BMO introduces two new small business cards - the BMO AIR MILES World Elite Business Mastercard & BMO Rewards World Elite Business Mastercard

 Today BMO introduced two new small business Mastercards that replace a couple of their current  offerings. The two new cards are the 

• BMO AIR MILES®† World Elite®* Business Mastercard®* 
• BMO Rewards® World Elite®* Business Mastercard®*

These cards are now being offered in place of the the BMO AIR MILES Business Mastercard and the BMO Rewards Business Mastercard. Outside of now being World Elite Mastercards the new cards have different earn rates, annual fees and benefits from those seen on the cards they replace. Let's take a look at these two new offerings:

BMO AIR MILES®† World Elite®* Business Mastercard®*

• Welcome Offer: Get 3,000 AIR MILES Bonus Miles when you spend a minimum of $5,000 in the first three months. Plus, we’ll waive the $149 annual fee for the first year!
• Get 4x the Miles when you use your card at participating AIR MILES partners
• Get 1 Mile for every $12 you spend
• What makes this card unique: Become A Cardholder & Get Access To Virtual On-Demand Healthcare With Maple*
• Extra Features: Travel Protection (car rental damage, trip interruption, baggage delay, and more) & get up to 22 additional cards so employees can easily make purchases on behalf of your business
  

The Welcome Offer of 3,000 AIR MILES Bonus Miles and first year annual fee waiver is the same as we saw on the card it replaces but you will want to note the annual fee is now increased to $149 from $120. With that increase you do get changes in earn rates and some additional new benefits.

In terms of everyday earning this card actually earns less AIR MILES Reward Miles than the card it replaces on non AIR MILES partners purchases. The old card earned 1 mile for every $10 and this new World Elite version is 1 mile for every $12. Where they shift to make up for that is offering 4x miles when you use the card at participating AIR MILES partners. That effectively works out to 1 Miles for every $3 spent and is a great earn rate but you have to know that you are limited in where you can earn it.   So with some planning and strategic spending you can really rack up a lot of AIR MILES with this card as no other card in the market can earn 1 AIR MILE Reward Miles for every $3 spent. Click here to see the participating AIR MILES partners. The list of partners can change at anytime.

After the earn portion you have the redemption side of things which is with AIR MILES and not BMO. You have the option of Cash Miles where you can redeem 95 miles for $10 off at select AIR MILES partners or you Dream Miles where you can redeem for travel, merchandise and so much more. Currently we value an AIR MILES Reward Mile at 11 to 15 cents when you redeem for travel but that will most likely change in a few days when the new AIR MILES Flights is introduced. 

 
Next up are the benefits, the card comes with a full suite of travel insurance like trip cancellation, car rental CDW coverage and much more. And now that the card is a World Elite Mastercard it gets some extra benefits but the benefits for Business World Elite Mastercards are different than the consumer ones. This card does get airport lounge access via Mastercard Airport Experiences at 400+ airports Worldwide although with no annual free lounge visits. There is no free Boingo WiFi and no Ritual benefit but what you get are discounted productivity tools from companies like Salesforce essentials and Intuit. You also get the Mastercard World Elite concierge services and Mastercard Travel & Lifestyle services. 

The one benefit this card and the other new BMO World Elite Business card get is one that we haven't seen any issuer provide before and that's access to virtual on-demand healthcare with Maple. Maple runs  $49 per visit and you get five free virtual care visits so that's a big value this new benefit provides.

Click here to learn more or apply for the BMO AIR MILES World Elite Business Mastercard

BMO Rewards® World Elite®* Business Mastercard®

• Get up to 50,000 BMO Rewards points when you spend $5,000 in the first three months. Plus, we’ll waive the $149 annual fee for the first year!
• Earn 4 BMO Rewards points for every $1 you spend on gas, office supplies and cell phone/internet bill payments*
• Earn 1.5 BMO Rewards points for every $1 you spend*
  
• Enjoy VIP Airport Lounge Access at more than 400+ airports worldwide. You’ll get two complimentary lounge visits each year
• What makes this card unique: Become A Cardholder & Get Access To Virtual On-Demand Healthcare With Maple*
• Extra Features: Travel Protection (car rental damage, trip interruption, baggage delays, and more) & get up to 22 additional cards so employees can easily make purchases on behalf of your business

The welcome offer of 50,000 BMO Rewards and first year annual fee waiver is the same as we saw on the card it replaces but you will want to note the annual fee is also being increased to $149 from $120. With that increase you do get changes in earn rates and some additional new benefits.

This card sees a nice boost in its accelerated categories earn rate over the card it replaces to 4 points per dollar spent on gas, office supplies and cell phone/internet from the previous 3.  In terms of everyday earning this card earns the same amount of BMO Rewards Points as the card it replaces so no devaluation here like the new business AIR MILES card..

BMO Rewards points can now be redeemed at a rate of 150 points to $1 towards travel booked via BMO Rewards. That means each point you earn has a value of  0.667 cents. So if you take the earn rates from above your rate of return is 0.667% on everyday spending and 2.668% on the accelerated categories of on gas, office supplies and cell phone/internet. Ideally you'll want to put as much spending as you can in those categories. To redeem your best bet is to go online to book your travel as the call center for BMO Rewards will charge you a phone in fee. 

Next up are the benefits, the card comes with a full suite of travel insurance like trip cancellation, car rental CDW coverage and much more. Just like the AIR MILES World Elite Business Mastercard it gets some extra benefits but they are the benefits for Business World Elite Mastercards as outlined above. This card does get airport lounge access via Mastercard Airport Experiences at 400+ airports Worldwide with two free lounge visits per year. 

Also like it's AIR MILES sibling this card also gets the brand new virtual on-demand healthcare with Maple benefit. 

Click here to learn more or apply for the BMO Rewards World Elite Business Mastercard

Wrapping it up

In my opinion the new BMO Rewards World Elite Business Mastercard is the highlight here as it truly does get better than the card it replaces. It has an overall better earn rate, a great insurance package and a lounge access program. The BMO AIR MILES World Elite Business Mastercard is flat for me - not better nor worse than the card replaces. It has the better earn rates at AIR MILES partners but that's offset by a lower earn rate on all other spending all with a higher annual fee. Still, if your business is big into earning AIR MILES the card will be a good option for you if you can use the card(s) lots at the participating AIR MILES partners.