BMO eclipse rise Visa Card Review

The no annual fee BMO eclipse rise Visa* Card is one of the newest rewards credit cards in Canada that was launched in December 2023. This card replaces the BMO Rewards Mastercard and expands upon their portfolio of eclipse Visa cards which include the BMO eclipse Visa Infinite* Card and the BMO eclipse Visa Infinite Privilege* Card.

The review of the BMO eclipse rise Visa Card is broken down into the following sections:

Overview
Costs & Sign Up Features
Earning
Redeeming
Features & Benefits

Insurance
What is good about this card
What is not so good about this card
Who should get this card
Conclusion

Overview

The BMO eclipse rise Visa Card features accelerated earn rates on popular spending categories and has flexible redemption options for travel, BMO Investment products, statement credits and more. It also provides some basic insurance coverage benefits.

The card is being marketed as one to help build good financial habits, financial responsibility and financial literacy by rewarding such actions as paying your bill in full each and every month over the course of 12 months and also rewarding cardholders for using points for statement credits towards their card balance.

It is a great concept that BMO should be commended for but only for the concept - not the execution as using points for statement credits is the least valuable redemption option (even with the bonus) in the BMO Rewards program. So much for teaching financial literacy of which loyalty rewards are a part of!

Costs & Sign up Features

The BMO eclipse rise Visa Card is a no annual fee card so there is not cost for holding onto this card or any additional (supplementary) cards

The card currently has a welcome bonus offer of 20,000 BMO Rewards points when you spend $1,500 in the first 3 months of having the card. This bonus is worth ~$133 when redeemed towards travel or BMO Investment products and $100 when used as a statement credit via the Pay with Points feature

The interest rate on the card is 20.99% on purchases. 23.99% on cash advances and balance transfers (21.99% in Quebec). These are pretty much the going rates for many cards in Canada.

There are no minimum annual income requirements for the card.

Earning

The card earns BMO Rewards points and earns those points as follows

5 points for every $2 spent on recurring bill payments, groceries, dining and takeout.
There is an annual cap of $5,000 per category
1 point for every $2 spent on everything else!*

The first thing that stands out from those rates is the "for every $2 spent" not per dollar spent like the other eclipse cards and virtually all other cards in Canada other than Meridian credit union who also uses the per $2 spent model.

However, unlike Meridian BMO awards points on all spend so if you make a $1 purchase you'll earn either 0.5 points or 2.5 points. That's the best way to look at this card, that it is technically a 0.5 points and 2.5 points card which is even a stretch as the the actual value of the points is even lower than that (See the redeeming section for complete details!) I also recommend reading our loyalty lesson for even more insight on BMO's messed up earn to burn ratio: When earning 5x points isn’t the same as earning 5x points – a loyalty lesson

Annual points bonuses:

The card offers extra bonus points that can be earned each year as follows:

Get 2,500 bonus points for paying your full credit card balance on time for 12 consecutive months.
Get another 2,500 bonus points for redeeming at least 12,000 points annually towards your statement balance with Pay with Points

Point Valuation Chart

Spending Category	Points earned per dollar spent	Actual rate of return (Travel or BMO Financial products)	Actual rate of return (Statement credit / Cash Back)
Recurring bill payments, groceries, dining and takeout	2.5	1.67%	1.25%
All other spending	0.5	0.33%	0.25%

Redeeming

BMO Rewards has quite a few options to redeem points for with the best redemption options being for Travel purchases and BMO Investment Products.

Travel and BMO Investment Products

On the redemption side, the points earned with the BMO eclipse rise Visa Card can be redeemed for any travel that is purchased with the card. Simply put, you can buy flights directly with Air Canada or WestJet, hotels with Best Western, car rentals with Avis, packages with Expedia, you name it - as long as it is classified as a travel purchase you can redeem your points against that charge.

The redemption rate for travel purchases is 150 points for a $1 statement credit. That means if you have a flight purchase that costs $300 you could redeem 150 points to receive $1 statement credit against the charge, 15,000 points to receive a $100 credit, 45,000 points for the entire $300 or any amount in-between those.

You can also redeem the points at the same rate of 150 points for a $1 cash deposit into select BMO savings and investment accounts.

Going back to this card's earn rates, if we take the travel and BMO investment product redemption rate of $1 and divide by 150 points it makes each BMO Rewards point worth 0.67 cents. Apply that to the earn rate of 5 points for $2 (2.5 points per $1) and those points provide a real return of 1.67%. That’s actually quite good for a no fee card considering there are perhaps only six or seven other no fee cards that meet or beat this rate.

In terms of the base earn rate of 1 point for $2 (0.5 points for $1) that works out to a real return of ~0.33%. That’s not very good, in fact that’s pretty bad. Sure, earning some sort of rewards is better than nothing but you can earn so much more with other no fee cards.

Pay with Points cash back statement credit

The Pay with Points cash back statement credit is the option BMO is pushing and marketing with this product as part of them educating financial literacy and responsibility. And in fact this is a required redemption if you want to earn some of the extra annual bonus points.

This redemption option requires 200 points for a $1 statement credit. Which works out to 0.5 cents per point and a 1.25% return for the accelerated earn categories, that's not bad but it's not great either.

For the base earn rate of 1 point for $2, the value comes in at a paltry 0.25%. This actually ties two other cards for having the lowest cash back return on spend for a non-secured rewards card. Do I even need to say more about that?

Now, if you do redeem 12,000 points annually via the Pay with Points option you’ll receive 2,500 bonus points so you would gain roughly 20% more value (if you only redeem 12,000 points, redeem more than that and the value will be less) This effectively boosts the card’s cash back returns to ~0.32% and ~1.57%. At least it’s a little something extra but in reality they are trying to force your hand here to use the least valuable redemption option in the whole program. Even with them providing the bonus points, it ends up being more profitable for BMO as it costs them less per point versus having their cardholders using the points for travel or BMO Investment products.

In terms of other rewards options, you can also choose to redeem BMO Rewards points for gift cards and merchandise.

Features and Benefits

The BMO eclipse rise Visa card has one benefit which is access to one Free BMO PaySmart plan for one purchase up to $1,000 every two years. A BMO PaySmart plan allows the cardholder to split up a large purchase into 3, 6 or 12 equal monthly payments with a low interest rate of up to 9.99%. I would assume this benefit offered on the card means you won't be charged the interest for the one purchase you set up a plan for.

Insurance

The BMO eclipse rise Visa Card provides basic shopping insurance coverage as well as mobile device insurance, the latter of which is quite rare for a no fee entry level card. These are the coverages provided:

Purchase Security Insurance
Extended Warranty Insurance
Mobile Device Insurance

One does have to be aware that with virtually all credit card mobile device insurance coverage there are deductible and depreciation costs applied to any claims made.

What is good about this card

The welcome bonus is really good for a no fee card. The 20,000 points are worth ~$133 when redeemed for a travel purchase or a BMO Investment product. Most entry level no fee cards tend to have welcome bonuses that rarely exceed $100 in value. Also, the 2,500 bonus points for paying your full credit card balance on time for 12 consecutive months is a nice incentive.

As convoluted as they are, the accelerated earn rates of 5 points for $2 are also quite good for a no fee card but only when those points are redeemed for travel or BMO investment products. Those 5 points for $2 provide a 1.67% return on spending which may not be the highest in the no fee category but it's a pretty decent return. Be sure to note the $5,000 annual spending cap on each category.

Having mobile device insurance coverage is the other good thing with this card as it can provide some cash savings over buying a separate protection plan.

What is not so good about this card

The base earn rate on this card is terrible. Earning one point for every $2 spent translates to a 0.25% return when redeemed for statement credits or a 0.33% return when redeemed towards travel or BMO investment products. Those are very low considering the majority of no fee rewards cards in Canada have base earn rates providing 0.5% to 1% returns. This is endemic to all BMO cards however, from this entry level no fee card to their ultra premium BMO eclipse Visa Infinite Privilege* Card, they all suffer from poor base earn rates.

The bonus for using the Pay with Points statement credit redemption option! I never would have thought that in my 22+ years of researching loyalty programs and credit cards that I would call a bonus a bad thing. It's not the actual 2,500 bonus points that is bad, it is BMO encouraging cardholders to use the least valuable redemption option in the program to obtain this bonus. If they really wanted to teach financial responsibility they should be rewarding card members for using the best redemption option as it shows that those cardholders understand the financial value that loyalty programs play.

Who should get this card

Consumers looking for a no fee card who bank at BMO and are absolutely adamant about keeping all their financial products with BMO.

Conclusion

Here you have a card that is being marketed by BMO as one that rewards good financial habits and they state cardholders "get rewarded when it comes to building your financial future." The concept of rewarding the good financial habits of paying your entire credit card balance and redeeming points to help bring down your balance is commendable, but unfortunately the execution and marketing of the concept and the card product is poor.

In this day and age, loyalty rewards are considered a part of financial planning and play a big role in the everyday finances for many Canadian's. So you would think teaching good loyalty rewards habits be a part of this card's role of teaching good financial habits. But the fact they are pushing the worst redemption option possible to reward good financial habits is purely a money grab from BMO.

They should be rewarding cardholders for using the best possible reward options. The bank truly missed out by not offering the annual bonus points to cardmembers who redeem their points for BMO investment products! Investing is a good financial habit and since those investments have to be held at BMO, that's a good thing for the bank as that can generate additional revenue and build long term customer relationships!

But no, in my opinion they were near sighted, only looking at short term increased profit margins on a per point basis by rewarding the least valuable redemption option. Definitely a missed opportunity here that hopefully BMO execs and product managers heed and take as free consulting from Rewards Canada as one way to make this card better.

Good loyalty rewards habits (and thus financial habits) also include easy to understand earn and burn rates, not this 5 points for $2 and 1 point for $2 combined with 150 to 1 and 200 to 1 redemption rates. What better way to confuse cardholders and mask the fact the card actually isn't as financially rewarding as other cards?

Add in the the fact BMO uses statement likes these to market the card: "Make everyday a 5x points day. Earn more (a lot more) on your daily needs and wants." This makes it seem like this card is an amazing points earner and unfortunately people will fall hook, line and sinker for it. They will think "well five must be better than two" when in fact the two is a 2% return and BMO's five is at most a 1.67% return.

In the end they are pushing the worst redemption option possible to reward good financial habits and marketing the card as an amazing points earning card when it's not. All I have to say is shame on BMO for once again reverting to sly marketing and praying on those who don't know better. This is not about teaching good financial habits, literacy or responsibility.

Don't get me wrong, I have always said it is better to be earning some sort of rewards than none and since the eclipse rise Visa card rewards you, that's a good thing. Just please don't be suckered in by the way BMO markets the card. Do your research and see if it will actually work well for you, for some it might be the right card if they only spend in the accelerated categories and only redeem for travel or investment products, but that brings me to this:

The card I recommend getting instead of this BMO card:

I don't normally do this in the conclusion section of our reviews but I have to stress that if you are seriously considering this card and don't want to spend the time researching other options, go for the Tangerine Money-Back Credit Card. The Tangerine card easily eclipses this new card from BMO (pun intended*) as it also has no annual fee, it earns 2% cash back on up to three categories if you open a free bank account with them and 0.5% on all other spending.

That means you could pick the same three categories that the BMO eclipse rise Visa card offers and earn 2% instead of a maximum 1.67% (with no annual caps to boot!) and then earn 0.5% on all other spending versus a maximum of 0.33% with the BMO card. All without worrying which redemption option provides the better value since it's straight cash back. There's real financial and loyalty literacy all wrapped into one for you.

* I'm sorry as I have used this pun far too often ever since BMO introduced the 'eclipse' branding but they really have made it too easy for me to mock them

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