Best Credit Card

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westinvest
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Re: Best Credit Card

Post by westinvest »

Paypal also supports dual currency sources. My account is set up with Canadian verified bank account, Canadian based credit cards, US based US$ bank account, and US based US$ credit cards. For an EBay purchase, it defaults to my Canadian bank direct debit for C$ purchases and to my US bank direct debit for US$ purchases, but I can change the funding source at payment time.
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Re: Best Credit Card

Post by Jaunty »

Thanks for the replies. I will try PMJ's approach next time.
I have been regretting closing my US bank account and giving up the credit card too when we sold the place down south, just because of this situation.
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Re: Best Credit Card

Post by cnicole »

Just a note that the new cibc Tim's Visa card isn't very good. If you spend between $100 and $200 you only get 1 Tim buck. In other words if you spend $179 you only get $1. I was very disappointed - I actually switched from the dividend card and I think you got better rewards with that card. The ads are totally misleading - they say you get 1% cash back. :-(

Just another note that when I phoned they said you do get 1.69 if you spend $169 so maybe you do get 1% cash back. What it says you get with the slider on their website and what they say on the phone are different. I won't know for sure until I get the card. I'll post an update. I hope it is straight 1% because I was excited to get this Tim's card.
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Re: Best Credit Card

Post by Taggart »

After buying the latest Moneysense magazine the other day I went straight to their "Canada's Best Credit Cards 2014" section. Thought I'd hit on something big when I read that "Rogers First Rewards MasterCard" was the top "Best Retail Rewards Card". This one fizzled out when I couldn't find any positive comments on other internet sites.

Looks like the MBNA Smart Cash World MasterCard I carry, will survive for another year.
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Re: Best Credit Card

Post by Bylo Selhi »

Taggart wrote:Rogers First Rewards MasterCard
Brought to you by Robbers Bank!? :roll:

Is this card meant to appeal to sadomasochists who can't get enough of Robbers' legendary customer abuse?

Meanwhile it's being reported in the media that BMO MC's system is currently down. If you're going shopping today do leave home without it.
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Re: Best Credit Card

Post by Taggart »

Bylo Selhi wrote:

Meanwhile it's being reported in the media that BMO MC's system is currently down. If you're going shopping today do leave home without it.
The BMO Air Miles World MasterCard ranked third for Best Travel Rewards and BMO Premium CashBack MasterCard for Business came out in first place under Best Business Cards.

I don't have either of these cards either.
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Re: Best Credit Card

Post by brucecohen »

This is off-topic but not worth a thread of its own. The RFID in the chip on one of my credit cards seems to be wearing out. I have to tap it quite a few times before the terminal recognizes it. Sometimes there's no recognition at all. I've tried it with chip up and down -- no difference.

Is it possible that the RFID is wearing out?

Or, can I fix this by cleaning the card? If so, how?
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Re: Best Credit Card

Post by Bylo Selhi »

brucecohen wrote:Is it possible that the RFID is wearing out?
I doubt it. There are no moving parts to wear out and nothing magnetic to lose its memory. Some RFID chips do have non-volatile memory, i.e. memory that doesn't need to remain powered (*). I suppose such memory could slowly deteriorate, or even get wiped out if a large enough electric charge got inducted into the RFID antenna.

I'd contact the card company to report this. They may have an explanation. In any case I can't see why they wouldn't send you a replacement card.

Added: Contactless smart card offers another possibility, "The plastic card in which the chip is embedded is fairly flexible, and the larger the chip, the higher the probability of breaking. Smart cards are often carried in wallets or pockets — a fairly harsh environment for a chip."

(*) From the same Wikpedia article, "Like smart cards with contacts, contactless cards do not have a battery. Instead, they use a built-in inductor, using the principle of resonant inductive coupling, to capture some of the incident electromagnetic signal, rectify it, and use it to power the card's electronics."
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Re: Best Credit Card

Post by Benchwarmer »

brucecohen wrote:The RFID in the chip on one of my credit cards seems to be wearing out. I have to tap it quite a few times before the terminal recognizes it. Sometimes there's no recognition at all. I've tried it with chip up and down -- no difference.
Don't know if this is the issue, but you have to wait for the green light on the terminal before tapping.
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Re: Best Credit Card

Post by brucecohen »

I called the credit card issuer. The agent said he does get calls like mine from time to time. Doesn't know why the problem occurs. Will send a new card with the same number.
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Re: Best Credit Card

Post by Bylo Selhi »

Coming soon to a Mastercard near you a Credit Card With a Fingerprint Sensor
When making a contactless purchase the card owner simply needs to ensure their thumb is placed on the biometric sensor during the transaction. If the pre-approved thumbprint stored on the card isn't detected, the contactless or chip-enabled purchase won't be processed—it's that simple...

It will actually be powered by harvesting energy from the payment terminal whenever it's used. So the more you shop, the better it will work..
I wonder how prone to breakage this card will be.

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Re: Best Credit Card

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Since re-registering my MBNA Smart Cash MCard with TD, I haven't been able to log onto their website for the past 2 days.
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Re: Best Credit Card

Post by pmj »

In my experience, MBNA's website has always been painful - it seems not to be "robust" when it's busy. The new site doesn't seem to be any better. I just got another MBNA 0% card - but I can't add it to my existing profile until some unspecified date in December ....
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Re: Best Credit Card

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big easy wrote:Since re-registering my MBNA Smart Cash MCard with TD, I haven't been able to log onto their website for the past 2 days.
Same problem here but I did get through eventually. Now I have to try and fight a double charge from Loblaws that went through on that card. Wish me luck ! :roll:
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Re: Best Credit Card

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MBNA sent me a letter dated Aug. 18 saying they were updating their site and I would need to reregister after Sept. 30th if I wanted to access their site on line. I did that and everything has worked fine since. I don't know if this affected every card they offer or just my 1% cash back card. (Sorry, the card is at home and I'm not, so I can't look at its name.)
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Re: Best Credit Card

Post by IdOp »

I hadn't tried the MBNA site recently, but just did now and got in ok.

I didn't mind the old MBNA site. The only problem I had with it was sometimes the login page would hang, but reloading it would fix that. Otherwise it seemed fairly responsive.

I found the process of registering for the new MBNA site unnecessarily painful, due to poor programming; took me almost an hour to do.

The new MBNA site seems fairly sluggish to me (I have a slow Internet connection that really hi-lites such things). In that way it's just like TD's other sites EasyWeb and WebBroker. :( I haven't had a good look at the new bonus points site, but when I took a quick look it wasn't showing which purchases got the 2X bonus like the old site did. :(
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Re: Best Credit Card

Post by big easy »

IdOp wrote:I found the process of registering for the new MBNA site unnecessarily painful, due to poor programming; took me almost an hour to do.
Ditto, the 5 security questions were a bit much.
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Re: Best Credit Card

Post by Bylo Selhi »

big easy wrote:Ditto, the 5 security questions were a bit much.
FWIW Chase (amazon.ca Visa) only requires one question.
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Re: Best Credit Card

Post by big easy »

I've got one of those too :thumbsup:
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Re: Best Credit Card

Post by IdOp »

The worst part for me was when it asks you to read the Terms And Conditions. This is a very long text, but I tried to give an honest effort to get the gist of it. I didn't by far read every word, but I skimmed through it. By the time I was done and clicked Accept, it returned a page saying my session had timed out :roll: and I had to log in again and re-start from the beginning. Totally brain-dead, do they really expect anyone to read the T&C at all? There were other problems as well.
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Re: How much needed to retire at 40 or 45?

Post by Bylo Selhi »

Posts following were relocated from a thread gone off-topic
Mod W

2 yen wrote:We put every expense possible on an Aeroplan Visa
Perhaps this should be a separate thread but what can/do you put on a rewards card, especially big stuff? The credit card companies charge merchants 2% to 3% in part to provide the "free" rewards so for example few if any car dealers will let you put more than the deposit on a credit card. After all 2% on $30k is $600 which may be as much or more than the profit on a new car. Likewise I doubt lenders would accept credit card payments. Many others like tax departments and utilities will only accept credit cards if you pay their merchant fee, which more than offsets the value of the card "free"bies. Contractors and renovators also prefer cheques if not cash.

One can earn substantial welcome bonuses by signing up for new cards. But my concern is what regular card churning will do to a credit rating.

That leaves relatively small stuff like groceries, gas on a day-to-day basis plus larger items like travel and home appliances on an irregular basis. So how do you earn the 25k to 60k that's needed for a "free" flight, never mind the extra points needed for J-class upgrades, in less than 2 or 3 years?
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Re: How much needed to retire at 40 or 45?

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Bylo Selhi wrote: That leaves relatively small stuff like groceries, gas on a day-to-day basis plus larger items like travel and home appliances on an irregular basis. So how do you earn the 25k to 60k that's needed for a "free" flight, never mind the extra points needed for J-class upgrades, in less than 2 or 3 years?
It’s not that hard.
Pay utilities, insurance, travel expenses, day to day living expenses, and it adds up quite quickly.
Our annual credit card expenses range between 40 to 60K depending on our travel plans or major expenses like new appliances or new vehicle.
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Re: How much needed to retire at 40 or 45?

Post by Bylo Selhi »

deaddog wrote:It’s not that hard.
For you, maybe.
Pay utilities, insurance, travel expenses, day to day living expenses, and it adds up quite quickly.
Utilities: Telecom, yes. Electricity, gas, water, etc. only if you pay the vig, which defeats the purpose. Travel expenses depends on how much travel you do, how far you go and how fancy you get. Same with eating out, new clothers, entertainment, etc. Whether it adds up quickly depends on your lifestyle and spending habits. Sure big spenders will amass a lot of "free" rewards but they'll hardly be free—or true rewards.
major expenses like new appliances or new vehicle
Event with the unreliability of today's major appliances you might need to replace one only every 2 or 3 years on average. As for vehicles, if a dealer lets you pay for the full cost of a new car by credit card you can be sure you're paying too much—usually way too much.
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Re: How much needed to retire at 40 or 45?

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Bylo Selhi wrote: Utilities: Telecom, yes. Electricity, gas, water, etc. only if you pay the vig, which defeats the purpose. Travel expenses depends on how much travel you do, how far you go and how fancy you get. Same with eating out, new clothers, entertainment, etc. Whether it adds up quickly depends on your lifestyle and spending habits. Sure big spenders will amass a lot of "free" rewards but they'll hardly be free—or true rewards.
I don’t consider myself a big spender.
Big one time expenses are I insure a couple of residences, couple of vehicles and need health insurance to winter south.
Landline ,Internet, cell phone and satellite TV are all paid with credit card.
Food, clothing, vehicle expenses, entertainment and gifts including donation to charities all add up over the year.
Every so often there are surprise expenses like dental etc.

But why don’t you consider these rewards “free”?

If I paid with cash I wouldn’t get the rewards.

PS: Auto dealer let me pay $5k to hold the vehicle after we had negotiated the price.
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Re: How much needed to retire at 40 or 45?

Post by 2 yen »

Bylo Selhi wrote:
2 yen wrote:We put every expense possible on an Aeroplan Visa
Perhaps this should be a separate thread but what can/do you put on a rewards card, especially big stuff? The credit card companies charge merchants 2% to 3% in part to provide the "free" rewards so for example few if any car dealers will let you put more than the deposit on a credit card. After all 2% on $30k is $600 which may be as much or more than the profit on a new car. Likewise I doubt lenders would accept credit card payments. Many others like tax departments and utilities will only accept credit cards if you pay their merchant fee, which more than offsets the value of the card "free"bies. Contractors and renovators also prefer cheques if not cash.

One can earn substantial welcome bonuses by signing up for new cards. But my concern is what regular card churning will do to a credit rating.

That leaves relatively small stuff like groceries, gas on a day-to-day basis plus larger items like travel and home appliances on an irregular basis. So how do you earn the 25k to 60k that's needed for a "free" flight, never mind the extra points needed for J-class upgrades, in less than 2 or 3 years?
Hi Bylo. In addition to the items above that you mentioned we also do big purchases for mother-in-law of which there have been quite a few recently. Work on the house is all done by credit card. In the past, we've used shops that allow Aeroplan point accumulation in addition to the credit card points, including Esso gas, which is a very small number of extra points. We seem to be able to accumulate at least 40,000 points a year. It never ceases to amaze me how fast it all adds up. Double mile specials add a bit, but not huge numbers of points. I redeem about every 3 or 4 years.

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