[DISCONTINUED] MBNA More Rewards MasterCard
I thought last year, 2014, was the year of the discontinuations, but 2015 is shaping up to be a rough year as well, though not yet quite as bad, but if the trend continues…
We started the year with the discontinuation of the Capital One Aspire World Travel MasterCard, granted it was replaced with the Capital One Aspire Travel World Elite MasterCard, though not as good. Then we saw two Capital One Delta SkyMiles Credit Cards go down.
Just when I thought we were taking a pause, the trend continues. Now it is the MBNA More Rewards MasterCard‘s turn. Just after we completed a review of the More Rewards program, which turns out to be a pretty decent program.
I actually don’t mind seeing credit cards discontinue, so long as it means that we will be replacing them with more competitive choices. MBNA already discontinued its Choice Privileges MasterCard last year, which was a good alternative to help compete with the limited co-branded hotel credit cards to choose from.
It is possible that we may eventually just see MBNA completely sucked into TD, since they are already owned by TD. It only makes sense to keep separate names of MBNA still holds a lot of value. But if they continue to shrink their portfolio, then maybe they really are being set up to be fully integrated. I am going to watch how things play out with a lot of interest.
In closing, below were the highlights of the MBNA More Rewards MasterCard:
- No annual fee
- Earn 6 More Rewards points for every $1 spent on purchases at participating More Rewards locations
- Earn 4 points for every $1 on all other purchases
Keep in mind that even though this credit card is discontinuing, the More Rewards program is still active, which is why I recommend keeping the card if you still have it.
This credit card was a great card as the Save On More rewards program is both a travel/reward program. I did hear from the cashier yesterday that they were anticipating a switch to Visa-any news on that front? The other great thing with their points is that in-store you are earning with your regular points card as well and (I don’t know how loud they would want this broadcast), their cashiers often scan multiple point award vouchers to give you many additional points. I also imagine that this re-vamping is to do with their new travel points system (similar to Aventura/Avion) alloting a dollar value and then converting them to dollars for travel use on a broad base of airlines etc. We just flew 2 of us to New York return from Vancouver on Alaska Air for zero dollars (no taxes or fees). It doesn’t get much better than that.
It looks like td is keeping the ones that are popular and the ones that aren’t are getting the can. I thought for sure they would can the sony one rather than the overwaitea one. But the opposite happened. They moved onto scotia. It wasn’t popular until they revamped the program but by then it was probably too late for the mbna/overwaitea relationship. I had a headache trying to calculate the convoluted reward system.
I’m good with them keeping the popular ones. Hope they continue to improve the existing products at the same time.