Neo Financial and Tims Financial recently expanded the redemption options on the Tims Mastercard and the Secured Tims Mastercard to include a statement credit option. I do apologize for the lateness of the post on this topic, I have been meaning to write about this for sometime now but it’s been a bit overshadowed by Neo’s other card the Cathay World Elite Mastercard, the HSBC-RBC transitions and the list goes on!
Tims Credit Card holders can redeem Tim Rewards points for statement credits
Back in November of 2023 Neo and Tims Financial added a new redemption option for Tims Mastercard and the Secured Tims Mastercard holders to be able to redeem their Tims Rewards points for statement credits. This essentially provides a cash back option to the card.
When you have enough Tims Rewards Points in your account you can redeem them for a statement credit of $5 to $45 (available in increments of $5), every 7 days. The statement credit is applied to your credit card account for eligible transactions in your current billing cycle. Restrictions do apply and Neo states to see their Statement Credit Terms & Conditions for complete details
Statement credit redemption rate
The redemption rate for this option is 1,250 points for a $5 statement credit. The minimum redemption is 1,250 points and maximum is 11,250 points every 7 days.
Is there value in the statement credit option?
If we take the 1,250 points = $5 statement credit ratio that works out to a value of 0.4 cents per point. When you redeem points for purchases at Tims you should be able to get roughly 0.5 cents per point. That means on average the statement credit option provides about 20% less value than using the points for redemptions at Tim Hortons.
So the value is definitely less than when using the points at Tim Hortons but if we look at the earn to burn ratio, this statement credit option actually makes the card a 2% cash back card for its accelerated earn categories – that’s pretty darn good! But what isn’t pretty darn good and is actually pretty darn bad is the base earn rate which only equals 0.2% cash back.
The effective cash back returns with the statement credit option are:
- 2% return on gas, transit and groceries
- 2% return on Tims purchases (not including the points earned with your regular Tims Rewards loyalty card)
- 0.2% return on all other purchases
What this means is if the card is only used for purchases in the accelerated earn rate categories, it is actually competes well against other no fee cash back cards options.
Wrapping it up
Neo Financial and Tims Financial have added one reward option to their Tims Mastercard and the Secured Tims Mastercard in an attempt to make the card more competitive. Prior to this statement credit option, the card was very limiting in its rewards as you could only redeem the points at Tims but now the card has also become a general cash back card. And if we ignore the extremely low base earn rate, it’s actually a competitive cash back card. But we can’t ignore the base earn rate and with other no fee cards like the CIBC Dividend® Visa* Card and the Tangerine Money-Back Credit Card also offering 2% accelerated earn rates coupled with 0.5% base earn rates, in most cases you’re still better off with those other cards.