The competition for Canada’s top travel rewards card is heating up as banks and credit card issuers aim to get more share of your wallet and spending. Those in the market for a new rewards card will have no trouble finding juicy sign-up bonuses and other enticing offers, but the best cards should continue to provide value long after the introductory period ends.
Top Travel Rewards Card
Two cards – BMO’s World Elite MasterCard and Capital One’s Aspire Travel World Elite MasterCard – rise above the competition when it comes to earning power and flexible ways to redeem your travel points. Here’s how they stack up:
BMO World Elite MasterCard
It’s no surprise why the BMO World Elite MasterCard was recently named the Canada’s top travel points credit card for 2015 by the popular Rewards Canada blog. This card offers a ton of value:
• Welcome bonus: 30,000 points = $300 in travel rewards
• Earn rate: 2 BMO Rewards points for every $1 spent = 2% back in travel rewards
• Booking travel: Travel must be booked through BMO Rewards program
• Points redemption: Points cover travel taxes and fees at time of booking, with no blackout periods or seat restrictions, and points never expire
• Partial redemption: If you don’t have enough points for the full cost of your trip you can pay the difference with your card
• Extra goodies: 4 Priority Pass airport lounge passes valued at $200 per year
• Annual fee: $150
• Interest rate: 19.99% interest on card purchases
• Additional card fee: $0 additional card fee
• Insurance: Comprehensive 21-day travel medical coverage, plus trip cancellation, trip interruption, trip/flight delay, purchase assurance, extended warranty, and car rental
• Eligibility: $70,000 personal annual income OR $120,000 annual household income
How much can you earn with the BMO World Elite MasterCard?
• Spend $2,000 on your card each month
• Earn $480 in travel rewards each year
• Add $300 travel rewards welcome bonus in the first year
• = $780 travel rewards this year
Apply for the BMO World Elite MasterCard here
Capital One Aspire Travel World Elite MasterCard
Capital One revamped its flagship travel rewards card earlier this year and made it easier to redeem points for full value. These changes, plus a new and lavish early-spend bonus, make this card worth carrying in your wallet:
• Early-spend bonus: 40,000 points = $400 in travel rewards once you spend $1,000 within the first 3 months
• Earn rate: 2 reward miles for every $1 spent = 2% back in travel rewards
• Booking travel: Book your own trip – including the hotel, airline or rental car of your choice
• Points redemption: Redeem your miles to cover any travel expenses with no minimum requirements. 100 points = $1 in travel.
• Partial redemption: Redeem on a portion of a transaction – for example, redeem half of an overseas flight.
• Extra goodies: n/a
• Annual fee: $150
• Interest rate: 19.8% interest on card purchases
• Additional card fee: $0 additional card fee
• Insurance: 22-day travel emergency medical coverage, trip cancellation, trip Interruption, flight delay, baggage loss, baggage delay, purchase assurance, extended warranty, and car rental
• Eligibility: $70,000 personal annual income OR $120,000 annual household income
How much can you earn with the Capital One Aspire Travel World Elite MasterCard?
• Spend $2,000 on your card each month
• Earn $480 in travel rewards each year
• Add $400 travel rewards early-spend bonus in the first year
• = $880 travel rewards this year
Apply for the Capital One Aspire Travel World Elite MasterCard here
The verdict:
Both cards can be considered frontrunners for top travel rewards card. They each offer tremendous value for everyday travellers. The flexibility to book and redeem your points anyway you want without being tied to one airline or points system sets these cards apart from programs like Aeroplan or Air Miles.
Capital One Aspire offers the highest pure return on spending in the first year, with its 40,000 point early-spend bonus paying $100 more than BMO’s 30,000 point welcome bonus.
But BMO’s World Elite MasterCard sweetens the deal for frequent flyers by throwing in four Priority Pass airport lounge passes (worth US$200 a year). The Priority Pass allows you to relax at these lounges worldwide with drinks and snacks and complimentary Wifi. The passes, provided you use them, offer an ongoing bonus for travellers each year.
For years Capital One led the conversation when it comes to the top travel rewards credit cards in Canada. Today, Capital One further cemented its status as the best value rewards card for everyday travellers by announcing a game-changing facelift for the way cardholders redeem points on its flagship Capital One Aspire Travel World Elite MasterCard.
No more tiers!
Gone is the tiered redemption program that drove customers like me to have to split up bills in $150, $350, and $600+ increments in order to get maximum redemption value. In its place is a structure designed to make it easy to redeem your points, no matter how big or small your transaction.
100 reward miles = $1 in travel so you’ll always receive full value for your reward miles for travel.
- No more minimum redemption requirements. You can literally redeem for cents.
- Introducing partial redemptions! Redeem on a portion of a transaction – for example, redeem half of an overseas flight.
Redeeming your miles remains just as easy – just deduct the cost of travel purchases you’ve already made on your card by redeeming your reward miles for an account credit.
These changes have been implemented immediately. In fact, I had purchased airfare for $825 last month and because my rewards balance was only at 77,000 miles I would have had to wait another few months to erase that purchase with points under the old tiered rewards system.
But this morning I was able to log onto my Capital One Rewards and redeem all 77,000 miles as a partial payment towards that airfare.
That doesn’t just apply to big ticket items. No more tiers means there’s no dilution of point value when redeeming for smaller transactions. A $180 purchase will no longer cost 35,000 miles – it’ll cost 18,000 miles.
There are a lot of rewards programs on the market that seem designed to be complex. These changes from Capital One simplify the rewards experience so that customers can always get the most value from their points.
What’s next for Capital One Aspire?
The rewards community was understandably upset when Capital One changed its popular Aspire Travel World MasterCard to the Capital One Aspire Travel World Elite MasterCard. That’s because, most notably, it reduced its best-in-class 35,000 mile welcome bonus to 10,000 miles while at the same time eliminating the 10,000 mile anniversary bonus.
But all of that is about to change. Coming soon is a new 40,000 mile early spend bonus, worth up to $400 in travel rewards, with $1,000 spending in the first three months.
A new $150 annual fee will be implemented, which is an increase of $30/year but in-line with other World Elite products.
The good news is that the earn rate of 2 points per $1 spent will remain intact, which, when combined with the new no-more-tiers redemption structure, puts the Capital One Aspire Travel World Elite MasterCard back into the conversation as the best travel rewards credit card on the market, and arguably the best value for everyday travellers when it comes to getting maximum redemption value on their points.
Watch for these changes to take effect in the coming weeks as the company updates its Capital One Aspire Travel World Elite MasterCard offering. We’ll post the details once the new card is available to the public.
Update: Apply for the revamped Capital One Aspire Travel World MasterCard here and get 40,000 bonus reward miles!