watch my video on that.

The interesting twist this card has is its insurance. It offers rich travel insurance for a $99 annual fee. Also, the Emergency Medical Insurance offers longer coverage than most other Canadian travel credit cards (and a higher amount, up to $5 million) for up to 75 years old.

If you pay careful attention to insurance providers, there are two providers working together here. For travel related insurances such as emergency medical, trip interruption, trip cancellation, baggage delay, etc., the provider is Desjardins Financial Security Life Assurance Company. For other segments of insurance such as auto rental, mobile device, purchase + price protection, extended warranty, etc., the provider is American Bankers Insurance Company of Florida (ABIC).

Whichever travel credit cards you use (such as Scotia Gold Amex, Capital One Aspire Travel World Elite MasterCard, and many other Canadian cards), travel insurances are provided by American Bankers Insurance Company of Florida. I would stay away from these, as there are numerous complaints and bad reviews online about these providers when it actually comes to processing claims. So, for the travel insurance elements, the provider is Desjardins and not ABIC, which is a good thing.

Now, it all comes up to your decision making if you are comfortable trusting Desjardins as your insurance provider. Of course, I am assuming they are better than ABIC, but I am not too familiar with Desjardins when it comes to processing claims. You don’t want to take chances paying out of pocket for, let’s say, a $500,000 bill should you require an airlift from a foreign country to Canada and your provider is finding causes to decline your claims.

To wrap it up, Meridian Visa Infinite Travel Rewards Card should not be your primary card to maximize rewards/points earning (except foreign transactions). But it can be a good card for travel insurances if you are fine with Desjardins being the travel insurance provider. Always do your research and make an educated decision.

As of this writing, I do not hold this card.

 

Why is American Express Canada Removing Their Minimum Income Requirement?

Amex Canada Eliminates Minimum Income

Disclosure: Opinions expressed here are my own and not anyone else’s or those of the credit card companies. My opinions are based on my own analysis and in reality credit card companies may be pursuing these policies and procedures to achieve very different objectives.

American Express recently removed the minimum income requirement on all their cards, including high-end cards such as Amex Gold and Amex Platinum. Today, I will give my take on the reasons behind this decision and what it means for Visa and MasterCard.

Currently Visa’s elite series card, Visa Infinite, has a minimum annual income requirement of $60,000/00 personal and $100,000/00 household and MasterCard’s elite series card, World Elite, has a minimum income requirement of $80,000/00 personal and $150,000/00 household income. By establishing a higher minimum income requirement, Visa and MasterCard don’t want everyone or those with lower income to hold these elite series cards.

This is my understanding that the reasons behind this: merchants pay higher fees on elite series cards and by restricting these cards to only higher income groups Visa and MasterCard are trying to balance out the higher fees merchants pay because it is expected these groups will spend more than lower-income groups. However, in reality this may not be the case, as it is not necessarily true that high-end cardholders will spend more than regular card holders.

This is where Amex comes in. By targeting those left behind by Visa and MasterCard, they are grabbing a significant part of market share that will turn out positive for their business. American Express is mainly targeting those groups of people.

They are targeting young people who just joined the workforce, college/university students, and middle-aged to older people who want high-end credit cards. The main boost Amex will get will be from younger people who just joined the workforce and students, as these people will remain loyal to Amex in the latter years when their income goes up. Amex is not just looking at business today, but they are looking to grab market share from Visa and MasterCard for years to come.

It will be interesting to see what reactions this brings from Visa and MasterCard. They may decide to idle away and do nothing, watching American Express grab market share from them or they may take actions to lure these groups Amex is targeting by releasing innovative products or by lowering the minimum income on their elite series cards.