How do we come up with our picks for the best cards?
We look at various factors including but not limited to:
We even look at where your cards can take you (ie destinations), what you can do with your cards (what sort of travel you can redeem for) and more. For example, for many years we didn't rank the WestJet card as high as other competitors rankings due to the fact you were limited to flying in North America but then when WestJet added their own international flights and codeshare flights on partner airlines the card shot up the rankings.
After that add in nearly 23 years of research,
answering hundreds of email questions from readers, comments from our readers plus the charts
and articles we publish provides us the best insight into the pros
and cons of each card. As always this has allowed Rewards Canada to
form an opinion as to which ones are the best. That's right, it all
boils down to opinion. The top cards listed here, are in our opinion,
the best cards for travel rewards
in Canada. Do people agree? Some yes, some no. Do we make some credit
card issuers mad? Yes. Happy? You bet.
As we have stressed in the past, choosing
a card is a difficult decision based on many factors including but not
limited to rewards offered, benefits offered, cost and the issuing bank.
We hope that with this 16th annual ranking, we will help guide consumers
to finding the right credit card for them.
What makes Rewards Canada's rankings different from the rest?
At Rewards Canada, we are deeply entrenched in the loyalty industry, not just credit cards, so we take this into account for the rankings where it is applicable. Most other rankings on the Internet only look at the credit card itself and not the associated loyalty program or partners, hidden tricks of the programs and much more.
For example, in the Airline Cards category we take into account what cities the airlines and/or their partners serve in Canada and Worldwide, whether you can redeem for premium class travel, what the redemption availability is like within their frequent flyer program, the airline partners they have and so on.
You'll also find many other rankings in Canada only list cards they earn commissions with unlike here at Rewards Canada where we look at any and all cards and how good or not good they are, regardless of any commissions or not. This is why you won't find any BMO cards in our top rankings as they are trounced by the competition - yet their cards show up in many other site's rankings due to affiliate partnerships - not due to them being the best cards. Full disclosure, Rewards Canada has an affiliate partnership with BMO and we do earn commissions on their cards.
This is why
the Rewards Canada rankings are the most highly regarded rankings in
Canada with consumers, the media, loyalty programs and credit card issuers.
In our rankings we look at well over 70 travel reward credit cards available to Canadians!
Some
are airline only cards that put miles or points directly into your airline frequent
flyer accounts. Some are hybrid cards where you collect points that
can be used to book travel through the credit card or put the points
into a frequent flyer/guest account. Some are travel points cards, where
the points are redeemed for travel through the credit card company's proprietary rewards program while
a small number are hotel only cards that put the points directly into
your frequent guest program accounts.
It
is from these variations of cards that we have now have eigth categories of cards in Canada's Top Travel Rewards Credit Cards for
2024.
1. Top Travel Rewards Cards Overall
2. Top Travel Points Credit Cards (with annual fee)
3. Top No Fee Travel Rewards Credit Cards
4. Top Airline Credit / Charge Cards
5. Top Hybrid Travel Credit / Charge Cards
6. Top No Foreign Transaction Fee Credit Card
7. Top Ultra Premium Credit Cards
8.
Top Small Business Travel Rewards Credit Card