Important changes are coming to Rogers and the Fido Mastercard | Credit card reward programs | Discussion forum

The foreign exchange surcharge is 2½%. With the lower 3% cashback on foreign transactions, the net cashback on them drops from 1½% to ½%.

The regular cashback will go down to 1.25%.

The effect is Rogers Bank will start charging a F/X charge of 1.25% - ½% = 0.75%.

Norman1 said
The foreign exchange surcharge is 2½%. With the lower 3% cashback on foreign transactions, the net cashback on them drops from 1½% to ½%.

The regular cashback will go down to 1.25%.

The effect is Rogers Bank will start charging a F/X charge of 1.25% - ½% = 0.75%.  

I must be missing something, because I don't follow this.

On foreign purchases, the return is 3%, of which 2.5 is eaten up by FX. So, your net return is .5%

I don't understand how the 1.25 enters into it, as that is the reward on non-foreign, non-Rogers purchases.

1.25 is not a great return, but I would use a different card for those kinds of purchases.

Home Trust has no funny business about tiered rates, and clearly not charging FX, gives net of 1% on all purchases.

Neither one is ideal for domestic use, except for Rogers bills.

For Rogers customers who only use the Rogers card for Rogers bills and foreign, and who don't do a large amount of foreign, the Rogers card may still work out to be the better deal, but not too likely. You can usually find another credit card with other advantages which will give you 2% on recurring bills such as Rogers'. Many will also give you extended warranty and/or purchase protection, which could be useful on Rogers store purchases, if any.

Agreed that, for most people, HT will be better.
http://hometrust.ca/Preferred_Visa/

Does anyone know if HT offers preauthorized debit for CC bill payments? Rogers does not.

Sounds good. thx.

Loonie said

I must be missing something, because I don't follow this.

On foreign purchases, the return is 3%, of which 2.5 is eaten up by FX. So, your net return is .5%

I don't understand how the 1.25 enters into it, as that is the reward on non-foreign, non-Rogers purchases.

1.25 is not a great return, but I would use a different card for those kinds of purchases.
…

I was thinking that

• 2% back on Rogers/Fido purchases
• 3% back on foreign purchase
• 1.25% back on other purchases
• 2.5% charge for foreign exchange

was effectively

• 2% back on Rogers/Fido purchases
• 1.25% back on other purchases
• 0.75% charge for foreign exchange

I still don't follow Norman's analysis, but would agree with Doug on Rogers vs HT. Wouldn't consider HSBC. We just want something simple with no fees.

Although we are Rogers customers, we're using their card only on foreign and occasionally as a back-up. This will be occasional use. Since Rogers doesn't offer pre-authorized debit, we don't want to have to remember to pay it every month, but only when we use it. Forgetting would cost a lot more than 0.5%!, so not worth the risk.

I don't think it's worth switching to another card right now, as this no-forex field seems to be in flux, both with new entrants and changing rebates. Will wait a year until they settle down to look for what is the best deal for us at that time.

True, but you still have to DO something. I end up paying it right away just to avoid missing it later due to unforeseen circs. Will have to get spouse to look into scheduling payments - division of labour here. As it stands, it means a little bit of lost interest every month we use it. Not much, but annoying nonetheless.

We have become wonderfully lazy. Almost all bills are paid automatically. All we have to do is check and maybe top up that account once a month. Because of this Rogers card, we have twice as much work, but at least it's not every month.

My goal, in due course, is to have necessary income streams all in place and everything automated so that I almost never have to do anything! Shoulda done it earlier.
As we age, it's good to know that things will continue to tick along if there is a crisis.

Maybe, by the time I get around to looking for a different card, Rogers Bank will have figured out pre-authorized debit. They said they were "working on it"- which is more than EQ says about offering joint accounts! - so I am hopeful.

Doug will be able to further expand his knowledge of Latin!
(joking reference to earlier thread)

Norman1 said
Other way around. I normalized the cashback on foreign transactions and domestic non-Rogers transactions to 1.25%. That results in a foreign exchange surcharge of 0.75%:

3% back on foreign transaction minus 2.5% F/X surcharge
= 0.5% back
= 0.5% back with 0% F/X surcharge
= 1.25% back less 0.75% F/X surcharge

I think that 3% cashback on foreign transactions is a gimmick so that the marketing material can say "up to 3% cash back."

They could have marketed the card as an F/X free card with this equivalent structure:

• 2% back on Rogers/Fido purchases
• 1.25% back on other Canadian dollar purchases
• 0.5% back on non-Canadian dollar purchases
• No surcharge for foreign exchange

For sure, the Home Trust Preferred Visa (1% back and zero F/X surcharge) is better for non-Canadian dollar purchases. The ¼% less cash back on Canadian dollar purchases, compared to the Rogers/Fido MasterCard, is the tradeoff for the Roadside Assist membership and other benefits, like extended warranty.  

Thanks Norman, that's helpful, though still complicated to understand. 🙂

Regarding Roadside Assist, if that's worth it to you, I guess maybe, but most car insurers sell far superior roadside assistance and rental vehicle insurance coverage that applies in both Canada and the U.S. than many credit card companies. For instance, working at a Uhaul dealer in the past, we would upsell customers that only had credit card rental vehicle insurance with SafeMove because Uhaul trucks over 5000 GVW typically weren't covered. We would, however, also let them know that ICBC's RoadStar Gold Package or Roadside Plus did cover Uhaul rental trucks of any size. Depends on your claim-rated scale discount and such, but I know my mom's Roadside Plus costs her maybe $40-45 per year? Something like that. BCAA also typically is better than credit card coverages, but costs more than ICBC's.

As for "extended warranty," that's pretty much standard fare with most credit cards. Most people have more than one credit card so wouldn't be a determining factor for me in the least.

Cheers,
Doug

Yep, absolutely. With even slower loan growth now due to macro-prudential regulatory changes vis-a-vis housing, BoC rate increases coupled with an aging demographic and declining population, the banks will be perennially in cost cutting mode. The "low hanging fruit" that is employee layoffs/buyouts/position eliminations due to attrition and technological automation has largely been picked. Customers are choosing more and more no fee chequing accounts. So, the way to grow revenue is, primarily: (a) by increasing non-interest income (i.e., fees) from lending-related products (especially credit cards and mortgages); (b) by increasing the focus on fee-based wealth management products by (c) focusing on both interest and non-interest income from small business & commercial banking customers.

We had a period of generous, competitive credit card promo offers and even new credit cards. That's largely over. Expect a continued focus on streamlining (read: cutting) number of credit card offerings, reducing or curtailing entirely card promo offers, and increasing fee-based income (including FX percentage surcharges). It's going to be somewhat of a "bloodbath" and consumers with can expect to receive multiple card cancellation notifications over the next couple years.

I wouldn't be surprised, with the increasing pressure, to see Rogers Bank try and unload their credit card portfolio to a major bank, at a loss, which they can offset against current and future profits in the most advantageous way possible. According to their January 2018 OSFI filing, they have less than $100 million in outstanding credit card receivables (about or less than half HSBC Bank Canada's, which is down four- or five-fold in the last 10 years; about one-fifth the size of Wal-Mart Canada Bank's MasterCard) and booked a $15-20 million average quarterly loss in each of the past three quarters to Q32017, the latest date for which financial data is made available. They'll give it between 1-5 years to turnaround with this reboot, but if they don't see measurable improvement, expect a poorly implemented asset sale and portfolio transfer to another Canadian major bank, who will likely shutter the cards and either close them & wind them down over time or transition them to existing cards.

Cheers,
Doug