Scotiabank

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Top Credit Card Higher than Normal Sign Up Bonuses for April 2020

ByMatt

As mentioned in our previous post, we will be making some minor changes to our posts temporarily. Today’s post is a perfect example of such a change. All links to credit card companies are taken off as we are not trying to encourage people to sign up for credit cards. But if you do have the means to take advantage of rewards, this is what you can watch out for. 

If things keep dragging out, we may put a pause to our monthly top promotional offers posts and focus on other topics. So feel free to let us know what else you would like us to write about. Or would you prefer that we continue as is? Please let us know in the comment section below! 

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Ranking the Credit Card Portfolios of Each Canadian Financial Institutions (updated April 1, 2020)

ByMatt

It has been almost a year since we last updated this post, so no question this was due for an update. The reason why I waited so long is because there are very few changes to the rankings since then. However, there was a sufficient amount of changes to the industry to warrant an update. Most of the ranking movement occurred in the bottom third of the list. Furthermore, another common theme on this list is that the gap widen between some of the positions.

Every time I update the rankings, I have an overall theme throughout the post. For today’s post, the focus was on internal changes made by each financial institution which justify their position in the rankings.

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Best Current First Year Fee Waived Cards for March 2020

ByMatt

Quite a few promotions ended at the beginning of the month, but have been extended for the most part. The list is actually quite extensive relatively speaking. So if there are cards that you have been considering, now is the time to go for it. 

Ongoing First Year Fee Waived Offers

The reason I left this list (ongoing offers) up is that there are so few (just 2 really) permanent first year fee waived offers. So they are worthy of being highlighted. Meridian Bank is the only company willing to do this at the moment. Every other company has first year fee waived offers during a specific promotion period.

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Top Cash Back Credit Card Offers for March 2020

ByMatt

Amid all the travel bans, yesterday we wrote a post about whether it makes sense to switch over to cash back credit cards instead of continuing to earn miles and points, which is a great seaway into today’s post. 

All the CIBC and National Bank offers came to an end last month and they did not extend, so the list really trimmed down significantly this time around. TD switched around its offer but the next significant offer coming to an end this month is the Tangerine Money-Back Credit Card with its no annual fee, $250 sign up cash back bonus. So if you are still thinking about this card, I would go for it now. The BMO offers are also coming to an end this month. 

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Top Credit Card Higher than Normal Sign Up Bonuses for March 2020

ByMatt

Quite a few offers ended at the beginning of March, but were expended, namely cards from BMO, CIBC and TD. There were some minor tweaks to the offers for TD, but for CIBC and BMO, they were mostly extended.

Top Higher than Normal Sign Up Bonuses for March 2020

For the rest of the credit cards, I ranked the credit cards by the price of the annual fees (lowest to highest):

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Best Current First Year Fee Waived Cards for February 2020

ByMatt

Quite a few promotions are ending at the beginning of March, so they will not make it to my next monthly list. So if you have been eyeing a promotion for a while now, this is your chance to go for it as there is no guarantee that the offer will be extended next month. 

Ongoing First Year Fee Waived Offers

The reason I left this list (ongoing offers) up is that there are so few (just 2 really) permanent first year fee waived offers. So they are worthy of being highlighted. Meridian Bank is the only company willing to do this at the moment. Every other company has first year fee waived offers during a specific promotion period.

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Top Credit Card Higher than Normal Sign Up Bonuses for February 2020

ByMatt

Quite a few offers ended in January, especially the American Express offers, but others have been extended, namely the BMO and RBC cards.

Top Higher than Normal Sign Up Bonuses for February 2020

For the rest of the credit cards, I ranked the credit cards by the price of the annual fees (lowest to highest):

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Best Current First Year Fee Waived Cards for January 2020

ByMatt

For this month, all BMO offers ended last month, but all ended up being extended until May. So if you missed out, you have another opportunity to sign up for those cards. 

The card that I would pay close attention to is the Scotia Momentum Visa Infinite Card, which relaunched its 10% cash back (first the first 3 months up to $2,000 in spending) and first year fee waived promotion. Historically, this has been the best offer with this card.

Otherwise, for the rest of the list, all offers run until at least early March 2020. 

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Top Cash Back Credit Card Offers for January 2020

ByMatt

A new year means we should expect some new offers. But for now, most offers are rolling over or extended (namely National Bank) from 2019. Most offers are expiring at the end of March.

Note that this post focuses on temporary offers. Our Top Cash Back Credit Cards page continues to list current offers that are not exclusive to limited time offers like this post.

Highlights

The biggest change to the list is the Scotia Momentum Visa Infinite Card coming back with its 10% cash back welcome offer, along with the first year fee waived. The TD Cash Back Visa Infinite Card extended its matching introductory offer, but has a weaker normal earning ratio than the Scotia Momentum Visa Infinite Card.

[INTERVIEW] D’Arcy McDonald (Scotiabank SVP of Day to Day Banking)

ByMatt

Today we feature D’Arcy McDonald, a Senior Vice President at Scotiabank who will talk to us about the new Ultimate Package. More specifically, how we can earn more SCENE points and Scotia Rewards. Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions D’Arcy! 

Please tell us about yourself. What is your role with Scotiabank?

I’m D’Arcy McDonald, Senior Vice President of Day to Day Banking, Retail Investments and Advisory Deposits. I oversee products that our customers use day to day including chequing, savings, GICs and registered investment plans.