Review: Desjardins Cash Back World Elite Mastercard

Desjardins Cash Back World Elite Mastercard

The Desjardins Cash Back World Elite Mastercard is one of a handful of credit cards offered by the Desjardins Group, and it represents a mid-tier option in the cash back family.

For a reasonable annual fee, this card lets you earn cash back on all your purchases and offers a range of benefits to help save money in other ways.

Key Information

• Annual fee: $100
• Minimum income requirements: $80,000 personal income or $150,000 household income
• Earn up to 4% cash back on your purchases
• Comes with a range of travel and product insurance

Advantages to the Desjardins Cash Back World Elite Mastercard

The Desjardins Cash Back World Elite Mastercard offers cardholders a number a positive features, so let’s take a look at some of the most notable.

Earn cash back

With the Desjardins Cash Back World Elite Mastercard, it’s easy to earn cash back on all your purchases, whether you’re using the card for groceries, dining out, or tickets to your favourite sports team.

Plus, as you build up your total cash back, it’s automatically credited to your account once you have $100 accumulated, making the redemption process incredibly straightforward.

The Desjardins Cash Back World Elite Mastercard offers elevated earning rates in 4 popular spending categories, as follows:

• Earn 4% cash back on eligible groceries purchases
• Earn 3% cash back on eligible restaurant purchases
• Earn 3% cash back on eligible entertainment purchases (e.g. event tickets, amusement parks, tourist attractions)
• Earn 3% cash back on alternative transportation purchases (e.g., buses, trains, taxis, and rideshares)
• Earn 1% cash back on all other purchases

With these elevated earning rates, it’s important to remember that the categories are coordinated using merchant category codes. This means that not every purchase that seems like it should qualify for an elevated rate will.

Notably, in the grocery category, many Walmarts and all Costcos will NOT be eligible for the elevated rate and will instead qualify for the 1% cash back rate.

Additionally, with the Desjardins Cash Back World Elite Mastercard, the earning rate for both the groceries and the restaurants category are capped.

You can enjoy the card’s elevated earning rate up to maximum spend of $10,000 annually on groceries and $6,000 annually on restaurants, after which your earning rate will go down to the baseline rate of 1%.

Travel insurance for short trips

Another solid feature of the Desjardins Cash Back World Elite Mastercard is its travel insurance offerings, setting you up to save on your next trip away.

In fact, this is one of only a handful of Canadian credit cards that offers travel insurances for travellers up to the age of 74!

Although the travel insurance coverage is only provided for a maximum of 3 days, this can still be quite helpful for long weekends away.

Also, the coverage not only applies to the cardholder but also to their spouse and their dependent children.

The insurance coverage available with the Desjardins Cash Back World Elite Mastercard includes:

• emergency medical coverage (up to $5 million per person)
• trip cancellation coverage
• lost, stolen, and delayed baggage coverage

Travel perks

In addition to the above travel insurance coverage, the Desjardins Cash Back World Elite Mastercard also offers the following helpful travel perks:

• Free membership to Dragonpass for access to 1,300+ airport lounges (though each lounge visit will still cost $32 USD)
• Free FlexiRoam eSIM
• Access to unique travel experiences with Mastercard’s Priceless.com
• Ability to earn cash back around the world with Mastercard Travel Rewards

Mobile device insurance, product protection, and extended warranty

If you’re buying a new a mobile device, like perhaps the newest iPhone, the Desjardins Cash Back World Elite Mastercard can help you keep your investment safe thanks to its mobile device insurance coverage of up to $1,500 in case of loss, theft, accidental damage, or mechanical failure.

Additionally, as a cardholder, you also enjoy the product protection and extended warranty feature, helping provide you with peace of mind for new purchases.

Spend at Costco

For all you Costco fans, the Desjardins Cash Back World Elite Mastercard will serve you well since, as a Mastercard, it’s one of the eligible payment cards that can be used for this warehouse of savings and stocking up.

Just remember that Costco purchases don’t qualify as grocery purchases (they’re usually coded as Wholesale Clubs), so the money spent here will only earn the base rate of 1%.

Save on car rentals

As a Desjardins Cash Back World Elite Mastercard holder, you can also save every time you rent a car.

When renting a car with Hertz, Thrifty, or Dollar, you’ll get up to 25% off the rental rate, plus several other perks, such as no young driver surcharge and no surcharge for a second driver.

As a cardholder, you can also enjoy car rental collision and loss damage insurance for up to 48 days when you pay the total cost of the car rental with your card.

Given that rental insurance, the young driver surcharge, and the additional driver surcharge tend to each cost $20+/day, these features can save you quite a bit over the course of your rental!

Our Review of the Desjardins Cash Back World Elite Mastercard

Overall, the Desjardins Cash Back World Elite Mastercard is pretty decent credit card option, especially if you’re already a fan of the Desjardins Group.

The solid cash back earning rates in key categories really helps elevate this card by giving cardholders a simple and straightforward rewards-earning experience.

That said, it would also be nice to see the earning category limits set a bit higher. Although, $10,000 for the groceries category and $6,000 for the restaurants category are not unreasonable limits, but it would still be ideal to see these stepped up a bit.

Additionally, the card doesn’t really have perks that make it stand out from its peers, so it would be great to see a bit more added in this area.

For example, extending the number of days offered for travel insurance would certainly make the card more useful for travellers, and I’d love to see an expansion of what’s already on offer in terms of car rental and travel perks – perhaps by adding a couple of complimentary DragonPass lounge passes.

Bottom Line

The Desjardins Cash Back World Elite Mastercard is a solid card for someone who likes the simplicity of cash back and who can take advantage of the higher earning rates in the grocery, restaurants, entertainment, and alternative transportation categories.

The card is also a good choice for Costco shoppers, travellers who often take shorter trips and who can use the travel insurance, or someone who has upcoming plans to buy a new mobile device.

We hope you found this review helpful in getting to know one of the Desjardins Group’s credit card offerings. To learn more about their products, check out our additional reviews and articles below:

FAQs

Why don’t I get the 4% grocery cash back at Walmart and Costco?

In order to qualify for the 4% cash back in the groceries category, the retailer must show up on your credit card statement under the “Grocery” merchant category code.

Unfortunately, despite their popularity for grocery purchases, Costco typically falls under the “Wholesale Club” category and many Walmart locations are listed in the “Discount Store” category.

However, it’s worthwhile to check your credit card statement to see how your local Walmart is categorized as some Walmart locations are listed in the “Grocery” category.

What counts in the Entertainment category for the Desjardins Cash Back World Elite Mastercard?

The Desjardins Cash Back World Elite Mastercard’s website lists the following merchant categories as qualifying for the “Entertainment” earning rate: theatrical productions, ticket agencies, bands (concerts), orchestras, tourist attractions and exhibits, movie theatres, amusement parks, carnivals, circuses, zoos, aquariums, etc.

The qualifying merchant category codes are 7922, 7929, 7991, 7832, 7996, 7998.

What counts in the Alternative Transportation category for the Desjardins Cash Back World Elite Mastercard?

According to Desjardins’ website, the following merchant categories qualify for the Alternative Transportation earning rate: commuter passenger transportation (local and suburban), taxis, limousines, buses, public charging stations.

These represent merchant category codes 4111, 4131, 4121, 4789, and 5552 in the Mastercard payment network.

What counts in the Restaurants category for the Desjardins Cash Back World Elite Mastercard?

You can enjoy the elevated earning rate in the Desjardins Cash Back World Elite Mastercard’s “Restaurants” category at restaurants, including fast-food restaurants representing merchant category codes 5812 and 5814.