The enhancements to the SimplyCash® Card from American Express and SimplyCash® Preferred Card from American Express are now live. First announced back in August, the cards receive accelerated earn rates on top of their already excellent earn rates along with new welcome bonuses as of today. The SimplyCash Preferred card also moves to a monthly fee rather than annual fee and that now works out to just over $20 more per year.
SimplyCash® Preferred Card from American Express
The new welcome bonus offer
As of today any one approved for the SimplyCast Preferred Card will receive the following limited time welcome bonus:
In your first 10 months as a new SimplyCash® Preferred Card from American Express Cardmember, you can earn a $40 statement credit for each monthly billing period in which you spend $750 in purchases on your Card. This could add up to $400 in statement credits in the first 10 months.
Much like the Cobalt Card, the welcome bonus has now moved to the monthly model. There are pros and cons to this move. Up until yesterday the welcome bonus was a 10% earn rate on all spending for the first four months that maxed out at $400 cash back. This new offer is also marketed as $400 but in the end you should actually end up with more cash back than the old offer.
For example – over the span of 10 months with the new offer you have to spend a total of $7,500 (10 x $750). When you do that you’ll earn a total of $400 in statement credits. You will also earn a minimum of 2% on all that spending which gives you $150 in cash back for a total reward of $550. The old offer would give you $400 for your first $4,000 in spending and then 2% on the next $3,500. That 2% on $3,500 works out $70 so you end up with $470 in rewards or $80 less than the new offer.
The con to the new welcome bonus is that if there is any monthly billing period that you don’t spend $750 you don’t get the $40 statement credit that month. Thus you have to stay on top of your spending to make sure you do hit the $750 each and every month for 10 months.
The new fee
The Simply Cash Preferred Card now moves to a $9.99 monthly fee as of today. This works out to $119.88 over the course of a year. Compare this to the current fee of $99 and you can see it is over a 20% increase. This does move the card inline with many of the cards it competes with but you do get the better welcome bonus now if you don’t have this card. If you do have this card the increase in cost should hopefully be offset by the new increased earn rates.
The new earn rates
Here are the earn rates as of October 12:
- 4% cash back on eligible gas station purchases in Canada
- 4% cash back on eligible grocery store purchases in Canada, up to a maximum of $30,000 in purchases posted to your account in this category (equal to $1,200 cash back) annually, and;
- 2% cash back on all other purchases
As you can see not only does the card retain its 2% cash back on all purchases it will now offer 4% back on gas and grocery purchases. This is big as many competing cards only have a 1% base earn rate with their 3%, 4%, or 5% category rates and this card does not see that 2% being dropped.
Click here to learn more and to apply for the SimplyCash Preferred Card.
SimplyCash® Card from American Express
The new welcome bonus offer
As of today any one approved for the SimplyCash Card will receive the following limited time welcome bonus:
In your first 10 months as a new SimplyCash® Card from American Express Cardmember, you can earn a $10 statement credit for each monthly billing period in which you spend $300 in purchases on your Card. This could add up to $100 in statement credits in the first 10 months
Here we see the welcome bonus move to a monthly model as well and it is lower than the old limited time offer that was available up until yesterday. I would assume they have brought in a lower welcome bonus as the card now sees increased earn rates all the while remaining a no fee credit card.
The new earn rates
Here are the earn rates as of October 12:
- 2% cash back on eligible gas station purchases in Canada
- 2% cash back on eligible grocery store purchases in Canada, up to a maximum of 15,000 in purchases posted to your account in this category (equal to $300 cash back) annually, and;
- 1.25% cash back on all other purchases
As you can see the card retains its 1.25% cash back on all purchases but now offers 2% back on gas and grocery purchases. This is great news for those who have this card or are considering it as you can earn a lot of cash back compared to the competition. Yes, there are competitors who may have slightly higher category earn rates (3% on groceries for example) however those rates are capped at lower amounts and almost all the competitors base earn rates are much lower at 0.5% to 1%.
Click here to learn more and to apply for the SimplyCash Card.
Wrapping it up
Some great changes took effect today from American Express for their portfolio of cash back credit cards. They have made these excellent cards even better and more competitive. The SimplyCash Preferred Card, which we rank as the third best cash back card in Canada may just move up to being the second once we run the numbers on its new earn rates and monthly fees. While the no Fee SimplyCash Card with 1.25% and 2% earn is one of the best in Canada – especially so seeing as you don’t have to have $80,000 in personal or $150,000 in household income like the card we’d consider as its closest competitor.