National Bank of Canada World Elite® Mastercard® Review

The National Bank of Canada World Elite® Mastercard® is the flagship premium card offering from the sixth largest bank in Canada. The card underwent some major changes in the summer of 2022 to become Canada's latest 5x points earning card. It joins a small group of cards awarding that many points with an equivalent value for redemption (ie 5 points = at least 5%) but the card does have one major drawback to its 5x points earning that you'll learn about in this review.

The review of the National Bank of Canada World Elite® Mastercard® is broken down into the following sections:

Overview

The National Bank of Canada World Elite® Mastercard® is an all encompassing travel rewards credit card. It has decent points earning, flexible travel redemption options, provides annual refunds for travel expenses and has excellent travel insurance coverage.

Costs & Sign up Features

The National Bank of Canada World Elite® Mastercard® has an annual fee of $150 for the primary card. This fee is near the top end of what you see on premium card offerings in Canada where cards range from $119 to $165 per year. Additional cardholders can be added for $50 per year per card.

Much like many National Bank Cards the World Elite Mastercard does not have a standard welcome bonus but enjoys frequent limited time offers. Currently, the limited time welcome bonus awards up to 70,000 points along with no annual fee in the first year when you apply by June 30, 2023. The bonus is broken down as follows:

• 30,000 points when you spend $5,000 on the card within the first three months of having it
• 10,000 points if you sign you up for credit card payment insurance for at least 3 months
• 30,000 points if you spend at least $12,000 on your card within the first 12 months of account opening.
• A credit for the first year annual fee for the primary card will be issued within 4 months of account opening
  

70,000 points are worth $700 towards travel booked via National Bank's À la carte Travel™ Agency.

Requirements for the card are to have $80,000 annual personal income or $150,000 annual household income.

Earning

The card earns À la carte rewards points as follows:

• 5 points per dollar spent on grocery and restaurant purchases (until a total of $2,500 in gross monthly purchases is charged to the account regardless of the purchase category)
• 2 points per dollar spent on grocery and restaurant purchases (after the $2,500 in gross monthly purchases)
• 2 points per dollar spent on gas and electric vehicle charging purchases
• 2 points per dollar spent on recurring bills
• 2 points per dollar spent on travel purchases via À la carte Travel™ Agency
• 1 point per dollar spent on all other purchases
  

Here is that drawback to this card that we mentioned at the start of the review. Unlike other cards that have spending caps specific to a category or high annual gross spending caps, National Bank does not. The $2,500 monthly cap is based on all your spending which means it will affect how you much you can earn at the 5x points level.

That is, if you go out and spend $500 for something that does not fall into groceries or dining – say a Costco visit, a car repair or anything like that, you will only be able to earn 5x points on the remaining $2,000 of spend that month. And this is if, and only if you spend that $2,000 on groceries and dining. The minute you start putting any other spending on the card within your first $2,500 each month you take away your ability to earn 5x points.

Have a big purchase you would like to make? Perhaps put a $5,000 deposit on a car? If you put that purchase on this card near the beginning of your monthly earn cycle you are saying good bye to any 5x points earning for the rest of that month.

Ideally with this card you do not want to put any spending on it other than groceries and dining until you have spent $2,500 in those categories in each monthly period. Once you have, then by all means, go nuts spending in all the other categories.

Point Valuation Chart

 

Spending Category	Points earned per dollar spent	Rate of return when booking travel with À la carte Travel™ Agency	Rate of return when booking your own travel	Rate of return Cash Back
Grocery & Restaurant	5	5%	4.17% to 4.55%	2%
Grocery & Restaurant (after $2,500)	2	2%	1.67% to 1.82%	0.8%
Gas, EV Charging, Recurring Bills	2	2%	1.67% to 1.82%	0.8%
À la carte Travel	2	2%	1.67% to 1.82%	0.8%
All other purchases	1	1%	0.83% to 0.91%	0.4%

Redeeming

There are multiple redemption options in the À la carte Rewards Plan and like most proprietary credit card programs these include travel, cash back, merchandise, gift cards and more.

Travel

Redeeming for travel is extremely straightforward with the À la carte Rewards Plan. To get the best value out of your points for all the purchases made on your card you must book your travel via the À la carte Travel™ Agency. Basically you book travel through them as if you were booking travel anywhere else and then you redeem points against the charge during the payment process for your travel. You can choose to redeem a partial amount or the full amount of points against the charge so it makes it quite flexible. The redemption rate is 10,000 points = $100 toward the travel booking.

For example, if you are purchasing $1,200 in flights and have 50,000 points you can redeem those points for a $500 credit and end up only paying $700 out of pocket for those flights. If you have 120,000 points (or more) you could redeem that exact amount so those flights are free!

With that 10,000 points to $100 ratio you are earning a 1% to 5% return for your spending on this card (see the point valuation chart above).

The next travel redemption option is being able to redeem points for any travel you book outside of the À la carte Travel™ Agency What this means is that you can book a flight directly with Air Canada, WestJet or any other airline, book any hotel, car rental, train, vacation package etc. and when that charge shows up on your account you can redeem your points against that charge. The redemption rates for this option are as follows:

• If you redeem 55,000 or less points in one transaction you will receive a $100 credit for every 12,000 points redeemed
• If you redeem 55,000 or more points in one transaction you will receive a $100 credit for every 11,000 points redeemed.

For the less than 55,000 points redemption this works out to a 0.83% to 4.16% return on your spending. Over 55,000 it works out to a 0.91% to 4.54% return.

Cash back

You can choose to redeem the points for cash back in the form of a statement credit towards your credit card balance. Like the majority of travel rewards card this option provides lower value than seen when redeeming points towards travel. National Bank publishes the following levels for this redemption option:

• 6,250 points for a $25 credit
• 12,500 points for a $50 credit
• 25,000 points for a $100 credit
• 125,000 points for a $500 credit
• 250,000 points for a $1,000 credit

The conversion rate is the same across all levels at 0.4 cents per point. That means you are earning a 0.4% to 2% return for your spending on this card if you choose the cash back option (see the point valuation chart above). This is a relatively low value and while it is good to have this option with this card you can do better with other cards if you are primarily looking for cash back rewards.

Other redemption options

The rest of the redemption options from National Bank of Canada include gift cards, National Bank Investment products and merchandise.

Features and Benefits

The National Bank of Canada World Elite® Mastercard® provides some great benefits and additional features that complement the points earning side of things:

Up to $150 annual credit towards travel expenses

The card provides up to $150 each year in refunds for travel expenses on airport parking, seat selection, baggage fees, airline ticket upgrades and access to airport lounges worldwide. To receive the credits you simply submit your receipt(s) to National Bank of Canada for an approved travel expense that is charged to the card.

Unlimited access to the National Bank lounge at Montreal-Trudeau airport

The card provides free and unlimited access for the primary cardholder along with one guest to the National Bank Lounge® at Montréal-Trudeau airport. This is a great benefit for those people who travel internationally out of YUL as the lounge is in the International portion of the airport. If you primarily fly domestic or to the U.S. this benefit won't mean much to you.

World Elite Mastercard benefits

• Airport Lounge Access The card also comes with Mastercard Travel Pass provided by DragonPass which is a standard feature found on all World Elite Mastercards in Canada. This means you get free membership in the lounge access program that is pretty much the same as Priority Pass. While the card covers your annual membership it does not cover the actual lounge visit fees which are currently US$32 per person (except for the National Bank Lounge)
• 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. As of March 9, 2023 members are limited to twelve 90 minute in-flight sessions per year.
  

Insurance

The National Bank of Canada World Elite® Mastercard® provides excellent insurance coverage and is in fact one of the best that amongst all its direct competitors. The coverage is as follows:

• Out of Province/Country Emergency Medical Insurance (60 days for ages up to 54, 31 days for 55-64 and 15 days for 65-75)
• Trip Cancellation Insurance
• Trip Interruption Insurance
• Flight Delay Insurance
• Baggage Delay Insurance
• Lost or Stolen Baggage Insurance
• Car Rental Theft and Damage Insurance (up to $65,000 MSRP)
• Purchase Protection Plan
• Buyer’s Assurance Protection Plan
• Mobile Device Insurance

What is notable about National Bank of Canada's coverage is that it covers reward tickets from other loyalty programs*. Typically, most credit card insurance coverage will only cover travel that is redeemed for with that issuer's own proprietary program. Not so with this card. For example, you can redeem Aeroplan points for a flight and as long as you pay the taxes and fees with the National Bank World Elite Mastercard you'll receive the insurance coverage. We do want to note this is specific to certain coverages such as trip cancellation trip interruption flight delay, lost baggage (not delayed baggage however) etc.

* It will cover the dollar amount charged to your card for the taxes and fees that is not refunded to you by the loyalty program if you cancel your flights, hotel etc. It will not refund or return the points or miles you redeem. When you do cancel, most (but not all) loyalty programs will refund the points or miles you redeemed based on the program's own cancellation policies.

In terms of other coverage such as flight delay you would simply submit your reasonable expenses as if you would if you used the card for a revenue flight.

What is good about this card

The welcome bonus is mostly a good thing about this card. With an all time high bonus of 70,000 points ralong with the annual fee reimbursed* in the first year it is a good time to get the card. Those 70,000 points are worth $700 towards travel. Do be aware that for 10,000 points you do have to take out credit card payment insurance and the final 30,000 points are not awarded until two months after your card anniversary date - hence our use of the phrase 'mostly a good thing'

The 5x points can be great but only if you know that you will strictly use this card for groceries and dining for the first $2,500 of spending each statement period.

The $150 of annual travel refunds are another good thing about this card. If you can use these credits up they pay for the card's annual fee each year. Another good benefit is the lounge access if Montreal is your home airport (or one you transit frequently) and you travel internationally from YUL.

The insurance coverage is really good. With 60 days out of province emergency medical coverage for those 54 and under and providing a variety of coverage for reward tickets from other programs this card is an insurance star!

Being a Mastercard you can count on the card being accepted almost everywhere including Costco warehouses in Canada!

What is not so good about this card

The $2,500 cap for 5x points earning being based on all spend on the card. It makes it really easy to not be able to earn 5x points if this card is your daily driver and being used for purchases other than groceries and restaurants. I mean it's not bad to still be able to earn 2 points on those categories after the fact but why you would when you can earn more on other cards. For example, you have the MBNA Rewards World Elite Mastercard which is the highest earning Mastercard in Canada for groceries and restaurants (not the National Bank card as proclaimed by other sites) The MBNA card offers 5 points per dollar (5.5 with the birthday bonus) on $50,000 of spending annually which means you can earn a lot more points with 5% to 5.5% value towards travel.

To get the best value you have to book through the À la carte travel agency which makes the card is a little less flexible than other cards in this category, including two other 5x points cards. Those others allow you to book travel with whomever you want and still get the full value of your points when you redeem against the charge. This lets the holders of those cards shop around for the best deals in travel and while you can do that with the National Bank card you lose value compared to redeeming via the À la carte travel agency. An example of this would be buying tickets to take the train from Tokyo to Nagasaki when you are already in Japan on vacation, with those other cards you can just buy the tickets and then redeem points against that charge when you get home from vacation and still receive the full value of those points.

Common carrier travel accident insurance is noticeably absent on this card. I can't tell you why it isn't provided since it is one of the most common types of coverage that you will find even on no fee travel cards. Granted, it is quite possibly the least utilized of all insurance coverages as it is pays out if you are injured or killed as the result of an accident involving a plane, train, boat or bus that you are travelling on. All of which are very rare in this day and age.

And while not a deal breaker, the card's CDW insurance coverage only covers cars up to a C$65,000 MSRP - which is actually quite common for World Elite Mastercards. However, there are some other World Elite cards, plus many Visa cards and almost all Amex cards cover rental cars up to $85,000. So while this isn't bad per se, it's just something to be aware of when using this card to pay for car rentals. You may have to decline an upgrade to a really nice car or pay for the rental company's insurance coverage.

Who should get this card

• Consumers who know they will only use the card for grocery and dining purchases
• Consumers who have enough travel expenses so that you can utilize the annual $150 in travel expense credits
• Consumers who want excellent insurance coverage including coverage of reward travel from other loyalty programs
• Consumers who fly internationally out Montreal Trudeau Airport to make use of the free access to the National Bank Lounge.

Conclusion

If you are researching this card on multiple sites and reading other reviews you'll see high praise of this card's 5x points earning (and why not - it is 5x points afterall) but they don't take the time to explain the gross monthly spending cap in detail. Don't get me wrong, this card is a really good card that verges on being great. However, unlike the other sites, Rewards Canada wants you to know what you are getting into with this card and that there are no surprises when you find out you aren't earning $2,500 worth of 5x points each and every month on it.

Outside of the convoluted points earning system you have a card with annual travel credits that can pay for the card itself, decent points earning overall (even with the $2,500 monthly cap) and most importantly this card is one of the best when it comes to insurance coverage. In other words, much like the wording we use for some select other cards, the National Bank of Canada World Elite® Mastercard® is well rounded, it gives you a little bit of everything that you would want in a travel rewards credit card.

Latest card details:

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

• American Express Cobalt® Card
• American Express® Gold Rewards Card
• CIBC Aventura Visa Infinite Card
  
• HSBC World Elite® Mastercard®
• MBNA Rewards World Elite Mastercard
• RBC Avion Visa Infinite Card
• Scotiabank Gold American Express Card
• Scotiabank Passport Visa Infinite Card
• TD First Class Travel Visa Infinite Card

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