Tangerine Cash back credit card rewards | Credit card reward programs | Discussion forum

No, you are not the only one, and yes, their cheapness in lowering the rate has for sure cost them money. I had gotten 4 family members onto Tang, and we have all left. Do they care? Not enough I guess.

As soon as Tang lowered their rate I switched to MBNA for their 2% across the board. Their sign up bonus more than covers the first year fee. Next year I may snoop around and churn to a new one. Learning fast that loyalty does not pay. If you do not spend enough to warrant a card with a fee, Tang may still be one of the better options.

My Amex Cashback is used for anthing outside of my Tang categories.. Pretty much still the best free free imo.. Anybody else gotta good fee free card?

My wife and I stopped using our cards.

Yatti420 said
My Amex Cashback is used for anthing outside of my Tang categories.. Pretty much still the best free free imo.. Anybody else gotta good fee free card?  

I'd say using the Tangerine card within your chosen categories is worth using for the 2% and then there other good no fee options, like the Simply Preferred Amex no-fee Amex card which gives 1.25% OR the Fido MasterCard which gives 1.5% and is also a no fee card; and to make things even more attractive for the Fido card, its foreign ex. fee is still 2.5% (standard rate) but they give 4% cash back, netting you 1.5% on Fx charges in their respective currencies.

I think I will apply for the Fido card soon. Anyone else using Fido MC?

Loonie said
Rogers has another one that pays 1.75
There is a small fee, but no fee if you are a Rogers etc customer.
Even if you aren't, it will pay for itself at about the $12,000 mark.  

At issue here is this card (Rogers) is new and still undergoing growing pains. It devalued once and is likely to be devalued again. They are also conducting a survey with some customers. Could mean changes in a few months.

A person could say the same thing about Tangerine as well. It's actually newer and might undergo further changes as well. They already devalued it recently as well.

Edit:

Just like how banks only need/want a certain amount of deposits to keep their business stable and lower their rates when they reach past that goal by a bit.

CC companies only has so much they can loan out to CC customers. Once they approach that limit (where they have to get high rate loans from others to loan to new clients) they become more strict with accepting CC applications or lower/devalue their card. Once devalued, more people will switch but likely they account for this.

Matching the amount of leavers they predict to how much money they can loan out safely. The other way (although this happens in the other scenario to) is accepting less applications by making the process more strict and hoping for attrition of customers or a greater loan capacity increase.

SavingIsGood said

I wonder, where money goes if you spend 12K a year on credit cards??? The only jump over 1K/month I have if I visit dentist.

- CIBC Dividend Platinum (free for former Petro-Points holders) 4% for gas/groceries, 1% everything else
- Tangerine MC 2% groceries/bills/home improvement
- Walmart cash back 1.25% in store, 1% everywhere else - will cancel, as I see no benefit of it anymore
- RBC dividend card 2% groceries - will keep it as it has big credit limit and since some grocery stores do not take Visa

All cards are with no annual fee. Never paid nor will ever pay any fee to have credit card. Card 'does not pay for itself'; it is just a myth. It ENCOURAGES you to spend, spend, spend so you think you are getting ahead of game. Same as costco membership; 90% people coming out of store pushing overloaded carts are fat, fat, obese whales.  

Well said! I cancelled COSTCO membership a few months ago after 18 years. They gave me a very hard time when cancelling it. Most biz no longer value customer loyalty.

After Costco, I got a PC World Elite MasterCard, and even get $100 gift card, and tons of PC Plus Points weekly.

The best part is I no longer need to wait for the long line of checkout and fighting for car park space weekly at COSTCO.

Best thing is to get the card that suits you. For example, if you find you need to trick yourself to have spending discipline then, sure, get rid of them. If you have discipline, then cards can work for you. My wife just got a cheque in the mail for over $120 from Costco, she tells me it's because she spends enough to get her Executive membership (I think she called it) fee back. Plus she's racked up some money on her fee free Costco MC. Since she's started using Costco a few years ago I've noticed no real increase in our expenses, just more at Costco and less at grocery stores. So it seems to be working for her. And as far as I can see she's not overweight. I would never call her a fat, fat, obese whale.

For other spending we use the CIBC Dividend VISA, I think it's $60/year but gets us 4% for gas and groceries so I'm ok with it for now, first time I've ever paid a fee (one reason too is on its predecessor card I had about $1000 credits built up for when I buy my next vehicle and I have to keep this successor VISA active in order to cash those credits in when I next buy a vehicle).

In over 4 decades of credit we've never paid a nickel interest, though I do suspect we've spent more than if we had to haul out cash every time. Oh well, my heirs' loss.

I don't quite understand why SavingIsGood would assume that spending over 12K/yr on credit cards means you are being led by your CC to spend more than you should or otherwise would. Perhaps you are a single person?

If we in our 2-person household could only afford to spend 1K/month, then I am certain that we would do so. But we can afford to spend more, and choose to do so. The CC is a matter of convenience and financial return. It has nothing to do with encouraging us to spend.

Hence, it's not at all mythical to think you can save money on a fee-based credit card. It's simply math. If you spend 30K/yr, and if the card costs $100/yr and you get a return on average including value of insurance policies and other perqs that are of value to you which are in excess of $100, then you're ahead. You may do OK with no-fee cards but it wont have the "extras" such as the insurance, money off on companion items or partner products etc. I've been happy with fee-based cards ever since we realized we can sensibly spend enough on them to make them worth our while. I revisit this question annually to ensure it is still true and to see if another card would be better. It takes about 25K minimum to justify our card. Strictly dollars and sense!

Loonie. Have you read "the wealthy barber returns?". David Chilton has a great chapter on cash spending vs. Credit spending. Afterward I began to read alot about credit purchasing vs. Cash. I used to see between 400-600$ annually from my cc cash back cards.

After reading the book in 2014 we went cold turkey on credit anything. I bet I save 2000-3000$ a year now. I'd highly recommend the 13$ on Amazon for the book.

of course I don't have availability to the book at the moment. But a quick trip to psychology today was able to reference the natural pain inflicted by cash vs. credit, which is listed in Mr. Chiltons book.
Please have a look, and tell me what you think.
Thanks, Ken

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/retail-therapy/201306/why-we-overspend-credit