Top United States Credit Cards Offered in Canada (updated September 11, 2014)
There are some Canadian financial institutions that issue United States currency credit cards, which means that you can pay your bills in U.S. currency. The benefits of having such a credit card is that you can convert your Canadian dollars into American dollars when the Canadian dollar is strong. So then you lock is the favourable rate. Leave the U.S. dollars in an account that you can use any time to pay off bills on the U.S. credit card so you won’t have to worry about any unfavourable currency exchanges at the time of using the credit card.
Below is a list of credit cards issued by Canadian financial institutions that allow you to pay the bills off in U.S. currency. I have ranked them from the top choice to the bottom choice.
- $35 USD annual fee (fee is waived the following year if you spend over $1,000 during your anniversary year of having this credit card)
- No annual fee for supplementary cardholders (no limit mentioned)
- No rewards
- $35 USD annual fee
- No annual fee for supplementary cardholders (to a maximum of 3)
- No rewards
- No foreign transaction fees when shopping in the US
- $65 USD annual fee
- $30 USD for supplementary cardholders
- Earn 1 RBC Rewards point for every $1 spend on all purchases
- No foreign transaction fees when shopping in the US
- $39 USD annual fee
- No annual fee for supplementary cardholders (no limit mentioned)
- No rewards
- No foreign transaction fees when shopping in the US
The top choice is quite an easy choice. So long as you manage to spend $1,000 a year on your credit card, your fee will be forever waived. So you may only have to pay the $35 annual fee one time and that’s the end of it.
The second choice is because the $35 annual fee is lower than the $65 charged by RBC. RBC is in third place because the more you spend on the credit card, the more you can justify the $65 annual fee. I find RBC points valuable because of the flexibility to transfer its points to other programs. If you do not spend enough on this credit card, then I would move it to fourth place instead of the TD one.
I put TD in last place is because I see no reason why they are charging $39 annual fee when its competition, BMO and CIBC, is only charging $35.
The main issue I have with these credit cards is that it does not help us save money when we make purchases in other countries. That is where Chase Canada credit cards (except the Chase Best Buy Reward Zone Visa) come in, which waived the foreign transaction fees for any country. I personally like the Chase Amazon.ca Visa the most out of all the Chase credit cards because it does not have an annual fee.