Air Canada Aeroplan - Best VISA or Mastercard for either cash, Aeroplan, or Air Miles (prefer no-fee)

My son's first-year tuition (UBC) has to be paid with either VISA or MasterCard. I usually use a cashback blue AMEX for any large purchases, which may or may not be the best solution but I really do not travel that much or generally have large purchases. But if I can move quickly and get a new card, maybe I can find a way to make this tuition payment worthwhile.

So what would anyone suggest as the best VISA or MasterCard in the circumstances? I would consider a credit card with a fee if there is a good justification. I think I'd prefer cash or Aeroplan, but open to any other collection scheme. I think I've seen a gold VISA for an annual $199 fee which includes lounge membership and 2:1 Aeroplan points per dollar. I'm doubtful that's worth it unless it has significant other benefits.

Geez, I wish my school let me pay by credit card! You might want to consider the low-fee Choice Rewards Mastercard offered by Credit Unions or separately at www.choicerewards.ca. They do have a no fee version, but I'd splurge for the $24/year low fee card which offers double the points. 1 point per $, travel rewards starting at 10K (10K = $100) which is basically a gift certificate to use at their in house travel agency. Unfortunately I don't know of any sign up bonuses.

Regardless, this card will put you ahead by at least $76 a year as long as you can reach the 10K annual spend.

Having a look at some of the other options, that same 10K spend would net you a whole 250 Airmiles on a fee free BMO Mosaik card which you couldn't even redeem for a can opener.

The CIBC aero Classic Visa is 1 aeroplan point/ $2 spend so 5000 aeroplan points for $10K (no initial annual fee, $29/year thereafter and an initial bonus of 2500 miles).

A CIBC no-fee cash back card would give you at most 1% back, which on the surface looks better than the Choice Rewards card, but is tiered so that you earn significantly less than 1% on your first $5000 of purchases.

au contraire my friend re: airmiles. You can get a Westjet Airmiles Mastercard for a $75 fee (and get a $75 travel credit on WS for your trouble :) ) Then you get 150 bonus airmiles for signing up and then 1 airmile per $15 spent, or 666 airmiles for $10,000. This gives you over 800 miles for ZERO effort and 800 airmiles is a free shorthaul flight. Oh, if you bank at BMO you also get a $6 or so credit towards banking services per month. Not a bad deal in your circumstances.

I was hung up on the free card thing for WAY too long. Now have a Platinum Avion from RBC with a maze of benefits and with various bonus schemes and diligent charging ;) have over 45,000 miles since Nov that I can transfer to AA or BA, enough for an off-peak flight to Europe. With this card you are ahead of the game as soon as you charge $12,500 per year.

There are many other options out there too.

In addition to the good options noted above, the no-fee President's Choice Mastercard (www.pcmastercard.ca) returns a flat 1% in the form of PC points which can be used to buy just about anything at Loblaw's, Superstore, etc.

The Citibank Canada Platinum MasterCard gives you 2% cash rebate toward the purchase of any car. There is no fee and it has all the usual benefits for rental cars etc.

Too bad your son is not going to school in the US. Then you could rack up some serious miles.

I usually use a cashback blue AMEX for any large purchases, which may or may not be the best solution but I really do not travel that much or generally have large purchases. But if I can move quickly and get a new card, maybe I can find a way to make this tuition payment worthwhile.

I'm assuming you're posting in FT is because you want to travel more?

Anyways, if UBC only accepts MC or VISA, the best card to get is the Aerogold. (AmEx is actually better for racking up points but too bad it's not accepted.)

The justification depends on your own personal circumstances. I also have a no-fee cash-back Plat card that nets me 1% (cash that is, not PC points ;) ). Since I'm interested in travelling, the ROI for the Aerogold is much higher than the cash back.

e.g. 1% on $25K is $250. $25K purchases nets me 25K AP points which is the NA Award and good for at least a minimum of around $300 and no max.

I'm assuming you're posting in FT is because you want to travel more?

OK, I guess that was unclear. Actually according to many people I know, I travel a ridiculous amount, but hardly at all compared to the average FlyerTalker :). However, I haven't used a coordinated strategy and don't have that many points on several airlines because I have always taken the cheapest deal possible including flying charters. I'll look into the Aerogold issue, because it sounds like that could work for me. Then again, the PC MasterCard might be good too, because we do so much shopping at Superstore.

Geez, I wish my school let me pay by credit card! You might want to consider the low-fee Choice Rewards Mastercard offered by Credit Unions or separately at www.choicerewards.ca. They do have a no fee version, but I'd splurge for the $24/year low fee card which offers double the points. 1 point per $, travel rewards starting at 10K (10K = $100) which is basically a gift certificate to use at their in house travel agency. Unfortunately I don't know of any sign up bonuses.

I'm a bit leery of the inhouse travel agency, because wouldn't that mean that you can't jump on an excellent fare immediately, if you happen to see it here or elsewhere? You'd be stuck with what they offer when you make contact. Have you gotten some good deals from it?

I used to have the Aerogold card - but changed to the CIBC Dividend Platinum 2 years ago due to the exhorbitant fees Aerogold charges..plus the fact that I earn enough points from flying to care about amassing even more (that may be a sacrilegeous statement here)

if you dont fly a lot and you dont plan to travel much, there is nothing better than a kickback in cold hard cash.

dividend platinum gets you between 0.5%-2% cashback depending on the level of spending, and you pay about $80/yr for it.

Tier one - 0.5% rebate on your first $3,000 in annual net purchases.
Tier two - 1% rebate on your next $12,000 in annual net purchases. (Between $3,000 and $15,000)
Tier three - 1.5% rebate on your next $20,000 in annual net purchases. (Between $15,000 and $35,000)
Tier four - 2% rebate on your next $15,000 in annual net purchases. (Between $35,000 and $50,000)

or you can go for the free PC MAstercard or the Canadian Tire mastercard .. both get you 1%.

I used to have the Aerogold card - but changed to the CIBC Dividend Platinum 2 years ago .
I had done that too until CIBC changed the deal in mid-year to be much less of an offer. I was about to cancel it when an identity thief got at this account and I tried to stop them. Yet, the CIBC security people allowed the thief to keep opening accounts - and using them despite my complaints to CIBC and the police. CIBC eventually stopped it and absorbed thousands of dollars of charges - all ABM cash advances - several times a day! I dumped the card once the thing was settled - I have no faith that CIBC has adequate security procedures. On the other hand, CitiBank is vigilant and alert. Again, the CitiBank card has no fee and pays 2% - you just have to buy a new car, any new car, any time, with the money. My favorite card for travel miles is DC-Enroute, another Citibank product, but it will soon be removed from its Aeroplan roots. And you can get this for no-fee too.

Thats interesting .. I just bought a car and used the Div Plat to pay the deposit. I had to call into CIBC to get it approved they told me that my number had been "compromised". so we went through a list of recent transactions and nothing suspicious came up.

they told me they get a list of numbers from RCMP/OPP collected when they catch some crooks and mine was on the list .. I have used my card in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Turkey and Germany in the last 4 months, but all in seemingly OK places .. no idea how the number got out.

I have used my card in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Turkey and Germany in the last 4 months, but all in seemingly OK places .. no idea how the number got out.


Are you serious that you don't know how your number was "distributed"? ;)

With 800 Airmiles for a short-haul and 6 points for each $100 a trip say Edmonton to Vancouver will cost roughly $13,000. The lowest I have seen in $110 plus taxes, but $200 plus is more common. That is worth 1.5% or more in that case

Edmonton-Vancouver maybe $110 but Edmonton to Nanaimo is closer to $300 and Edmonton to Sandspit is $800 - there are other better uses than YEG-YVR, even YYC-YVR is closer to $250. All the above are 800 airmiles, 950 in the height of summer.

I was hung up on the free card thing for WAY too long. Now have a Platinum Avion from RBC with a maze of benefits and with various bonus schemes and diligent charging ;) have over 45,000 miles since Nov that I can transfer to AA or BA, enough for an off-peak flight to Europe. With this card you are ahead of the game as soon as you charge $12,500 per year.

There are many other options out there too.

A friend told me that the Platinum Avion sometimes gives promotions that are better than 1:1 ratio to encourage points conversion (I think it was Avion). Do these offers still come up?

Such a promotion is why all my points are still in my RBC account! Actually there was one of these last fall - transfer to BA, I think it was 1.5 BA miles per RBC point. Hoping for one for AA :)

Such a promotion is why all my points are still in my RBC account! Actually there was one of these last fall - transfer to BA, I think it was 1.5 BA miles per RBC point. Hoping for one for AA :)

Thanks Altaflyer, I figured they didn't come up too often (once?) since no one had mentioned them in the card comparison.

The CIBC Aero Classic Visa gives you 1 AE miles per $2 spent and there's no annual for the first year. So worse comes to worse, you can get one of those, get the 2500 sign up bonus + the miles you'll earn during the first year and cancel after 1 year.

If you threaten to cancel the card(be willing to do it)you can finagle a second year free if your credit is good and you put enough spending through their product.
Problem with MBNA/CITI is they own so many cards that they do not care if you threaten to leave-as they probably own the next card you will get.

Problem with MBNA/CITI is they own so many cards that they do not care if you threaten to leave-as they probably own the next card you will get.

Might be the case in the US but when I called to cancel my CITI Plat card (which I actually was going to do since I didn't need it), they gave me an offer I couldn't refuse. :D

Might be the case in the US but when I called to cancel my CITI Plat card (which I actually was going to do since I didn't need it), they gave me an offer I couldn't refuse. :D
Like 6000 AP bonus and no fee on a Citi card of a certain type. And they have great security, at least compared to CIBC.

I've applied for both the AeroClassic VISA and the President's Choice Mastercard. These will replace my no-fee, no-benefits ones. As mentioned, we mostly use AMEX anyway because of the 1% cashback, but these are good to have for cases when we can't use AMEX. I'll plan to cancel the VISA when it comes time to pay the fee for the second year.

With the application for the PC MasterCard, we also got a $50 voucher for spending at SuperStore. When I get the card, I take in the voucher and get five $10 coupons for use with purchases of $150 or more.

Most of the US airlines have affiliate cards with fantastic first year bonuses.

The problem is Canadians can't get them.

Any ideas on how to overcome this problem?

I think I've seen a gold VISA for an annual $199 fee which includes lounge membership and 2:1 Aeroplan points per dollar.

Anyone know which visa this is?

Don't think the above card exists. $199 sounds like the upgrade fee to include lounge access on the Aerogold but don't think there is a 2:1 offer and the initial fee is $120.

The paid cards offer more benefits and usually waive the first year. For Westjet the Mosaic $70 card includes a $70 credit for your first WestJet flight and almost 1/3 of the points need for a flight anywhere in Canada

If you're going to go for the CIBC Aerogold you may as well get the Aventura. It has idenitcaly benifets as the Aerogold with many more options. You earn Aventura points but you can transfer them to Aerogold at any time. You have many more options with Aventura points, I've redeemed some for pretty good packages. The only drawback is you have to switch points in 10k increments. A major plus is that your points post as soon as the transaction is posted with Visa as opposed to Aerogold which are only posted when the statement is printed.

Yup, Avion had a great promo from October-December 2003 that all new customers got double points and BA had a seprate promo that all points transferred from Avion got an extra 50% - in another words 3 BA points for $1. Really cashed in on that one hope they have another one soon.