New Simplii Card | Credit card reward programs | Discussion forum

https://www.simplii.com/en/credit-cards/cash-back-visa.html

First seen on Reddit and RFD.

It's okay.

10% cash back first 4 months on restaurants up to 500 spend. Promotion

4% after up to 5000 dollars spend.

1.5% drugs, grocery, gas and reoccurring payments. Up to 15,000 dollars spend.

0.5% after limits and purchases on other things.

Has purchase security and Extended Protection.

Apple, Samsung and Google pay are coming.

The bad:

Fx 2.5%, the styling of the card is bland and not very nice looking, statement credit is once a year in December, very niche (as not for heavy restaurant spender or light restaurant spends but a mid level spender on restaurants), it's new (could have hiccups), Annual income needed is 15,000, 19.99% interest rate and 3 additional card holders (I thought others allow more).

I'm not getting this card. It's a niche card. With only one benefit that is limited. It's primarily targeting a certain type of person and I'm not one of those people. It's also one of the worst looking cards I've seen in a while.

What it does:

It makes those that have the AMEX Cobalt and Costco Mastercard re-consider having those cards. As Simplii is a no fee card and make these cards less desirable because they have a membership fee or an annual fee associated with them. The math is much harder for keeping those two cards.

I personally will be using my Tangerine card with 2% restaurants and hotels. As sometimes hotel restraints are labelled as hotel and not restaurants. I don’t need to worry about that with the Tangerine card.

The math.

I spend about 1,000 a year on restaurants. Which is about 20 dollars more a year if I use Simplii (not factoring I can redeem Tangerine right away).

To me 20 dollars is not worth the hassle of another card to baby sit. Also, it might drop in the future like Tangerine did with there card after they have a good base of customers.

Max return benefit is:

100 dollars a year over the Tangerine card (not factoring everything i.e. Tangerine is redeemed monthly and Simplii yearly).

It does beat the Costco card by far.

Math is needed to see if the Cobalt is still viable.

If you spend under 5,000 a year at restaurants get Simplii.

All else being equal (which it isn't) you'd only get 50 dollars more with Cobalt and that alone does not cover the 120-annual fee.

Over 5,000 it becomes a different ball game and most scenarios would likely favor Cobalt as it would be 0.5% compared to 5%

I.e. an additional 1,500 spend (6,500 total spend) is 117.5 which still doesn't alone justify the annual fee of 120.

Basically, just looking at restaurant spend. One needs to spend over 6,500 to justify Cobalt over the Simplii card. The exact number is 70/.045 = 1,555.5555555 repeating which is 6,555.555 repeating to break even with the annual fee of the Cobalt. So, one needs to spend over that on restaurants to justify having the Cobalt everything else being equal (it's not all equal).

Fees and Rates:

https://www.simplii.com/content/dam/simplii-public-assets/documents/pdf/credit-cards/L12658EINT.pdf

Edit:

Another negitive is you have to bank with Simplii. Which means one has to baby sit two accounts.

As Loonie said in the post below it is a Visa which is a positive for most people.

It is okay if you have WE no fee cards. As the 4% catagory is the only one that matters to you probably. Or you have annual fee cards.

It is a good combo card if you dont have the WE no fee cards and don't want annual fee cards.

A good 3 card combo in this situation would be

Simplii for the 4% catagories and 1.5% catagories up to the limit.

Everywhere else AMEX Simply cash at 1.25% as has insurances.

Everywhere else that doesn't take AMEX use Rogers Fido card at 1.25%. Which doesn't have insurances.

Edit 2:

For a bit more value:

Add Tangerine 2% categories and HT VISA for no fx fee.

Those 5 cards are a very strong no fee combo.

Cards I currently use:

Wallet: Tangerine (hotel, restaurants, taxi), PC Financial WE (grocery), Rogers WE (everywhere else) and HT Visa (Fx purchases).

Online use: AMEX Simply Cash (good customer service available all day).