National Bank offers a great product accessible to all travellers with the National Bank Platinum Mastercard®. Plus the purchase protection offered is some of the best on the market!
Until August 4, 2025, earn up to 25,000 welcome bonus points and a refund of the first year’s annual fee for the primary cardholder ($70) and one additional cardholder ($35).
This National Bank welcome bonus is divided into tiers:
Below is a table to help you optimize your welcome bonus with your most common purchases: groceries. In fact, through these purchases, you’ll earn up to 2 points per dollar, making it easier to unlock your bonus points.
Don’t forget that you can also use the grocery store gift card trick to earn 2 points per dollar on these purchases. Alternatively, use one of our many tips for unlocking credit card welcome bonuses.
As you can see, in your first year, you can earn 20,000 welcome bonus points, on top of the 13,000 points you earn through grocery and restaurant purchases.
If you opt for payment protection, you’ll earn an additional 5,000 points (you can cancel payment protection after three months if you no longer want it).
In total, by making purchases and complying with all the conditions of this welcome offer, you could earn 38,000 NBC Rewards points.
Given that we value NBC Rewards points at $0.009, this offer is worth around $342 in points, representing a return of almost 5.3% on your purchases.
With the National Bank Platinum Mastercard®, you can earn up to 2 points per dollar:
*For the Grocery & Restaurant category, you can earn 2 points per dollar up to $1,000 in total monthly card purchases.
Once you’ve reached $1,000 in monthly purchases, you’ll earn 1.5 points per dollar on the Grocery & Restaurant category. This is still very good compared with other cards that offer only one point per dollar after the threshold is reached.
To redeem your rewards points NBC, log on to the National Bank’s À la carte Rewards portal.
Then, you can use your points to book a trip (+ cash if needed ) through the “À la Carte” Travel agency. The rates are the same to those you’ll find at any travel agency.
What’s more, you can also earn NBC rewards points through this agency. This is the best use of points at a rate of 10,000 points per $100 of credit.
You can also use your NBC rewards points as a statement credit for all travel expenses charged to your credit card (redemption must be made within 60 days of the expense being charged to the credit card account).
This gives you the freedom to book as you see fit, for example with Airbnb, organized tours, excursions and so on.
The exchange rate for this type of redemption is
You can also shop for a product in the catalogue offered by NBC À la carte. However, this is not an optimal use of points.
The best way to use your points is to book your trip through the online travel agency Plan à la carte NBC: you’ll earn a $100 credit for every 10,000 points redeemed. Here are the details of your other options:
In terms of protection, the National Bank Platinum Mastercard® stands out when compared with other cards of the same type.
You can find the insurance contract here.
The National Bank Platinum Mastercard® offers $5,000,000 in emergency travel medical coverage.
The National Bank Platinum Mastercard® is one of the only credit cards in Canada to cover most of the cost of your trip, even if you only carry a portion of it.
The coverage will reimburse expenses (…) if at least part of the cost of the trip has been charged to the account. Banque Nationale du Canada
The coverage will reimburse expenses (…) if at least part of the cost of the trip has been charged to the account.
Banque Nationale du Canada
The main differences in coverage with the National Bank Platinum Mastercard® are the length of the trip and the amounts eligible for cancellation/interruption coverage.
When we analyze this data, we can see that this card is perfect for people who like to make several short trips.
For a family of 3, the cost of equivalent travel insurance for a week’s All-inclusive holiday can rise to over $200!
The National Bank Platinum Mastercard® covers you if at least part of the cost of your trip has been charged to your account.
The National Bank Platinum Mastercard® covers you if the full cost of travel on a common carrier has been charged to your account.
The National Bank Platinum Mastercard® covers you if you use your card (or your NBC Rewards points) to pay for your car rental in full.
Similarly, personal belongings in the vehicle are protected.
The National Bank Platinum Mastercard® is one of the only credit cards in Canada to offer 180-day purchase protection (6 months from the date of purchase). Other credit cards offer only 90 days (3 months).
What’s more, the National Bank Platinum Mastercard® is one of the only credit cards in Canada to triple the coverage period on new items covered by an original manufacturer’s warranty valid in Canada.
The National Bank Platinum Mastercard® is a great card to have, especially if you don’t qualify for the high-end National Bank cards.
Actually, the insurance offered for short trips is excellent, and the purchase insurance is identical to its big sister, the National Bank World Elite Mastercard.
Savings are here (if you don’t see the sign-up form, please click here):
