A look at the new Desjardins Cash Back World Elite Mastercard - a strong contender in our cash back market

 
We have had quite a few of members of our community ask us to cover this new card and to see what we think of it.  So here you go! That new card is the Desjardins Cash Back World Elite Mastercard which appears to have hit our market sometime in October. 

As with any new card it will receive continuing coverage on our site from this point forward and I do foresee a decent amount of coverage since it is definitely a contender in the cash back market. 

Here are the primary details of this new cash back card:

•  Annual Fee $100 Additional Cards: $0 for members ($30 for non-members)
•  Annual interest rate 19.9% on purchases and cash advances
•  $80,000 personal or $150,000 household annual income required

• 4% cash back on eligible grocery purchases
• 3% cash back on eligible restaurant, entertainment and public transportation purchases
• 1% cash back on all other purchases
• Membership in Mastercard Airport Experiences provided by LoungeKey
• Travel Medical Insurance: Up to $5 million of coverage for the first 3 days
• Mobile Device Insurance: Up to $1,000
• Auto Rental Collision/Loss Damage Insurance: Coverage for up to 48 consecutive days.
• Stay connected with free access to over 1 million Boingo Wi-Fi hotspots worldwide.

Right off the bat here's what I can tell you about the card - I'll start with some pros and cons:

Pros:

• Very strong earn rates on popular spend categories - and it appears there are no annual spending caps on those categories (From what I could find at least) and if this is the case then high spenders take note when comparing this card to CIBC, Scotia or TD who all cap their category bonuses
• A lower annual fee compared to its direct competition - only $100 vs. $120
• World Elite Mastercard benefits including LoungeKey (Airport lounge access membership) free Boingo WiFi (includes WestJet flights), credits with Ritual and more.
  

Cons 

• No welcome bonus - Cash Back cards tend not to have standard welcome bonus offers but many do provide limited time offers of up to 10% back on an initial spend amount
• Weak insurance compared to its competitors - this card's travel medical is only good for three days and on top of that it only offers trip cancellation, Auto Rental and Mobile Device insurance
• Minimum $100 cash out level - technically it's not that bad however most other cash back cards in Canada have moved to allowing cardholders to redeem as little as $25 cash back or even less at anytime. This card is anytime as well but it has to be at that $100 level. Still it's better than the few remaining cards that only allow you to cash out once per year. If you want to see how this compares to other cards in terms of accessing your cash back rewards you can see this card in our Guide to Credit Card Cash Back Liquidity

This is a card you get for earning cash back, not so much for additional benefits and insurances. As mentioned above I can't find any reference to there being on a cap on the 4% and 3% cash back categories. If this is truly the case this is the card to get for people who spend well over the $20,000 cap seen from CIBC, the $25,000 cap from Scotia and the $15,000 cap from TD in those higher earn rate categories. You'll need to do the math to see if this card will be right for you and you don't care much for additional benefits which from what we have seen here at Rewards Canada tends to be the case when it comes to cash back cards. As long as the card has Purchase Security and Extended Warranty, which this card does, then most people are happy with just focusing on the earn rates for their cash back cards.

So what do I think? I think this card will fill a niche for the high spender who doesn't want a travel rewards card. If you have average spending then you have more options and it may actually not be the card to get. Considering a lot of competitors will earn roughly the same amount or more and having some of those competitors offer a welcome bonus along with no annual fee in the first year makes this card drop down the list - but only by a little bit. In fact when our updated Top Cash Back Credit Card rankings are released later this month the card will debut on the list in fifth spot which is a pretty good accomplishment for a new card!

Learn more about the new Desjardins Cash Back World Elite Mastercard here.