The main advantage of this card is that it has no annual fee and does not require a predefined annual income.
However, it does offer an interesting welcome bonus, spread over the first 6 months of card ownership.
The MBNA Smart Cash Platinum Plus Mastercard allows you to earn 2% cash back on your gas and grocery purchases at any time. Which is a good thing for a free credit card.
And for the first 6 months, instead of 2%, you’ll get 5% cash back on your gas and grocery purchases. This bonus applies until the total gas and grocery purchases for the applicable month reaches $500: above $500 per month, the usual cash back rate of 2% applies.
So, if you charge $500 worth of gas and groceries per month for 6 months, you can get up to $150 in cash back!
Don’t forget! Gas stations and grocery stores are the most popular places to find gift cards (Amazon, SAQ, Gap…), allowing you to categorize these purchases in the 2% cash back category (5% during the welcome promotion)!
You will get 0.5% for all other purchases, which is similar to most other cards on the market with no annual fee, and accessible to most people ( = it does not require an annual income of $60-80,000). Like the Tangerine Money-Back Credit Card for example.
Since it is a Mastercard, you will be able to use it for your purchases at Costco.
If you want to get 1% cash back on all your purchases, you’ll have to turn to its “big sister”, the MBNA Smart Cash World Mastercard®, but it has an annual fee of $39.
Otherwise, still on MBNA’s side, the other solution would be to turn to the MBNA Rewards Platinum Plus® Mastercard®, which is free and allows you to earn 1 point per dollar everywhere (a 1% cash back if used on a travel expense)!
The MBNA Smart Cash Platinum Plus Mastercard is attractive for those who don’t want to pay an annual fee on their credit card while enjoying great cash back on everyday purchases such as gas and groceries.
Its welcome bonus, spread over the first 6 months, is also interesting since you can get up to $150.
Finally, if you are just starting out in the world credit cards, this card can be interesting to keep, year after year, so that you can have it in your credit history!
Savings are here:
