By
Patrick Sojka - CEO Rewards Canada | Posted May 27, 2010
The
next card to be released in Canada with the World branding from MasterCard
is the Capital One Aspire World MasterCard. With a scheduled
street date of June 8, 2010, Capital One is once again going to jump
ahead of the pack in regards to reward cards just as they did with the
Miles Plus Platinum MasterCard in 2008. This newest offering from Capital
One is targetted towards the higher end market and is designed to compete
with the Visa Infinite cards that have been attracting a lot of attention
in the last two years. This card may make other credit card issuers
rethink what they are offering due to its large sign up bonus, renewal
bonus, high redemption ratio and a first for travel cards in Canada,
price protection insurance.
Overview
Looking to storm onto the Canadian market with a new and larger set
of bonuses, the Capital One Aspire World MasterCard provides
an above average insurance and benefit package that comes at a cost
equal to or lower then other high end credit cards in Canada. The card
features a good earning ratio and provides the ability to book reward
travel when, where and with whomever you like. Add to that, features
like no supplementary card fees, and this card is ready to set a new
standard in the Canadian Travel credit card market. For those who do
not need all the features and benefits of this card, Capital One is
also offering a Gold version which has no fee but comes with lower bonuses
and earning ratio.
Costs
The Capital One Aspire World MasterCard comes with an industry
standard $120 primary card annual fee. The card offers a whopping 35,000
point welcome bonus which is equivalent to a $350 travel credit. Supplementary
cards are free which puts this card ahead of almost all of the Infinite/Platinum/Gold
travel credit card offerings from other banks. The interest rate on
the card is 19.8% placing it right in the middle of the pack of competitors.
Earning The Capital One Aspire World MasterCard earns 2 miles
for every dollar spent on the card for purchases. This earning ratio
puts the card ahead of all other travel point credit cards except Capital
One's own Miles Plus MasterCard which also earns 2 miles per dollar.
The card features a nice 10,000 mile bonus for each year you renew the
card. Effectively, this card gives you $450 back in your first year
of card membership. Only a few other cards in the Canadian market offer
renewal bonuses and they come in at 2,500 to 3,000 miles depending on
the card placing this card well ahead of that..
Redeeming
On the redemption side, the miles earned with the Capital One Aspire
World MasterCard can be redeemed for any travel that is booked with
any provider. Simply put, you book the travel where you want and charge
it to your Aspire World MasterCard, then call up Capital One to redeem
your miles against that travel charge. This is the same feature found
on several other cards in Canada like the TD Visas, Diners Club MasterCard
and American Express Blue Sky. Capital One offers a set rate for redemptions
up to $600, after that mark it is the cost of travel x 100 to figure
out the number of miles required.
The redemption rates are as follows:
15,000 miles = up to $150
35,000 miles = up to $350
60,000 miles = up to $600
60,001 and above = cost of travel x 100
Using this chart above, if you buy travel at $150, $350 or $600 and
up you will be receiving a 2% rate of return on your redemption. This
2% return is one of the best for travel point credit cards in Canada.
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Features
and Benefits As stated above the Capital
One Aspire World MasterCard
comes with an insurance package that competes with all the other high
end cards. The card features
your standard travel accident, baggage and car rental insurance that
are found on almost all fee based rewards cards but it also includes
some that are only found on a few select cards. These include, Trip
cancellation which is only offered as a standard feature on four other
travel rewards cards and Travel Medical insurance which only comes standard
on about 50% of the cards in the market.
The card also comes with a price protection guarantee which is similar
to the price protection guarantees offered by large retailers, if you
find a lower price on something you bought with the Aspire World MasterCard
within 60 days, Capital One will reimburse you the difference in price,
up to $100 per item and $500 per calendar year. Up to this point, this
feature has only been seen on cards from Citibank Canada.
What is good about this card This card has many great attributes, the sign up bonus of 35,000
miles, the yearly renewal bonus of 10,000 miles, the earning ratio of
2 Miles per dollar, no fee for the supplementary card and the whole
host of insurance including the trip cancellation and price protection
guarantee.
What is not so good about this
card
I can only think of two potential downfalls to this card, both of which
may not even come into play for many people. The first is that this
card offers no business class lounge access or at least a free membership
into the Priority Pass lounge access program like some of the other
high end cards. The second is that the 2% return is eroded on lower
end bookings using the redemption rate chart, for example if you have
an airline ticket costing $250 you have to redeem at the 35,000 mile
level meaning your rate of return is 1.4%.
Conclusion The Capital One Aspire World MasterCard
is ready to set the standard in Canada for travel point credit cards.
With its big bonuses, relatively low costs, good earning ratio, benefit
package and ability to book travel anywhere, we would have to rate this
card as above average in the high end credit card market. In
fact this card easily falls into the top 5 of all credit cards in Canada
for travel rewards. If Capital One markets this card properly to l Canadians,
I think you will see a good amount of them reconsidering what card they
carry in their wallet and making a switch to this one.
We would like to hear your thoughts on the new Capital
One Aspire World MasterCard by commenting on our blog!
The
next card to be released in Canada with the World branding from MasterCard
is the Capital One Aspire World MasterCard. With a scheduled
street date of June 8, 2010, Capital One is once again going to jump
ahead of the pack in regards to reward cards just as they did with the
Miles Plus Platinum MasterCard in 2008. This newest offering from Capital
One is targetted towards the higher end market and is designed to compete
with the Visa Infinite cards that have been attracting a lot of attention
in the last two years. This card may make other credit card issuers
rethink what they are offering due to its large sign up bonus, renewal
bonus, high redemption ratio and a first for travel cards in Canada,
price protection insurance.