BMO offers a credit card as part of its BMO Rewards program: the BMO eclipse rise Visa* Card.
This credit card is ideal for Generation Z and millennials, with the following features:
Before analyzing this card in detail, here’s the current welcome offer:
The new BMO eclipse rise Visa* Card is a no-annual-fee credit card with travel points, requiring no minimum income.
With this offer, you can earn up to 25,000 points as a welcome bonus:
What’s more, you can benefit from an interest rate of 0.99% on balance transfers for nine months (a 2% balance transfer fee applies).
With the new BMO eclipse rise Visa* Card, you earn :
You can use BMO Rewards points for all travel purchases made through theagency or website of your choice (airline tickets, hotels, car rentals, all-inclusives, Airbnb, etc.) or for rewards and gift cards on the BMO Rewards platform.
The new BMO eclipse rise Visa* Card also offers:
With the BMO eclipse rise Visa* Card you can earn 5 points for every $2 spent on:
BMO obviously wanted to stick to the “5X points” marketing pitch already used for its other products such as the BMO eclipse Visa Infinite* Card, BMO eclipse Visa Infinite Privilege* Card or the BMO Ascend World Elite Mastercard.
However, here, unlike these other three products, the 5x points are not per dollar, but per two dollars of purchases. So 5 points per $2 is equivalent to 2.5 points per dollar.
The same applies to all other purchases, where you can earn 1 point for every $2 spent. This amounts to 0.5 points per dollar.
In addition to earning BMO Rewards points through your purchases with the BMO eclipse rise Visa* Card you can also earn up to 5,000 bonus points each year, in two ways:
While we do not recommend the first option, as it does not offer good value for your points (compared to travel or BMO investment financial products), we do encourage you to pay off your credit card balance in full every month, on time.
Not only will you improve your credit score, but BMO will give you 2,500 bonus BMO Rewards points (a $16 value according to our estimate).
As mentioned in our guide to the BMO Rewards program, here’s a chart of your options:
As you can see, the value of your BMO Rewards points can vary greatly.
One thing’s for sure: don’t use them for Statement credit – it’s the worst possible use!
If you don’t travel, you may prefer to put these points in an investment account, or exchange them for experiences or even merchandise/gift cards!
The BMO eclipse rise Visa* Card has no annual fees.
This makes this credit card an excellent starting point for your credit history. Keep it year after year to improve your credit score. However, once you have a more substantial income, consider a credit card offering more rewards and benefits/insurance.
The BMO eclipse rise Visa* Card may also be of interest to those wishing to transfer their credit card balance and benefit from a low interest rate for several months on the transferred balance. In fact, by subscribing to the BMO eclipse rise Visa* Card you can benefit from a rate of 0.99% on balance transfers (with a 2% transfer fee).
Although the BMO eclipse rise Visa* Card has no annual fee, it does come with insurance for your purchases, including mobile device insurance. This insurance will provide you with up to $1,000 of protection.
The BMO eclipse rise Visa* Card targets a specific audience: young Canadians of Generation Z (18 – 24) and millennials (25 – 34).
In this sense, we include targeted purchase categories such as groceries, restaurants, takeaway food or recurring payments.
However, it’s unfortunate that BMO used the 5x points marketing pitch, which can be misleading compared to other cards that truly offer 5x points per dollar of purchase, such as the American Express Cobalt® Card the National Bank World Elite Mastercardthe MBNA Rewards World Elite® Mastercard® and the Scotiabank Gold American Express® Card. Where this BMO eclipse rise Visa* Card offers only 5 points per two dollars in purchases. That’s 2.5 points per dollar.
Also, given that the value of BMO Rewards points is lower than that of the cards mentioned above, 2.5 points per dollar corresponds to an effective return of 1.67% – when BMO points are used optimally. In the end, this is still a good deal for a card with no annual fee (fees are often a disincentive to take out a credit card – even though some high-end credit cards have no fees in the first year).
On the other hand, by offering only 1 point per $2 of purchases for all other purchases, this corresponds to an effective return of 0.33%. Many other no-annual-fee credit cards offer better returns, such as:
The BMO eclipse rise Visa* Card is an attractive card for those new to credit. After that, however, we advise you to switch to a credit card offering more benefits and rewards for your purchases!
Savings are here (if you don’t see the sign-up form, please click here):
