Great White North

Hmmm... if this was a Hilton VISA, I'd be all over it. Hyatt doesn't have enough hotels in enough places for me to play in their system.

NBSPGMEMBER

It wouldn't surprise me that it would be Hilton, a Hilton Citi Visa actually. If so, I would be all over it too, there is many new Hilton properties in Canada, especially in Atlantic Canada where we recently got several Hamptons and a HGI. Hilton is booming across Canada and so is Marriott, Starwood not so much...

tkyoshi

You need to have a TD Select Service account, it's their top tier account which requires a $5000 minimum balance or $24.95/Month fee.

Braindrain

I would've been all over a Hilton VISA a few months ago.

However, with the crippling devaluation, I'm not so sure I would want it anymore - even if I could qualify for HH Diamond through spending.

CP@YOW

R.I.P. MBNA SPG Mastercard. It was good while it lasted -- 130K+ Starpoints for me.

Add me the list of people not jumping on the AmEx. First, I hate annual fee cards. Second, I spend $40K+ per year, but with AmEx shutting me out of points on my car and house insurance, and my weekly Loblaws groceries, getting to the free weekend night is not assured and limiting it to Cat 4 is, as someone else said earlier, a bit insulting. But if I ever need to get 10,000 Starpoints cheaply, I'll consider applying.

Surprisingly (to me), I find the new MBNA offering to be compelling -- $25K spend = 25K points = North America flight or $500 toward hotel stay. Not bad for a no-fee card in my opinion, although I've yet to see the details and read the fine print.

It's interesting that the credit card change is also giving me the opportunity to reconsider my loyalty to SPG in general. After being Platinum for a year, I'm not all that impressed. In the past couple months, I've tried out Hyatt and been very impressed, even as a no-status and then a mid-tier member.

Great White North

Hmmm.... I would either need to spend $300 a year in fees or keep an extra 3K in my account (at 4% thats $120/year) to get a $120/yr card for "free". OK, not a good fit for me...

Altaflyer

Hyatt is far more impressive than Starwood, alas I doubt the new card mentioned above will be a Hyatt card. The replacement MBNA card will likely come with a bunch of small print. $25,000 spend for a free flight sounds good but I doubt it will be as simple as that given they have already misrepresented things in the mailer (number of pts on former spg card).

dominick

I agree with you there, but where are u getting 4% these days :-P

OTO-HNS

Fair enough, but there are other benefits of the account such as: free companion card, free US account, and no cost for personal cheques.

JWL

Brilliant! Right now I have the Gold Elite and my wife has a supplementary. I'll have her apply for the Infiinite. Thanks.

And a free US$ VISA card, free safety deposit box, preferred FX rates, and a bunch of other features. http://www.tdcanadatrust.com/accounts/select.jsp

And you have to compare it to the current fees you pay (if any). But same as with-fee credit cards, they aren't for everyone. By the way, where are you earning 4% interest these days (it would actually have to be 4% after-tax to be an accurate comparison)?

Vasyl

[QUOTE=JWL;13522519]Brilliant! Right now I have the Gold Elite and my wife has a supplementary. I'll have her apply for the Infiinite. Thanks.
[QUOTE]

I am surprised you did not know. Tell your wife to apply at your branch or, if you want via the phone, in this case cancel her suppl. Gold Elite first - TD Visa has now the system monitoring the names of cardholders. At the branch level - they can do it no problem.

JWL

Thanks, but this email has almost no new information over the email that went out Feb 24.

JWL

Having given it a few more minutes thought, I don't think I'm going to jump on it right now. The last couple of "free" TD cards have required me to follow up to cancel the fee after it was charged, so it might be more difficult to sneak this by.

As well, I don't think this card offers me anything I don't already have better somewhere else (or will have with the new Amex SPG). I was really just responding to another post indicating the TD Infinite VISA was better than the Amex SPG. The last thing I need is another credit card.

Right now my credit card strategy is:

1. MBNA Smartcash MC for groceries (pays 3% rebate and Zehrs/Loblaws doesn't accept Amex).
2. Amex SPG card for everything else, where accepted. (when it is finally available! I'll use Amex Gold until then and transfer MR points to Aeroplan. Amex Gold will be canceled once the fee-free year is up)
3. MBNA Smartcash MC for everything else when Amex isn't accepted. (1% return)
4. TD Visa Gold when neither Amex or MC is accepted. (1% return)

I believe the latter 2 will happen infrequently enough that I'm not fussed about trying to squeeze another 0.5% or 1% out of those transactions. But I'll monitor that and adjust if necessary.

Altaflyer

Caution as this is info received from one MBNA agent (their rewards centre on the other hand says they will have all details on March 22)

I was advised by the MBNA agent that the card we are being transferred to will come with the following flight reward options.

see www.mytravelrewardscentre.com and go to "Your rewards". It will have a chart with the award levels. Canada/US rewards seem to start at 15,000 for next province/state, 25,000 for rest of Canada/US excluding Hawaii and go up from there. This seems very good for a no fee card! Actually would blow spg amex out of the water given the limited acceptability of Amex in Canada. The mailer also mentioned the option of $500 of hotel for 25,000 pts so that is an option too. This equals to 2 nights in cat 4 or nearly cat 5 in spg. No cash and points of course but I suspect that $250 a night would get you into many cat 4/5 hotels! The card noted on that page does have a fee but it appears maybe we are getting the benefits without fee....at least for now.

I actually will keep this card as switching to Alaska is retarded given they almost never have reward space for when I want to fly.

platSPGmember

best thing we call all do is collectively not get the new amex, SPG will surely take notice.

Also noticed that some members on this forum are requesting Amex waive the fee for the first year,,somehow I don't think you'd pay for the card in year 2.

It should be a permanent no fee card,,,it's an AMEX!!!

What is SPG thinking,,,there are other choices for hotel chains for consumers to consider. The only reason I stayed at Starwood chain hotels was for the points and the bonus thresholds attained when using the MBNA mastercard.

They can forget about getting anymore of my business unless they wake up and offer an equivalent deal to what I had with the MBNA mastercard,,,actually since it's an AMEX they need to offer a superior deal in my mind.

BOYCOTT BOYCOTT BOYCOTT,,,wake up Starwood