[REVIEW] Neo Financial Cathay World Elite Mastercard

Neo Financial took over the co-branded partnership with Cathay Pacific from RBC. RBC discontinued its partnership with Cathay Pacific in 2023. Today, I will do a comparison review of the new card with Neo Financial.

Highlights

Here are the highlights of the two cards, below that is the review.

Neo Financial Cathay World Elite® Mastercard® (Active)

• $180 annual fee
• Earn 30,000 sign up bonus Asia Miles (earn 15,000 up approval and earn 15,000 after spending $3,000 in the first 3 months)
• Receive 10% off a flight booking (booking must be made before December 31, 2024)
• Earn 5 Asia Miles for every $1 spent on Neo partners nationwide (list not publicly available) partners can be viewed in the app or online after creating a free Neo profile
• Earn 2 Asia Miles for every $1 spent on Cathay Pacific flights and foreign currencies purchases
• Earn 1 Asia Mile on all other purchases
• Have at least $80,000 in personal annual income or $150,000 household income

RBC Cathay Pacific Visa Platinum (Discontinued)

• $120 annual fee
• $50 annual fee for a supplementary cardholder
• Earn 15,000 sign up bonus miles upon approval
• Earn 2 miles for every $1 CAD spent on Cathay Pacific purchases online
• Earn 1.25 mile for every $1 CAD spent on all foreign currency purchases
• Earn 1 mile for every $1 CAD spent on all other purchases

Annual fee

Going from $120 to $180 is a fairly steep increase. The question is, whether there is more value with Neo to justify charging $60 more than what RBC did.

World Elite Mastercard versus Platinum Visa benefits

Neo is offering a World Elite Mastercard, versus a Platinum Visa with RBC before, so Neo should have more benefits and features that come with the card.

The World Elite card definitely has a more comprehensive insurance and warranty protection for cardholders. Furthermore, the free Boingo Wi-Fi is a nice benefit too.

Sign up bonus

Right now, Neo is offering a standard 30,000 sign up bonus offer. RBC had a 15,000 sign up bonus offer, but they frequently had higher promotions, such as 30,000 or 35,000 bonuses.

Glad to see that Neo has a higher standard offer. Curious to see what a promotional offer would look like though. Furthermore, Neo is offering a 10% savings on booking for Canada cardholders (excluding Quebec) by entering the discount code CXNEO10OFF when paying with the credit card. 

Multiplier bonus

The multiplier bonus is definitely stronger with the Neo Financial card, so cardholders can rack up miles quicker. The 5 Asia Miles for every $1 spent on Neo partners is a nice touch if you can take advantage of these offers.

Also, even though the foreign transaction fees are not waived, we do get to earn 2x the miles for every dollar spent, which partially makes up for it.

Lounge access

The Neo card does come with a Dragon Pass membership, but no free lounge passes. Members would need to pay $32 USD per visit.

User experience

Another feature that Neo has is that it instantly credits our miles, so Asia Miles balance is updated more frequently, and have the ability to monitor our account balance through Neo. While the RBC version only updated our Asia Miles balance when the monthly statement closed, and we would have to log into our Asia Miles account to see our frequent flyer miles.

Conclusion

Overall, I think the Neo card does come with more features and benefits that could justify the $60 bump in annual fees. The annual fee is steep, so I only really recommend this card to someone who flies Cathay Pacific frequently, in which case, I would say the card is worth the fee.