The best credit cards for me are not necessarily the best cards for you. I don’t find I’ve changed my spending habits much in retirement, but being retired has meant I can spend a bit more time trying to optimize my credit card holdings to maximize benefits to me. One thing that I value above all else is cold, hard, cash. I don’t like “points” cards because understanding what kind of ROI I’m getting is nearly impossible, and always subject to the whims of a points to dollar conversion rate that can be changed at any time. I’m now holding three different credit cards, all of whom pay cash back, and all of them have their place in my spending universe.

Primary Card: Rogers Red World Elite Mastercard

Read about it here. As a Rogers customer¹, this card is really the best possible card for my needs:

• No fees
• 2% cash back on everything, paid as a reward credit that you then immediately apply to subsequent card purchases; this reward credit is multiplied by 1.5 if you apply it to a subsequent card purchase for a Rogers service.
• 3% cash back on USD purchases, which erases the 1.5% FX fee charged, and then some
• Travel insurance, purchase insurance, etc etc
• Free supplementary cards

The problem with this card is that its credit limit is a bit low; I even asked for an increase and was denied².

The other problem with this card is that it’s not tied to my normal banking, so I have to pay it manually³. And it only offers a login for the primary card holder, which isn’t ideal.

Secondary Card: CIBC Costco Mastercard

Read about that one here. This one is actually a conversion from another CIBC card I had. Converting a card from one kind to another means you don’t lose your credit limit, which was the main appeal here. I am a Costco member, so this is a good second choice for my needs:

• no fees
• 1% cash back on everything except 2% back on gas and Costco.ca, and 3% back on Costco gas⁴ and restaurants⁵
• Cashback paid annually in the form of a Costco gift certificate
• Travel insurance, purchase insurance etc etc
• Free supplementary cards

The travel card: Wealthsimple Visa

I’ve been on the waitlist (like many people) for quite a few months for this card now. I finally got my card when I called their support line to query about why a transaction on their prepaid Mastercard⁶ failed to complete. (Turns out there’s a daily limit on that card that can’t be modified). Anyway, the helpful agent offered to put in a good word for me and a few days later, I was able to successfully apply for the card and immediately download it to my phone⁷.

The Wealthsimple Visa’s features are a lot like the others:

• no fee (if you have enough assets with Wealthsimple)
• 2% cash back on everything, paid into your account every month
• travel insurance, purchase insurance, etc etc
• and…most importantly for me, NO foreign exchange fees for any currency

With no foreign exchange fees, Wealthsimple’s Visa becomes the go-to card anytime I’m travelling to a non-US destination. It also becomes my primary card in the event that I cut ties with Rogers, since the only thing the Rogers card does better than the Wealthsimple card is paying for Rogers services.

The Wealthsimple card had a better credit limit than the Rogers card right out of the gate (I guess it helps that I had hard assets with them) but inexplicably does not have the concept of a secondary card, so my spouse is currently locked out of that benefit.

The card that got cut: the CIBC Aventura USD Gold Visa

This was a card I had for a few years when US travel was a more frequent (desirable?) option. It’s not a bad card, especially if you frequently transact in USD, but with two other cards that offered “good enough” coverage on USD purchases, I felt it was no longer needed. And (I forgot this) when I canceled my almost-never-used CIBC USD checking8 account, I lost the “no-fee” aspect of this card. At a cost of zero I might have been convinced to hang on to it “just in case”, but with a $35 annual fee (USD) it was no longer required. An hour long wait on hold with CIBC telephone banking was all it took⁹.

What card is used when?

• For foreign currency transactions, Wealthsimple Visa card is best. Rogers card also a good option if USD.
• For Costco gas and restaurants, Costco card is best.
• Anything else, Rogers

1. Internet, television, home phone, if you’re curious. 2 year contract which I’ll probably break at the earliest opportunity 😉 ↩︎
2. Admittedly, this hurt my feelings a bit. ↩︎
3. I could set up a PAD, but I trust Rogers about as much as they trust me, it seems. ↩︎
4. There’s no advantage to actually shopping at a Costco store with this card, which seems weird. My weekly Costco grocery run is paid for with my Rogers Mastercard, since I get 2x the cash back <shrug>. What’s more, the Costco I usually frequent doesn’t have a gas station, and I’m not really willing to make a special trip to go get it — my CAA/Shell combination is about as good. ↩︎
5. These 2% and 3% rewards have annual caps, but I got bored trying to memorize them ↩︎
6. Part of Wealthsimple’s chequing account, a good product, in my view ↩︎
7. Great timing too, since I was in a foreign country at the time. ↩︎
8. I use American spelling here because (a) that’s how CIBC spells it and (b) it really is a US-domiciled account ↩︎
9. Writing that sentence has confirmed for me how low my standards for customer service have become. ↩︎