Last week it was announced the BMO AIR MILES Mastercards will be receiving a full time grocery store purchase accelerator in light of AIR MILES losing the Empire group of stores as a partner. The news revealed the co-brand cards will earn 2x AIR MILES Reward Miles on purchases at all grocery stores but as we have learned now the press release from BMO omitted one key detail about the new accelerator.
$500 Monthly Cap on 2x Grocery Accelerator
Thanks to our readers Adam M. and Harry B who have the BMO AIR MILES®† World Elite®* MasterCard®* we have learned there will be a cap on this new grocery store accelerator. An email was sent out to BMO AIR MILES cardholders last week after this news came out and the T&C’s in the email revealed this cap.
The cards’ new 2x grocery accelerator will be capped at $500 per statement cycle which matches several other BMO cards. This cap is low when compared to competing credit cards and with the cost of groceries these days it won’t take long to meet or exceed. I personally don’t have this card but if I did I’d be hitting that cap in
about a week and half so the other two and half weeks of the month I’d be losing out.
At $500 per month the base AIR MILES Mastercard will be limited to earning 20 extra AIR MILES per month and the World Elite Mastercard will be just over double that at around 41 extra miles.
Wrapping it up
Just as it seems BMO can give a little to their cardholders they take it right back. Yes the good news is cardholders are getting this 2x earn rate for shopping at any grocery stores not just AIR MILES partners . However the bad news is this accelerator is being capped at $500 a month. With this low of cap, especially on the World Elite card, cardholders really need to contemplate if this is the right card to be carrying in their wallet seeing that you can get a lot more value out of other cards especially on the grocery side of things.