The Ultimate Travel Rewards Credit Card Portfolio
for Lower Income Earners

In this feature of Rewards Canada's Ultimate Credit Card Portfolios we look at the the ultimate one for those who may not earn enough income for the higher end credit cards that require $60,000 to $80,000 in personal annual income. This portfolio features credit cards in the Canadian market that offer great travel rewards along with some travel benefits with low or no set annual income requirements.

As is typically recommended by Rewards Canada, you should, at a minimum, carry at least one Visa, one Mastercard and one American Express card in your wallet. This is standard with all of our Ultimate Wallets. The reason why is that there are benefits, promotions and earning potential unique to each brand of credit card.

Not only can you make the most of the brands but by having more than one credit card you are protecting yourself if one or more get lost, stolen or blocked due to fraudulent transactions.

Ultimately there are various card options and combinations that could be utilized for this portfolio but we look at one card from each issuing family that we feel are the best fit for the travel rewards mission for those who have lower incomes.

What is Rewards Canada's Ultimate Travel Rewards Credit Card Portfolio for Lower Income Earners? It's the following three cards:

 

It should be noted this portfolio does have fee based cards coupled with the low income requirements and although these cards are set for lower incomes they are not for those who have no credit or bad credit. To get these cards you will need to have a good credit rating and as always with the intention of maximizing your rewards you have to make sure you are paying off your cards every month and not running any balances on the cards.

Why these three?

A quick overview as to why these three cards make up this portfolio:

• Scotiabank Gold American Express: Ranked as the best Travel Points Card with an annual fee by Rewards Canada, this card is a points earning machine! It earns 1 to 6 points per dollar spent that can redeem partially or in full towards any travel booked on the card (flights, hotels, car rentals etc.) and it also has highly sought after benefit, No Foreign Transaction fees.
• WestJet RBC Mastercard: This is the card to use at Costco warehouses as they only accept Mastercard. With a minimum 1% earn rate it is a decent card to use to build up some WestJet dollars, especially since you can use them like cash and don't need a full amount to redeem. However, he main reason this card is in this portfolio is for the annual companion voucher benefit.
• CIBC Aventura® Gold Visa* Card: Another card you are getting more for the benefits than the points side of things, this card gives you extras like airport lounge access and a credit for your NEXUS fees.

 

Key Benefits of this portfolio

• Low or no set income requirements
• Excellent accelerated earn rates that have great value for travel redemptions
• Travel benefits including a annual companion voucher & free airport lounge visits
• Very good insurance coverage

 

Why you want to get each of these cards:

 

Scotiabank Gold American Express Card

The first card in the portfolio is the Scotiabank Gold American Express Card which has a low annual income requirement of $12,000. Rewards Canada ranks the card as the Best Travel Points Card with an annual fee in Canada. This the primary card in this portfolio as you want to put all your possible spending on the card. There are several reasons why you would want to do this. First, it is very strong for points earning. Second, it has the most flexible travel redemptions out of the three cards in the portfolio.

On the earning side the card offers 6 points per dollar spent at Sobeys, IGA, Safeway, Foodland, FreshCo, Voilà by Sobeys, Voilà by IGA, Voilà by Safeway, Chalo! FreshCo, Thrifty Foods, IGA West, Les Marchés Tradition, Rachelle Béry and Co-Op. Next, it earns 5 points per dollar spent at all other eligible grocery stores as well as on dining and entertainment. This is followed with 3 points per dollar spent at eligible gas stations, daily transit and select streaming services and 1 point per dollar spent everywhere else. All of those earn rates are for purchases in Canada, outside of Canada the card earns 1 point per dollar on all eligible spending.

Those earn rates translate to a 6%, 5%, 3%, and 1% return when redeeming for travel or at Scene+ partners As this is a travel rewards card portfolio we'll focus on that portion of this card's redemption options. When it comes to redeeming for travel this card is as flexible as they come. You book the travel how you want, when you want, with whomever you want and then when that travel charge shows up on your account you redeem your points against that charge.

Want to book a flight directly with Air Canada, pay for it on this card and then redeem points for it - either in part or in full. If that ticket is $600 and you have 40,000 points, you can redeem those for $400 statement credit towards the $600 purchase. You get up to 12 months after a travel purchase posts to your account to redeem points against it which means you can continue to "fund" your vacation even when you get back. On top of this you'll still earn Aeroplan points on the flight as it is a paid revenue ticket.

You can do the same hotels, car rentals, all inclusive vacations, rail and more. As long the merchant is classified as travel, you can redeem your points with up to a 6% return.

Further to excellent earn and burn on the card, it also one of the few cards left in Canada that features No Foreign Transaction fees. That means you save the 2.5% that most other cards charge on purchases made in other currencies - perfect for those travelling outside of Canada or those addicted to online shopping from the U.S. or overseas!

The Scotiabank Gold American Express Card does have an overall cap of $50,000 in spending across all the accelerated categories per year.

The Scotiabank Gold American Express Card Quick Facts:

• Annual fee: $120 for the primary card, $29 for supplementary/additional cards
• Current welcome bonus: Earn up to $900* in value in the first 12 months, including up to 45,000 bonus Scene+ points¹ and your first year annual fee waived. Offer ends Oct 31, 2024
• Income requirement: $12,000
• Apply for this card here.
• Click here to read our in depth review of The Scotiabank Gold American Express Card

WestJet RBC Mastercard

The second card in the portfolio is the WestJet RBC Mastercard and it has no set annual income requirement. This card provides flexible travel rewards for flying with WestJet and has a great travel benefit that you won't find on any other low income requirement card let alone most high income cards!

That benefit is a $199 annual companion voucher that can be used on WestJet's domestic network in Canada or between Canada and the contiguous United States. This means when you buy one ticket with WestJet for travel within Canada or to the U.S. you can get second ticket on the same itinerary and reservation for only $199 plus taxes/fees. It can be used for round-trip travel in Economy, Economy Flex, Premium and Premium Flex fares but not Business Class or Member Exclusive fares.

There are no black out dates for the voucher which makes it a great benefit to have for more expensive fares typically found during the busy times of the year like spring break, Christmas, summer holidays etc. Another time vouchers can be really useful is when you may need to buy last minute travel that almost always tends to be more expensive.

Outside of the voucher the card earns a respectable 1% on all purchases other than WestJet and WestJet Vacations purchases which earn 1.5%.

Those WestJet dollars that are earned can be redeemed for WestJet flights just like cash. If you have 50 WestJet dollars and are buying $300 ticket you can use that 50 to bring your ticket price down to $250 and so on.

This is also the go to card for shopping at Costco Canada warehouses since they only accept Mastercard. Costco purchases will earn 1% in WestJet dollars.

The WestJet RBC Mastercard Quick Facts:

• Annual fee: $39 for the primary card, $19 for supplementary/additional cards
• Current welcome bonus: Earn up to 100 welcome WestJet dollars (50 after first purchase, 50 after minimum of $1k spend within first 3 months).
• Income requirement: None
• Apply for this card here.
• Click here to read our in-depth review of the WestJet RBC Mastercard

CIBC Aventura® Gold Visa* Card

Rounding out this portfolio is the CIBC Aventura Gold Visa card which has a low annual income requirement of $15,000. This card fulfills the Visa card requirement in our portfolio and like the WestJet card is in here more for the benefits it provides rather than the rewards part of it.

The card provides a rebate of up to C$100 on one NEXUS application every four years (NEXUS is valid for 5 years so as long as you have this card it will help pay for the fee which is US$50 until Oct 3 and then US$120 as of Oct 4, 2024)

And the main benefit you are getting this card for is airport lounge access! The card comes with an annual Visa Airport Companion (powered by DragonPass) membership which is worth US$99. What is even more impressive for a non-Infinite/Infinite Privilege card let alone being a lower income requirement card, are the four annual complimentary lounge visits which are worth US$32 each or US$128 in total. This benefit alone can more than pay for the annual fee on the card.

The card earns 2 Aventura points per dollar spent on travel purchased via CIBC Rewards, 1.5 points per dollar spent at eligible gas stations, EV charging, grocery stores and drug stores and then all other spending earns 1 point per dollar.

Redeeming those points can provide up to 4.58% return for your spending but that's really only for the 2x points earned on travel when redeemed for an $800 long haul Canada/US airfare. In reality for most travel redemption you'll probably get around a 1% to 3.44% return and because you have to redeem via CIBC Rewards, it makes the card a lot less flexible than the Scotiabank Gold American Express card.

The CIBC card does have an overall cap of $20,000 in spending across all the accelerated categories per year.

The CIBC Aventura Gold Visa Card Quick Facts:

• Annual Fee $139 (waived in the first year with the current welcome bonus offer) $50 supplementary cards
• Welcome bonus: Up to 45,000 Aventura Points (up to $900 in travel value†) and a one-time annual fee rebate ($139) for you (the primary cardholder) and up to three authorized users ($50 each)
• Income requirements: $15,000 household income
• Apply for this card here.
• Click here to read our in-depth review of the CIBC Aventura Gold Visa Card

Note:

Some of you may be asking why wasn't the American Express Cobalt Card picked as the Amex option in this portfolio given that it is the best overall travel rewards credit card in Canada? Honestly, either card is a perfect fit for this position but the reason why we went with Scotia comes down to how much someone with a lower income can spend on their cards.

The reason why the Cobalt Card is so good is due to multiple valuable redemption options and one reason in particular is for its conversion options to airline programs like Air Canada Aeroplan, Air France KLM Flying Blue and British Airways Executive Club. However, to be able to get decent award flights with Air Canada Aeroplan or the other airline programs you need to be able to spend more on your credit cards, which is tough to do for lower income earners unless you collect for a longer period of time.

What this portfolio achieves is the ability to provide valuable discounts on any travel, which the Scotiabank Gold American Express Card provides 1% to 6% returns for versus the Cobalt Card's 1% to 5% returns.

Then when a person's income increases to where they are able to spend more on a card that's when they can look at switching out or upgrading cards in this portfolio. The first such swap would most likely be the Scotiabank Gold American Express Card to the American Express Cobalt Card for that access to Air Canada Aeroplan, Air France KLM Flying Blue, British Airways Executive Club and so forth. However, with that swap the person will then need to see if they should swap out or add one more card to be the No FX Fee card. Ideally that would be the Scotiabank Passport Visa Infinte Card instead of the CIBC card (if annual income has reached $60,000/$100,000) but it could also be something as simple as the prepaid EQ Bank Card.

Learn more about the cards here:

Other card options you could consider:

You do have several other card options you could look at in this portfolio.

American Express:

On the American Express side of things you could consider the American Express Cobalt Card. Like we detailed above, this card is also a great fit for this portfolio. Especially if you don't shop at Scene+ grocery stores as then the cards are equal with the return on spending towards any travel booked at any time. With Cobalt you do get the conversion options to airlines and hotels but you do not get the No Foreign Transaction fees. It also comes in with a bit of higher fee at $12.99 per month which works out to $155.88 annually.

Mastercard:

For the Mastercard slot the next best option is the MBNA Rewards Platinum Plus Mastercard. This card does not tie you into only one program like the WestJet card. It provides the option to redeem for any travel that you can book via MBNA Rewards with a 1% to 2% return on spending. It also has no annual fee and no set income requirement. In fact, if you don't think you'll use the WestJet companion voucher this card would be your better bet.

Visa:

On the Visa side, there a couple of next best options! One would be the Scotiabank Scene+ Visa Card with no annual fee and an annual income requirement of $12,000. The beauty of getting the Scene+ Visa Card is that the points would pool together with the Scotiabank Gold American Express Card. Another decent option is the TD Platinum Travel Visa Card which has no set income requirement, a low annual fee and also provides very flexible travel rewards redemption options.

Wrapping it up

Having a lower income doesn't mean you have to lose out on travel rewards and travel benefits found on higher end credit cards. The Ultimate Travel Rewards Credit Card Portfolio for Lower Income Earners shows how you can have cards that earn a lot of points, have great travel redemption options and include some excellent travel benefits. All without the need to have the income required for Visa Infinite, Visa Infinite Privilege or World and World Elite Mastercards.

This article was first posted on February 24, 2020 and is updated on a regular basis

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