My Credit Cards of 2019

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Many people have a love/hate relationship with credit cards. They seem to have either maxed them all out, or too afraid to apply for one. A healthy relationship with your credit cards can be a beautiful thing for your financial security, maximizing spending power and overall financial awareness. I have re-assessed the credit cards that I need in my wallet for 2019 and have come to the following conclusions:

I am excluding my AMEX Platinum from this comparison, because it has its own considerations. Even if any AMEX card becomes your main card, you should still have either a VISA or MC as backup since AMEX isn’t accepted in many locations. Some AMEX cards are charge cards instead of credit cards, meaning that you can’t leave a balance on them (even though you shouldn’t anyways!) But if you have to, an alternative card is best for this.

When I got my first “grown up job” I decided that I could splash out and get a CC with an annual fee. I opted for the RBC Avion with an annual fee of $120. At the time I already have the, now-grandfathered, RBC Visa Gold and another CC with the same bank made sense at the time.

The Avion had travel perks like travel insurance, transfer partners for points as well as other things. I think my main problem with the Avion is that while you can redeem points for flights, the lowest flight redemption is 15,000 points (eq. of spending $15,000) for a flight to the next province, to a max price of $350. So if I wanted to redeem for a flight to Toronto I wouldn’t even get it without paying a ton of extra fees because the flight price is usually always more than $350. I felt like I could never even get a flight to Toronto- never mind anywhere else….weekend in Regina??

Card	Dollars Spent	Points Earned	Dollar Value	% Return
RBC Avion	$3,500.00	3500	$25.00	0.7
RBC Rewards Bonus	$3,500.00	3500	$25.00	0.7
RBC Rewards	$7,000.00	3500	$25.00	0.4
Tangerine 2%	$3,500.00	N/A	$70.00	2
Tangerine 0.5%	$3,500.00	N/A	$17.50	0.5

Baring that in mind I compared the RBC Avion with my other $0 annual fee cards that I have. In the Avion line I noted that if you spend $3500 you get 3500 points which can earn you a $25 gift card. That is a 0.7% return on every dollar spent. I list the RBC Rewards card Bonus because you get 1 point for every dollar on certain categories (gas, groceries…). The redemption is similar where you can get a $25 gift card with points. The Tangerine money-back card doesn’t give you points, but cash-back that is returned every month.

According to the table above, it is true that the Avion card offers a slightly better return per dollar than the regular RBC Rewards spending and the 0.5% Tangerine categories….but for a price. If you use the Rewards and Tangerine cards properly, the return is equal or better than the Avion card, at no annual fee.

Bearing this in mind, I have cancelled my Avion card and changed my Tangerine card categories to reflect my daily spending. My plan is to either have my spending occur on the Amex or Tangerine cards.

Categories	Card	Reason
Groceries	Tangerine	Superstore doesn’t take AMEX
Reoccuring payments	Tangerine	MPI doesn’t take AMEX
Restaurants	Tangerine	Can include all small/large restaurants
Gas	AMEX	Most gas stations take AMEX
Travel	AMEX	Incentives for paying with AMEX
Drugstore	AMEX	Shoppers takes AMEX

I chose my Tangerine categories based on the reasons above. My reoccuring payments are currently my car insurance, Netflix subscription and my phone bill. This is my new CC strategy. The Rewards card will be handy to keep for an emergency, but will be using my Tangerine card and AMEX mainly.

If you are interested in either of these items, consider using the links below, as a Tangerine referral can get you a cash bonus for opening an account, and MR points with AMEX minimum spend are higher through a referral link. Happy spending!

Get a free Tangerine bank account with $25 bonus: Orange Key= 36008065S1

Get 60,000 MR points with minimum AMEX spend here