Updated January 2021
Here’s my Presidents Choice Mastercard review. My husband and I have joint accounts and we also have a joint credit card, namely a Presidents Choice Mastercard. For our joint credit card (which we use for household spending like groceries, and other joint expenses like eating out) we chose the PC Financial World Elite MasterCard.
Recently PC Financial announce that they are ending the banking services of PC Financial and that CIBC will be taking over PC Financial and rebranding it Simplii starting November 1 2017. Fortunately, the PC Points and PC Financial MasterCard will still be under the realm of PC Financial, so there isn’t any change with the credit card. Apparently Loblaws has given away $1 billion worth of free groceries since starting. That’s a lot of money…amazing isn’t it!
Presidents Choice Mastercard Review
The PC Financial World Elite MasterCard works well for us because we usually shop at Shoppers Drug Mart (I love those 20x the points days) and we also regularly shop at Loblaw’s City Market and No Frills for groceries.
As always we pay off the credit card every month and it’s very important to do so otherwise, the risks (19.97% interest per month) outweigh the benefits of this card!
Here’s some details on the Presidents Choice Mastercard:
The Perks
- No annual fee! My three favourite words.
- You earn 30 PC Optimum points for every $1 spent at Loblaws stores (here is a list), at Shoppers Drug Mart you get 45 PC Optimum Points (which is owned by Loblaw’s) and 10 PC Optimum Points for other purchases, so it works out to be about 3% cash back at Loblaws stores and 1% elsewhere.
- If you book travel through their travel portal, PC Travel, you get 30 PC Optimum Points for each $1 in travel.
- 3 cents per litre in bonus PC Optimum Points for regular gas at Esso gas stations
- PC Points can be collected from the regular PC Optimum card, you just have to link the credit card to the PC Optimum Card. This allows you to collect points even faster, you just have to “load your points” on a weekly basis to get the points added up quickly.
- Travel Emergency Medical Insurance for trips up to 10 days from date of departure, for those under age 65.
- There’s Car Rental Collision/Loss Damage Waiver Insurance
- Free Purchase Assurance in case of theft, loss or damage (first 90 days)
- Free Extended Warranty that doubles the thing you purchased for another year
- Identity Theft Assistant Service
- Concierge Service– to make dinner reservations and reserve event tickets (I haven’t tried this service, it sounds a little snooty to me)
- It is really easy to redeem your points. Basically when you are ringing up your groceries the cashier (only at Loblaw’s stores like Superstore, No Frills, and City Market but not Shoppers Drug Mart, PharmaPrix or TNT Supermarket) asks if you want to redeem your points.
And you say yes. And then your $93.18 grocery bill turns out to be $3.18. The minimum amount of points you can redeem is 10,000 (as of February 1 2018) so basically once you hit $10 worth of points, you can redeem. You just have to have a minimum of 10,000 points, and points can be redeemed by 10,000 increments.
Here’s a picture of my most recent redemption, $90 worth of groceries (probably $40 worth of cheese, right there) for $3.18! Those organic Gala apples were 50% off but they weren’t very good unfortunately!
President’s Choice Mastercard Eligibility
To get approved, you have to have a minimum income of $80,000 annually or household income must be greater than $150,000. You can upgrade to this from another PC Financial card but you have to have the minimum income threshold or have a minimum spend of $25,000 annually on the card (which isn’t hard to do given the cost of living these days!).
Related: Transunion vs Equifax, why the 100 Point Difference?
The PC Financial World Elite Annual Fee
$0. Zero dollars. Music to my ears.
This is probably one of the best no annual fee cards out there, especially a no annual fee World Elite Mastercard, chock full of benefits and perks.
The Verdict:
I’m a big fan of this card because we don’t like to pay so much for groceries and I like not paying an annual fee. For 2017 we have redeemed $470 worth of free groceries. Sure, travel rewards are good but they aren’t as practical as this and with a new baby (spontaneous) travel is likely going to be much more difficult to come by.
I also like the free 10 day emergency travel medical insurance, which is great for those who don’t have it covered under their extended health benefits. This is a huge benefit because often cards have travel insurance for lost baggage, but not many have travel medical insurance.
Readers, do you have the PC Financial World Elite MasterCard?
What is your Presidents Choice Mastercard review?
Is there another card that you prefer?
GYM is a 30 something millennial interested in achieving financial freedom through disciplined saving, dividend and ETF investing, and living a minimalist lifestyle. Before you go, check out my recommendations page of financial tools I use to save and invest money. Don’t forget to subscribe for blog updates, a free dividend yield spreadsheet, and the free Young Money Bootcamp eCourse.
Dear GenY,
Unfortunately, we don’t make enough money to qualify for this card 🙁 We have the basic one that earns 1 point per $10 and will be able to “upgrade” to the 2 points for $20 card this year (and this year only as I took a bunch of capital gains). Not sure if it offers the travel insurance coverage but we travel three times a year (where we require insurance) so this would be a big savings for us!
Do you recall what information you need to show/provide to prove income? I haven’t applied for a credit card in so long.
Besos Sarah.
@Sarah De Diego- Hi Sarah, the travel medical insurance coverage and information is here in the certificate of insurance and basically it’s 10 days for Emergency Medical from date of departure. I think they ask for your social insurance number when you apply (from what I recall) and they will be able to obtain your approximate income. I think it doesn’t hurt to try though, I remember one time I was a bit below the cut off for another card and I still got it anyway.
I just applied for the HSBC World Elite but it sounds like I should have looked more closely at this one. Next time:)
@Caroline- Do you shop at Loblaw’s stores? This one is seriously my favourite. We’ve had so much in free groceries. I lost track. Ooh just had a look at the HSBC world elite. Are you going to travel hack with it?
Hello, I have been reading stories of people not getting credited for the full amount of points they expected and dealing with customer service was a terrible experience for them trying to get their points. I’ve also read many posts where people say their credit limit had been decreasing and credit scores dropping if they use the card a lot even with making full payments on time every time. Have you heard anything about this? I wouldn’t want to sign up for this card if they have issues like these.
@Nik- No I haven’t heard of credit limits decreasing. Some credit cards try to increase my credit limit but I haven’t had that with the PC Financial World Elite. The way they track the points is not very clear though, I must say. Hard to keep track. The other day they didn’t give me my 1700 PC Optimum points for the ‘special offers’ and I had to make a points request on my app. I got approved to get the 1700 points within 1 day but still, good thing that I caught it, sucks that my points didn’t show up.
Thank for your feedback. Would you say that the points issue happens often? Do you keep your receipts then to provide proof? If it happens often, I’m not sure I’d want to be submitting requests all the time for their simple mistakes.
@Nik- Yes, I always keep my receipts anyways and staple them to my credit card bills, so it’s not a big deal. But when you submit the points request, you can just do it from the App and then just input the day in the form on the App, I don’t have to send them my receipt. Then I get a response a few hours to a day later of the points being added.
@Nik- Oh forgot to reply to your other question. I’d say it happens every few months?