Tangerine Money-Back Credit Card Review

The Tangerine Money-Back Credit Card is an extremely popular no annual fee cash back credit card from Scotia subsidiary Tangerine. The card offers up to 2% back on everyday purchases and becomes even more rewarding if you also have a bank account with Tangerine.

The review of the Tangerine Money-Back Credit Card is broken down into the following sections:

Overview

The Tangerine Money-Back Credit Card is an entry level no fee cash back rewards credit card. It has pretty good cash back rewards for purchases made in select categories but with a somewhat low base earn rate. All cash back rewards are automatically credited on a monthly basis.

Costs & Sign up Features

Since it is a no fee card, the Tangerine Money-Back Credit Card has no monthly or annual costs associated with it!

The current welcome bonus for this card offers an extra 10% back on up to $1,000 in everyday purchases made within your first 2 months. That works out to up to $100 cash back!

There are no set income requirements for this card. The purchase interest rate is 19.95% and at the time of writing this review they have a special offer interest rate of 1.95% on transferred balances for 6 months (and 19.95% on any unpaid balances after 6 months).

Earning

The Tangerine Money-Back Credit Card earns cash back as follows:

• 2% cash back in two categories that you select from:
  • Grocery
  • Furniture
  • Restaurants
  • Hotel-Motel
  • Gas
  • Recurring Bill Payments
  • Drug Store
  • Home Improvement
  • Entertainment
  • Public Transportation & Parking
    
• 0.5% cash back on all other purchases
  

If you choose to have your cash back rewards deposited to a Tangerine savings account you can choose a third category to earn 2% cash back at.

Tangerine allows you to make one immediate change to your 2% category selection after account opening. Any further changes are subject to a 90 day waiting period after the last time you made a change to your categories.

Redeeming

The beauty of cash back credit cards is the simplicity in redemption - no worries about calculating value in travel or merchandise rewards. The cash back rewards are right there in front of you, no guess work involved and for many, cash is king.

With the Tangerine Money-Back Credit Card the cash back reward is issued on a monthly basis either as a statement credit to your credit card account or as a deposit to your Tangerine savings account. You can choose either and if you do choose to deposit to a Tangerine savings account you get that third additional category to earn 2% cash back at.

Features and Benefits

The Tangerine Money-Back Credit Card does not come with any additional features or benefits.

Insurance

The Tangerine Money-Back Credit Card provides basic insurance for the purchases made on the card. The coverage is as follows:

• Purchase Protection Plan
• Buyer’s Assurance Protection Plan

What is good about this card

The welcome bonus of 10% cash back on $1,000 in spending in the first two months is great for an entry level card like this.

The ability to earn unlimited 2% in two to three categories is great for a basic no fee cash back card like the Tangerine card! Very few no fee cash back cards offer that high of cash back rate.

It is the only consumer card (along with its sibling the Tangerine World Mastercard in Canada to offer an accelerated earn rate for home improvement (that isn't store specific) and furniture categories! If you are into interior design, renovations, etc. and don't want to pay an annual fee on a card that can match fee based card earn rates, this is the card for you.

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 base earn rate of 0.5%, while on par with a lot of the entry level cash back and travel rewards cards is low. There are cards in the market that have no annual fee and will earn 1% cash back with their base earn rate. If you are someone who makes a lot of varied purchases, that is if you have a lot of spending outside of the two to three 2% categories offered you may be better offer going for one of those other cards. To determine this you would have to do some calculations on your average spending to work out if 1% across the board will provide a better return than a mix of 0.5% and 2%.

No additional features or benefits and limited insurance coverage. Granted pretty much all entry level no fee cards don't have much to offer in terms of additional features or benefits but quite a few do have additional insurance coverage such as car rental CDW and mobile device insurance.

Who should get this card

• Consumers who know the majority of their purchases will be in the two to three accelerated earn rate categories
• Consumers who are into interior design, furniture, renovations etc. and want a no fee card that will reward them well on purchases in those categories
• Consumers who bank with Tangerine and want to add a no fee card to their credit card portfolio

Conclusion

The Tangerine Money-Back Credit Card is a great option for anyone looking for a basic no fee card with the ability to provide great cash back rewards. The 2% cash back on two to three spending categories is what has made this card so popular and made it a keeper in many people's wallets.

Latest card details:

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

• SimplyCash® Card from American Express
• BMO CashBack® MasterCard®*
• Brim Mastercard
• CIBC Dividend® Visa* Card
• Desjardins Cash Back Mastercard
• HSBC Cash Rewards Mastercard®
• MBNA Smart Cash Platinum Plus® Mastercard®
• Neo Card™
• Simplii Financial™ Cash Back Visa* Card
  

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