What's the most point-to-dollar ratio Travel credit card out there? | Credit card reward programs | Discussion forum

I have had all of those cards you mention at one point, either personally or for my business. Here are some thoughts on cards I have experience with. The presumption is that you pay off your balance every month.

In short, I used to swear off any cards with annual fees, but once travel is in the mix and there are category multipliers, a strategy with multiple cards for different purposes (earnings categories, card features like insurance) pays off multiple times the fees.

For purchases in foreign currencies, consider cards that waive (or effectively waive) the foreign currency exchange transaction fee. The Rogers World Elite Mastercard has no annual fee and gives you 1.75% back on non-foreign currency purchases, and an effective 1.5% back (4% back minus 2.5% fee) on foreign currency purchases. The Scotiabank Passport Visa Infinite has a $139 annual fee but a nice sign-up bonus, 2% back on groceries and restaurants, and some nice insurance.

For grocery store purchases and restaurants, if you frequent places that take American Express, the Amex Cobalt is a leader in my opinion. 5% back made on the card in that category. The points are not straight cash back -- they have to be redeemed against travel purchases, or are convertible for Marriott at a 5:6 ratio. Not directly convertible to Aeroplan, but effectively a 2.5:1 ratio since you can convert from Marriott to Aeroplan at 3:1. The Cobalt also earns 2% back on travel purchases.

The Amex Gold Rewards earns 2% back on travel purchases as well, but those points can be directly redeemed against purchases or transferred to Aeroplan at a 1:1 ratio.

If your grocery store and restaurant purchases don't take Amex, then there is the Scotiabank Momentum Visa Infinite, which gives you 4% cash back in that category. I know technically this has nothing to do with travel, but when cash back is 4% I feel like it has to be considered alongside the travel plan.

Proprietary travel programs can be a pain in terms of managing the best value for redemptions, points expiry, and more. I find it's not worth the hassle to optimize too many of them, but it is worth the hassle when focusing on a couple of them. Thus, for purchases in categories that don't have big multipliers on other cards, consider the Amex Marriott Bonvoy cards, the WestJet World Elite Mastercard (yearly $99 companion fare, free checked bag for up to 8 people on every flight), and all of the Aeroplan or Amex cards where you can convert to Aeroplan points. You can consider cycling through all of the Aeroplan-affiliated cards for their sign-up bonuses. Just look out for whatever will happen in 2020 when Aeroplan merges back in to Air Canada. The Alaska Airlines Mastercards are worth considering if you will fly any routes in their partner program.

Aeroplan is talked about the most, but WestJet's "member exclusive fares", which are valid regardless of whether you hold an affiliated credit card or not, are a bit of a hidden feature with fixed WestJet dollar redemptions (which have to be 100% covered by WestJet dollars) that I've found can be significantly cheaper than the main fares.