How Accurate Are MoneySense’s Credit Card Rankings?

First Published Date: September 13, 2015

Canada’s popular personal finance magazine MoneySense recently releases its annual credit card rankings for 2015. The five best credit cards were chosen for these six categories: cash-back cards, low-rate cards, retail rewards cards, travel rewards cards, student cards, and business cards.

However, the factors that MoneySense used to determine the best cards for Canadians are inaccurate and out of touch from reality. I will discuss only a few important points to show you why these rankings are flawed and also will give you links to some other rankings that I believe did a better job ranking Canada’s best credit cards.

Why These Rankings Are Flawed

– The biggest problem is that the assumption was made that you will be spending $2000 per month on credit cards. To spend $24,000 on credit cards annually, you will need to have at least $100,000 annual income, but even it’s hard on a 100K salary to spend that much. So it is safe to say that an average $150,000 salary is required to make sense of these rankings and if MoneySense thinks that is what most Canadians make they are out of touch.

– Even if we say everyone is Canada is spending $2,000 monthly on credit cards, the MoneySense ratings are wrong in terms of getting the best value back on your rewards. If you use this credit card tool to plug in $2,000 monthly spending, you will get very different results.

– The wrong information was provided for some credit cards. For example, if you look at insurance benefits for cards like WestJet RBC World Elite MasterCard or American Express Gold Rewards Cards, according to MoneySense these cards have trip cancellation, but in reality these cards do not have trip cancellation; they have trip interruption insurance, which is a totally different thing.

– The 1st and 2nd cards in the travel category are the WestJet RBC World Elite MasterCard and the American Express Gold Rewards Card. Neither of these cards should be first and second, as they are missing major elements that you need to have in a travel card, such as trip cancellation insurance and concierge services. Also, the big problem with the WestJet RBC World Elite MasterCard is that you are limited to fly only WestJet on limited destinations that WestJet covers.

– The worst picks are in the retail rewards category. Here you will find credit cards that are not even considered to compete by other best credit cards ratings sites. For example, if you use the credit card tools I mentioned in the article below, you will see that these top credit cards stay on the bottom of the list. So that makes you wonder why Rogers credit card is # 1 in this category. Rogers credit card is #1 retail rewards card is Canada – really?

How to Pick Your Best Credit Cards

Research and gather information from various sources, including the credit card providers’ own sites and make decisions based on your own circumstances. There are tools, calculators, and articles you can use to help you and I mentioned some of these in the Credit Cards/Rewards Cards Section on A Dawn Journal to help you with your research.

Also, you can check other sites’ best credit cards ratings. For example, the Greedy Rates ratings below is a good one and more aligned to reality.

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