Hey all,
new to the thread and thought id post for some advice to confirm my thinking on a new CC (or talk me out of it!). First we are Canadian so don't have access to the same cards on this thread but he philosophy is the same.....right!?......It might be better on the Canadian Board but Credit Card experts seem to be here!
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We are looking strictly for a travel card.
Ok so background...Me/DW and two kids (7 and 5). Near perfect credit scores and only debt is Mortgage and 2 nearly paid off car loans. We have no other debts and haven't paid interest on a credit card in about 20 years!. We love credit cards....charge everything to them/collect points/pay off on pay day/repeat!
We have 2 credit cards right now. West Jet MC World Elite and Royal Bank Signature Black (US$ CC that replaced another US CC we had). We've had the WJ card for several years and got the Black card less than a year ago. The main reason we got the black card was that we were DVC owners and it was easier to pay dues with a US$ CC and Chequing account. We spent a lot of time in the USA so having a bank account and CC was a big convenience. We sold DVC this year and our plan is do more travelling outside North America now that kids are getting older.
The annual fee on our WJ card (and companion card) is waived by our bank. We pay 40$ US for our US chequing account and CC (about 55 Cdn/year)
We loved having a USD CC to avoid foreign transaction fees on US purchases. It made things simpler and saved us some money. We put about 3K US on our card last trip so that alone saved us about $150 is exchange fees. Plus came with insurance packages so when we rented cars etc it covered that. But the big thing is the simplicity and convenience!
We love our Westjet card and that will remain our #1 card. We will use this for everyday purchases and book all our flights that we can on Westjet (free checked bags and companion flight). We do travel outside Canada fairly often but only for vacation (no business trips). We usually spend anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks outside of Canada. Next year we have 6 weeks planned out of the country which includes Europe. In the coming years we want to do Japan, Greek Isles, South Pacific....so many places!
So now that we want to travel outside the US more we want to avoid those transaction fees as we use CC for most things on vacation (carry some cash but limited). We are looking at one of two Cards:
Scotia Bank Passport Visa and Rogers World Elite Mastercard
Roger: Master card charges 2.5% foreign transaction fees but gives 4% cash back on foreign purchases so net is 1.5% CB. 0$ annual fee and some minimal insurance coverage
Scotia Bank Passport Visa has a 139$ annual fee but has no Fx fees, rewards points that can give cash back (equal to about $180 on signup and about 0.75% after.). It also includes a more comprehensive insurance package and a free yearly subscription to Priority Lounge Access and 6 free airport lounge vouchers per year. Now the Lounge Passes are very intriguing. If it were 'free' we would definitely use them every year but otherwise we would never pay to go to the lounges so its a great perk but not a 'necessity'. But those passes alone are worth more than the annual fee! A supplementary card is free so Wife has her own card. Lastly (and a minor detail) is this card is a Visa so we would have one MC and one Visa. This can come in handy for places that only accept one. Ex) Costco in Canada accepts MC but Costco in the USA accepts Visa.
So anyway...thoughts? Is it worth paying an annual fee for a secondary card? Or just go with the No annual fee and cash back card?? If we get another card we plan on cancelling the US chequing account so that 'saves us about 55$/year that we would put towards another card.
Thanks!!