topic Re: Questions about BMO Harris Platinum Rewards in Credit Cards

Questions about BMO Harris Platinum Rewards

user979797 — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 15:36:49 GMT

Hi all. I have been looking for a good Grocery rewards card and have narrowed it down to AOD 3% everything, AMEX Blue Cash Everyday 3% groceries or BMO Harris Platinum Rewards 2% groceries and gas with a 10% anniversary bonus each year.

Does BMO Harris give 10% back of your yearly spend in that category? I read the terms and it looks like that it does but that seems too good to be true so need to ask you wonderful people who may have this card or know about this card just how it works. If it does, then even with the 2% instead of 3%, i'd make more every year with that 10% payout once a year so if anyone knows if this is how it works or not please just let me know.

Thank you in advance everyone

Re: Questions about BMO Harris Platinum Rewards

Credit12Fico — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 16:29:30 GMT

Anniversary Bonus Earn:
i. BMO Harris Bank Platinum Rewards Mastercard:
You will earn an Anniversary bonus equal
to ten percent (10%) of total net purchases
made in the calendar year since the Account’s
Anniversary date.

You may be correct.

Re: Questions about BMO Harris Platinum Rewards

M_Smart007 — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 17:11:42 GMT

This is correct ^^^^^^^^

Re: Questions about BMO Harris Platinum Rewards

coreysw12 — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 17:59:15 GMT

What I'm reading about it, it does not at all sound like you get 10% back on your grocery spend for the year.

It sounds like you get, as an anniversary bonus, an additional 10% of the rewards you earned that year.

And there's a spending cap of $2500/year for groceries, after that it goes down to the normal 1% earning rate.

So for example, if you spend $2500 annually on groceries, you'd earn $50 (2%) in rewards. Then at the end of the year, you'd get a $5 bonus (10% of $50), NOT a $250 bonus (10% of $2500)! If you spent $5000 on groceries, you'd get $75 in rewards on it (2% of $2500, + 1% $2500), and your anniversary bonus would be $7.50, not $1000.

Therefore, the anniversary bonus isn't nearly as cool as it sounds, a 3% grocery card would be a far better option than the BMO card, which is only like a 2.1% card after figuring for its anniversary bonus.

I'm fairly certain that I'm not wrong about this, because that would mean their Premium Rewards card would offer a 15% anniversary bonus on dining and travel spend, which would be an absolutely insane perk that's 3x higher than any other credit card, everyone would be talking about and nobody would ever use any other credit card again

Re: Questions about BMO Harris Platinum Rewards

gregorius — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 17:50:21 GMT

~~The 10% rebate on rewards earned is correct.~~ Edit: I can't remember if this is right...

Before you pull the trigger, read up on redeeming their rewards. A year ago when I SD'ed mine they only offered fixed redemption levels for statement credits, and I recall the smaller amounts giving you less than 1cpp. I think it was something like 0.85cpp for everything up through ~$50 and 1cpp for $100 and $250. There may be a 25% bonus if you redeem points for travel through the portal if you also hold the travel card.

Things may have changed since then, but unfortunately I can't see anything in the rewards portal on my phone.

Re: Questions about BMO Harris Platinum Rewards

icednightpaper — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 18:12:38 GMT

I do not know if you're allowed to be specific about such reasons here, but I am able to give you extremely accurate information regarding BMO Harris cards.

It's $2,500 per quarter (NOT per year) for the categories (@coreysw12), and the anniversary bonus is calculated off your net spend for the year. So if you spent $10,000 total (across all spending categories, not matter what they were), you will get 1,000 points bonus.

It is also true that the statement credit redemption is less than 1 CPP unless you redeem for higher amounts. Travel redemption is indeed 1.25 CPP(@leafonthewind)

Re: Questions about BMO Harris Platinum Rewards

coreysw12 — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 19:50:49 GMT

I just did more reading, and ya, the anniversary bonus is not valued at 10% of your category purchases - rather, they take 10% of the category dollars you spent, and that's how many POINTS (not dollars) you get as a bonus.

So if you spend $10,000 on groceries per year, you'd get:

$125 in rewards (2% of the first $2500, and then 1% of the other $7500)
10,000 point anniversary bonus, which is worth $100.
Total: $225.

With an Amex BCP, if you spend $10,000 on groceries per year, you'd get:

$400 in rewards (6% of the first $6000, and then 1% of the other $4000)

With an everyday 2% or 3% cashback card, if you spend $10,000 on groceries per year, you'd get:

$200 or $300 (respectively) in rewards

So basically, if you spend $10,000/year on groceries, the BMO would only come out ahead of a normal 2% card by $25.

Re: Questions about BMO Harris Platinum Rewards

coreysw12 — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 19:55:18 GMT

@icednightpaper wrote:
the anniversary bonus is calculated off your net spend for the year. So if you spent $10,000 total (across all spending categories, not matter what they were), you will get 1,000 points bonus.

It is also true that the statement credit redemption is less than 1 CPP unless you redeem for higher amounts. Travel redemption is indeed 1.25 CPP(@leafonthewind)

Right, so for $10,000 in category spend, you'd get 1,000 points for your anniversary bonus, which is worth $10 (or less).

OP, and the posts following, seem to imply that the anniversary bonus for $10,000 of category spending would be $1,000. Which is clearly not the case. It's $10.

Re: Questions about BMO Harris Platinum Rewards

coreysw12 — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 19:59:40 GMT

@icednightpaper wrote:
It's $2,500 per quarter (NOT per year) for the categories (@coreysw12), and the anniversary bonus is calculated off your net spend for the year. So if you spent $10,000 total (across all spending categories, not matter what they were), you will get 1,000 points bonus.

It is also true that the statement credit redemption is less than 1 CPP unless you redeem for higher amounts. Travel redemption is indeed 1.25 CPP(@leafonthewind)

Also, 2% cashback on groceries, capped at $2500/quarter seems worse than a Citi DC, for example, which is 2% cashback on everything, with no cap. And, as I covered above already, the anniversary bonus hardly makes up for that

Re: Questions about BMO Harris Platinum Rewards

user979797 — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 19:58:04 GMT

Thank you all so much for the amazing information. I think I will pass on the BMO Harris card for now and keep searching.

Re: Questions about BMO Harris Platinum Rewards

Anonymous — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 20:06:03 GMT

@coreysw12 wrote:

So if you spend $10,000 on groceries per year, you'd get:
$125 in rewards (2% of the first $2500, and then 1% of the other $7500)
10,000 point anniversary bonus, which is worth $100.
Total: $225.
With an Amex BCP, if you spend $10,000 on groceries per year, you'd get:
$400 in rewards (6% of the first $6000, and then 1% of the other $4000)
With an everyday 2% or 3% cashback card, if you spend $10,000 on groceries per year, you'd get:
$200 or $300 (respectively) in rewards

So basically, if you spend $10,000/year on groceries, the BMO would only come out ahead of a normal 2% card by $25.

So given that the $2,500 is per quarter, the first part should be

So if you spend $10,000 on groceries per year, you'd get:

$200 in rewards
10,000 point anniversary bonus, which is worth $100.
Total: $300.

So the same as a 3% card

Re: Questions about BMO Harris Platinum Rewards

user979797 — Thu, 10 Sep 2020 14:14:09 GMT

I actually decided to go with the Penfed 3% grocery 5% gas card because it doesn't have a cap. After researching most of them do so I found that to be best for my situation in obtaining the most rewards. Thanks again

Re: Questions about BMO Harris Platinum Rewards

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Sep 2020 14:35:02 GMT

@user979797 wrote:
I actually decided to go with the Penfed 3% grocery 5% gas card because it doesn't have a cap. After researching most of them do so I found that to be best for my situation in obtaining the most rewards. Thanks again

It's 3/5 points not percent. Turns out to be about 2.54% groceries, 4.2% gas, based on redeeming for gift cards (and that slightly overstates the value)