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Having a good travel credit card in your wallet can do so much to help make your travels smoother, more affordable, and maybe even a little bit more luxurious.
In this article, we’re going to put two of our favourite travel credit cards, TD First Class Travel Visa Infinite* Card and National Bank World Elite Mastercard, up against one another to see which one takes the top spot.
Read on to find out which card wins!
To make this comparison as fair as possible, we’ll compare the following 6 categories across both cards:
The first category that we’ll look at for our comparison of the TD First Class Travel Visa Infinite* Card and the National Bank World Elite Mastercard® is their welcome offers since these are often what initially catches the attention of a potential new cardholder.
Also, since credit card welcome offers typically change a few times a year, we’ll be comparing the offers that are currently available to not play favourites.
Currently, the TD First Class Travel Visa Infinite* Card is showcasing a particularly valuable welcome offer of up to 165,000 TD Rewards points, structured as follows:
On the other side of our comparison, the National Bank World Elite Mastercard® is offering up to 50,000 À la carte Rewards points to new cardholders, broken down as follows:
Additionally, you can earn an extra 10,000 rewards points if you open an eligible National Bank chequing account within 7 days of applying for the new credit card.
The winner of the welcome offer category is the TD First Class Travel Visa Infinite* Card with its excellent offer of up to 165,000 TD Rewards points for a reasonable minimum spend requirement and timeframe.
Comparatively, the welcome offer attached to the National Bank World Elite Mastercard® just doesn’t offer the same value, and it requires considerably more spending in order to access the bonus points.
That said, it’s important to note that since welcome offers do change often, the winner of this category may shift between the two contenders over time.
The TD First Class Travel Visa Infinite* Card requires that you meet one of the the following minimum income criteria:
Comparatively, the National Bank World Elite Mastercard® card has the following minimum income requirements:
For the minimum income category, the TD First Class Travel Visa Infinite* Card takes the prize since it’s requirements are a bit lower than those needed to get the National Bank World Elite Mastercard®.
The TD First Class Travel Visa Infinite* Card comes with an annual fee of $139.
That said, the card often waives this fee for the first year, and you can have the fee rebated every year if you have a TD All-Inclusive Banking Plan.
The National Bank World Elite Mastercard has an annual fee of $150, but the bank often runs promotions where this fee is waived.
However, National Bank is offering the benefit of reimbursing up to $150 in eligible travel purchases to offset the annual expense.
For the annual fee category, we’re calling it a tie.
Both the TD First Class Travel Visa Infinite* Card and the National Bank World Elite Mastercard have fairly similar annual fees, and currently both cards are either waiving the cost or providing ways to have it offset.
Saving the $139–150 on the annual fee is great for both cards, especially since both cards let you earn valuable rewards, and they offer strong perks and benefits (which we’ll get into just below).
The TD First Class Travel Visa Infinite* Card and the National Bank World Elite Mastercard® earn two different types of points on all card purchases: TD Rewards points and NBC À la Carte Rewards points, respectively.
With the TD First Class Travel Visa Infinite* Card, you can earn up to 8 TD Rewards points per $1 spent.
The card’s earning rates are tiered as shown in the table below:
Additionally, with the TD First Class Travel Visa Infinite* Card, you can earn an annual Birthday Bonus of up to 10,000 TD Rewards points. The exact number of points you receive is calculated as 10% of the total number of points you earned in the 12 months leading up to your card’s anniversary.
The National Bank World Elite Mastercard earns up to 5 NBC reward points per $1 spent, and the earning categories breakdown as follows:
*It’s important to note that with the grocery and restaurant category, the elevated earning rate of 5 points per $1 spent is limited to the first $2,500 in spending each month (across all categories).
After this amount is reached all grocery and restaurant purchases will earn 2 points per $1 spent for the rest of the month.
For this category, we think that both the TD First Class Travel Visa Infinite* Card and the National Bank World Elite Mastercard® offer strong earning rates across many key categories.
However, it’s not really possible to confidently say that one card is better than the other in this area because the value of these earning rates has a lot to do with how you spend your money each month.
Given this, ultimately, the best card for you depends on which categories your spend your money in the most, and which card lets you maximize your earning potential.
Since both the TD First Class Travel Visa Infinite* Card and the National Bank World Elite Mastercard® earn different types of reward points, it’s no surprise that their redemption options differ as well.
In this category, we’ll take a look at the different ways that you can redeem your TD Rewards points and NBC À la Carte Rewards points, and the approximate value that you can net from each option.
The TD First Class Travel Visa Infinite* Card earns TD Rewards points on all your purchases, and with these accumulated points, you can redeem them the following ways:
On the other side of this comparison, the National Bank World Elite Mastercard® can be redeemed through the bank’s À la carte Rewards program a number of different ways:
For this category, both programs offer a nice diversity of redemption options, including multiple ways to redeem points for travel, and the ability to turn your account balances into gift card, merchandise, statement credits, and more.
However, to really sort out the winner of this category, it’s not just about the different ways you can redeem, it’s also really important to look at the available value per point when redeeming.
As we can see above, the National Bank World Elite Mastercard® gives you up to 1 cent per point in value versus the TD First Class Travel Visa Infinite* Card which offers a maximum of 0.5 cents per point. Then, when we then factor in each card’s points-earning opportunities (even with the TD card offering slightly higher earning rates), we can see that the National Bank card offers more redemption value assuming the you spend identically on both cards.
Given this, the National Bank World Elite Mastercard® gets to take home the top prize in this category.
Cardholders of the TD First Class Travel Visa Infinite* Card can enjoy the following perks and benefits:
Cardholders of the National Bank World Elite Mastercard® can enjoy the following perks and benefits:
The TD First Class Travel Visa Infinite* Card and the National Bank World Elite Mastercard® are so well matched that we’re once again calling a category a draw.
As we can see from the list of perks and benefits offered by each card, there’s lots of excellent value to be had.
Both cards offer complimentary lounge access (though the TD card does offer more flexible options here), both cards offer travel credits/reimbursements, and both cards provide cardholders with excellent travel insurance coverages.
From these perks, we can easily see why these two cards are considered a couple of the strongest travel cards in Canada.
Now, after 6 categories worth of comparison, who do we think the winner of this battle is?
Well, as you might have guessed given that 4 categories ended in a tie, we think that both of these cards are incredibly strong contenders and that either one would make an excellent addition to any travel wallet.
The TD First Class Travel Visa Infinite* Card offers a slightly lower annual fee and minimum income requirement, making it a bit more accessible, so these characteristics may be the deciding factor for some people.
Comparatively, the National Bank World Elite Mastercard® is known as one of the best travel Mastercards on the market and has some of the most comprehensive travel insurance coverage available, so if these factors speak to you, this may be your best choice.
If you’re not quite decided, we recommend our articles 8 Reasons to Add the TD First Class Travel Visa Infinite Card to Your Wallet and 8 Reasons to Apply for the National Bank World Elite Mastercard in 2026 to dig into the nuances of each card a little more.
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