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When you’re looking to add a new card to your loyalty wallet, and you’re in the market for something a little more premium, you’ve likely looked at the Visa Infinite and Visa Infinite Privilege options that are on offer.
While both types of Visas are available through multiple Canadian banks and have a minimum income requirement, the Visa Infinite Privilege cards set that access barrier all the way up at a six-figure personal income requirement.
Given this, one would assume that these high-end cards offer considerably more than their Visa Infinite relatives, which require a considerably more approachable minimum personal income requirement — but is this actually the case?
In this article, we’ll compare the differences across all relevant areas to see which type of Visa suits you best.
To get a good understanding of the differences between Visa Infinite cards and Visa Infinite Privilege cards, we’ll look at the following categories:
As mentioned above, Visa Infinite cards and Visa Infinite Privilege cards both require that you meet a minimum income threshold in order to be eligible.
These minimum income requirements are:
As you can see, to be eligible the Visa Infinite Privilege tier of cards, you need a whopping 2.5x the personal income requirement requested by the Visa Infinite tier, making these cards inaccessible to most people.
In terms of annual fees, you can expect the following ranges across all Canadian banks:
It’s worth noting that some banks offer a partial rebate on the Visa Infinite Privilege annual fee if you’re a member or if you hold a specific type of account.
That said, these are still considerable expenses just to have a credit card, so let’s continue our exploration of these cards to see if these fees are justified and if these are cards you could keep year after year.
There are over 20 different Visa Infinite cards available through banks and credit unions in Canada, while, comparatively, there are only around 10 Visa Infinite Privilege cards.
From this we can understand that there is more diversity in the Visa Infinite offerings and their characteristics than there is with the Visa Infinite Privilege cards.
Most notably this means that there is more choice in rerward programs at the Visa Infinite tier, including different programs available within the same bank. For example, both CIBC and RBC offer three different Visa Infinite cards for three different rewards programs.
Across the range of Visa Infinite cards, there are around 15 different rewards programs available.
However, at the Visa Infinite Privilege level, your choices go down to 7 different rewards programs.
The types of rewards that you can earn with either a Visa Infinite card or a Visa Infinite Privilege card include:
Visa Infinite cards are available in all of these categories, while Visa Infinite Privilege cards are limited to the latter three.
Additionally, it’s worth noting that overall the Visa Infinite Privilege cards are essentially designed with a traveller in mind since the additional perks and benefits that come with Visa Infinite Privileges tend to be travel focused. (More on this below.)
Both Visa Infinite cards and Visa Infinite Privilege cards offer welcome bonuses to new cardholders if they can meet set spending requirements.
These bonuses are often structured in a way so that you earn the full advertised welcome offer in multiple chunks over the course of your first year as a card member. They also typically include an anniversary bonus that requires you keep the card into the second year if you want to earn the full bonus.
As we would expect, the welcome offers tend to be higher for Visa Infinite Privilege cards than for Visa Infinite cards, but unfortunately, the spending requirements attached usually match this increase.
For example, lets look at two cards from different tiers that both earn Aeroplan points: the TD® Aeroplan® Visa Infinite* Card and the TD® Aeroplan® Visa Infinite Privilege* Card.
As you can see, the both cards offer the chance to earn 55,000 Aeroplan points when you spend $12,000 on the card. However, you have a considerably shorter amount of time to spend this amount with the Visa Infinite Privilege option.
However, this same card does give you a shot at another 30,000 Aeroplan points if you keep spending at the same rate over the second half of your first year as a cardholder, and you hang onto the card for a second year.
In terms of earning rates, Visa Infinite Privilege cards tend to have higher earning rates compared to their same-family Visa Infinite cards.
It’s not really possible to compare earning rates across multiple rewards programs since the value of most currencies are not fixed and can fluctuate considerably depending on how they’re redeemed.
With this in mind, for this category, we’re exclusively comparing the earning rates between the two tiers within the same bank and the same rewards program to demonstrate the incremental differences in earning rates.
Let’s compare the earning rates of the BMO eclipse Visa Infinite* Card and the BMO eclipse Visa Infinite Privilege* Card.
In this chart, we can see that the Visa Infinite Privilege option offers an extra elevated category and also appears to be focused on higher value categories, like travel, with more earning potential.
Looking at the earning rates available with the CIBC Aeroplan® Visa Infinite Privilege* Card and CIBC Aeroplan® Visa Infinite* Card, we can see a similar pattern to above:
Once again, we’re seeing slightly elevated earning rates for the Visa Infinite Privilege card, especially focused in more premium areas like dining out and travel.
Interestingly, redemption options for Visa Infinite cards and Visa Infinite Privilege cards are the same across the board with one exception.
With the CIBC Aventura® Visa Infinite Privilege* Card, you’re allowed to book business class award flights using the CIBC Aventura Flight Rewards Chart. Cardholders with all other Aventura cards are only able to book economy class award flights.
When it comes to insurance coverage, both card tiers offer fairly comprehensive packages, but Visa Infinite Privilege cards tend to expand and improve on what’s offered by their Visa Infinite counterparts.
To get an idea of how your insurance coverage could improve if you were to select a Visa Infinite Privilege card instead of a Visa Infinite card, let’s look at the coverage offered by the RBC Avion Visa Infinite and the RBC Avion Visa Infinite Privilege.
As you can see from the chart above, there are a few coverage areas that receive a boost when you’re a Visa Infinite Privilege cardholder, such as a longer term for your travel medical insurance and higher values for trip cancellation, lost/stolen baggage, and hotel/motel burglary insurance.
In the perks and benefits category, we see the same trend that we saw across the other categories — namely that the Visa Infinite cards give you some solid offerings from which the Visa Infinite Privilege cards expand.
Additionally, some Visa Infinite Privilege cards offer annual travel and/or dining credits that can help offset the high annual fees and make the cards more appealing long-term and in general.
To look at an example, here’s a comparison of the perks and benefits offer by the TD® Aeroplan® Visa Infinite* Card and the TD® Aeroplan® Visa Infinite Privilege* Card.
As we’ve seen across all the other categories, both cards offer a nice selection of benefits, with the Visa Infinite Privilege upping the ante in terms of travel perks.
To really dig in to all the benefits offered by either tier of card, you can always take a look at the Visa Infinite benefits and the Visa Infinite Privilege benefits on their associated websites. Just keep in mind that these lists will not include the additional benefits that are offered by each bank and partnered reward program.
If you qualify for a Visa Infinite Privilege card, they’re usually most valuable when chosen thoughtfully with a good understanding of how you’ll use them to earn and redeem points and take advantage of any perks and annual credits.
However, since they command high annual fees, high income requirements, and a considerable spend requirement to earn the welcome offers, these cards are not particularly accessible.
Comparatively, Visa Infinite cards come in with much lower annual fees and income requirements, all while offering fairly similar earning rates and many of the same benefits.
The Visa Infinite level is definitely the sweet spot where you can earn rewards and build your loyalty wallet without having to be too strategic.
This is also the level where benefits really start to be noticeable – especially compared to the Visa Platinum level, which typically offers fewer perks and benefits and lower earning rates.
In the end, we think that the Visa Infinite cards are the more versatile and accessible option; however, a Visa Infinite Privilege card can also be powerful addition to any rewards wallet — just make sure you do your research before applying.
Visa Infinite cards and Visa Infinite Privilege cards are popular choices thanks to their solid benefits packages, diverse choice of banks and reward programs, and the wide acceptance of Visa around the world.
Luckily, there’s loads of options among this family of cards, so if you’re in the market for a new addition to your wallet, you’re sure to find something that suits your rewards style.
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