BMO CashBack® World Elite®* MasterCard®*

The BMO CashBack® World Elite®* MasterCard®* was introduced in May 2015 as the bank's premium cash back credit offering, taking the place of the World Mastercard which they had offered prior to that. Over the past 8 years the card has undergone numerous changes, the latest of which took place in May 2021 and in general represented an improvement as the card received some accelerated earn rates but in the end the card misses the mark to being a truly excellent cash back rewards card.

The review of the BMO CashBack World Elite Mastercard is broken down into the following sections:

Overview

The BMO CashBack World Elite Mastercard features accelerated cash back earn rates across several spending categories along with BMO's super easy cash back redemption model which is the best out of the big 5 banks. The card offers airport lounge access membership and considering it is a cash back card it still provides quite a good travel insurance benefits package.

Costs & Sign up Features

The BMO CashBack World Elite Mastercard has an annual fee of $120. This used to be the standard for all premium cards but now many competitors have increased their fees to between $139 and $150 so it is nice to see BMO hold fast on the fee! Additional (supplementary) cards are $50 each annually which is the same as most of this card's direct competitors.

Right now the BMO CashBack World Elite Mastercard has a welcome bonus offering up to 10% cash back on up to $2,600 in spending in your first 3 months and the $120 annual fee waived in the first year. The cash bonus is awarded as a 10% earn rate on up to $500 qualified spend in grocery, up to $300 qualified spend in transit, up to $300 qualified spend in gas and electric vehicle charging, up to $500 qualified spend in recurring bill payments, and up to $1000 qualified spend on all other purchases. In total you can earn $260 cash back with the welcome bonus.

As it is a World Elite Mastercard it does have minimum income requirements of $80,000 (individual) or $150,000 (household)

Earning

The BMO CashBack World Elite Mastercard card earns cash back as follows:

• 5% cash back on groceries (capped at $500 of spending per month, 1% thereafter)
• 4% cash back on transit including ride sharing, taxis and public transportation (capped at $300 of spending per month, 1% thereafter)
• 3% cash back on gas and electric vehicle charging (capped at $300 of spending per month, 1% thereafter)
• 2% cash back on recurring bill payments like your monthly phone bill or favourite streaming service (capped at $500 of spending per month, 1% thereafter)
• 1% unlimited cashback on all other purchases
  

As you can see those are some really good cash back earn rates that are unfortunately hampered by some really low monthly caps!

Redeeming

As with most cash back cards there is only one redemption option with BMO CashBack World Elite Mastercard and that is to redeem for cash back! The CashBack World Elite card has a very simple and easy cash back redemption process. Anytime your cash back rewards balance reaches at least $1 you can redeem towards purchases you made that have a value of $1 or more.

This is the easiest and most flexible cash back redemption option that you'll find from Canada's big 5 banks. The other banks either require a minimum $25 balance to cash out or in the case of Scotia, they only reward your cash back once per year instead of anytime on demand.

Features and Benefits

The primary benefits this card provides are airport lounge access membership and roadside assistance. It also has the standard benefits that are seen on all Canadian World Elite Mastercards.

Airport Lounge Access

The BMO CashBack World Elite Mastercard offers an annual Mastercard Travel Pass provided by DragonPass membership which normally costs up to US$99 per year. The membership provides discounted access to over 1,300 lounges worldwide.

Complimentary Roadside Assistance Program

With the BMO CashBack World Elite Mastercard, you receive a free membership (a $69/year value) with basic coverage in the Dominion Automobile Association (DAA). This includes free battery boosts, flat-tire change, emergency gasoline delivery, lockout service and towing. Members are allowed up to four call outs per year.

World Elite Mastercard benefits

• Boingo Wi-Fi Boingo Wi-Fi for Mastercard Cardholders provides access to more than 1 million premium Wi-Fi hotspots worldwide at no charge. This also covers Wi-Fi on several airlines including WestJet.

Insurance

The BMO CashBack World Elite Mastercard offers a really good insurance package that includes the following:

• Out of Province/Country Emergency Medical Insurance (up to 8 days for hose under age 65)
• Trip Interruption Insurance
• Flight Delay Insurance
• Baggage Delay Insurance
• Lost or Stolen Baggage Insurance
• Car Rental Theft and Damage Insurance
• $500,000 Travel Accident Insurance
• Purchase Protection Plan
• Extended Warranty Plan

What is good about this card

The best thing about this card is the on demand cash back rewards that can be cashed out anytime your balance is $1 or more. Many equivalent cash back cards require a reward balance of $25 or higher and/or only reward cash back monthly or even annually.

The 2%, 3%, 4% and 5% accelerated earn rates are really good, if and only if your monthly spend in those respective categories is very low.

The lounge access membership, roadside assistance and insurance coverage are all good features of this card.

What is not so good about this card

The really low monthly spending caps are a 'big' not so good thing about this card. This is a premium card that has relatively high income requirements and people with that level of income tend to spend more - or actually, quite a bit more than what these caps allow. $500 per month for groceries? I spend that in about a week to two weeks. A Canadian family of four will on average spend over $16,000 per year on groceries. That means with this card you would earn 5% on $6,000 and then only earn 1% on over $10,000 of grocery spending. Thus, you would be losing out on a lot of potential rewards since there are cards in the market that will reward you with the equivalent of 5% (or even more) on all of that spend. There are even cards with lower cash back that will net you bigger rewards: Loyalty Lesson: How a card with 4.16% cash back can be better than one offering 5%

Who should get this card

• Consumers who don't spend very much and want some really good cash back earn rates for their low spending
• Consumers who want easy on-demand access to their cash back rewards
• Consumers who have a card such the American Express Cobalt® Card as their daily driver and want a secondary card for groceries and other stores where Amex isn't accepted.
• Consumers who bank at BMO and want to keep all financial products with one bank (especially if your bank account(s) cover credit card annual fees)
  

Conclusion

The BMO CashBack World Elite Mastercard is the bank's premium cash back offering that unfortunately misses the mark in the cash back rewards market.

You may be like, "wait.... what? So many websites in Canada, (personal finance sites for some reason in particular) rank the BMO CashBack® World Elite®* MasterCard®* as the best cash back card in Canada and/or the best card for groceries!!!"

Here at Rewards Canada we cannot agree with those sites - the card simply doesn't match its competitors despite the bank's self proclaimed "highest cash back earn rate on groceries in Canada" and having some good features and benefits. Unfortunately even though the card has those 2%, 3%, 4% and 5% accelerated earn rates, they don't actually mean much when they have extremely low monthly spending caps.

In fact, it is due to those very low monthly spending caps, namely on groceries, that this card doesn't even break into the top 5 cash back cards in Canada as ranked by Rewards Canada! I truly believe there is no way this card should be considered tops in any category unless you don't spend much on the card but then that kind defeats the purpose of it being a World Elite Mastercard. World Elite Mastercards are intended for higher spenders and this card does not reward high spending.

In the end, I will digress and conclude that if we solely look at the factor of "don't spend much on this card" then I can agree with the other sites that the card is quite good but I will not go so far as to call it the best.

Latest card details:

Other cards to consider if you are looking at this card:

• American Express Cobalt® Card
• SimplyCash® Preferred Card from American Express
• CIBC Dividend® Visa Infinite* Card
• Desjardins Cash Back World Elite®Mastercard®
• Envision Cash Back World Elite Mastercard
• MBNA Rewards World Elite® Mastercard®
• Scotia Momentum® Visa* Infinite card
• TD Cash Back Visa Infinite Card
  

Talk to us!

Tell us what you think of this feature in the comments section below or join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter!