A few weeks ago we let you know about negative changes coming to many of the premium BMO cards however at that time we didn’t know if there were changes being planned for the ultra premium BMO eclipse Visa Infinite Privilege Card. Thanks to Chris on the RWRDS Canada Facebook Group we now know there will be changes to this card as well. They are not as bad as what is being implemented on the other cards but nonetheless there is nothing positive in these changes.
Annual fee increase
The first change you’ll notice in the notice sent out to BMO eclipse Visa Infinite Privilege cardholders is an increase to annual fee. As of February 3, 2025 the annual fee will jump by $100 from $499 to $599 per year. And what do cardholders get for this increase? Nothing! At least nothing had been announced yet. I asked Chris in our Facebook Group if there was any mention of additional benefits etc. to come from the increased fee and he told me, no there was not.
We haven’t seen too many increases in annual fees as of late, the most notable were from American Express on their Platinum and Business Platinum cards but they actually added more benefits to the cards in return (Whether cardmembers use those benefits is another story) but I think you get my point here.
Unless BMO reveals some extra benefits to this card by February 3, 2025 this will be the next WTF moment for the bank as this card is already one of the weakest Ultra Premium cards in the market. This is primarily due to its less than 1% base earn rate, yes, here you have a $499 card, soon to be $599, that only awards 0.67% outside of the accelerated earn rates. And remember those 5x points accelerated earn rates aren’t actually worth 5x, they are 3.3% which can be boosted to ~4.19 with the supplementary card bonus. (Must read: When earning 5x points isn’t the same as earning 5x points – a loyalty lesson)
Annual spending cap moves from overall to category based
Just as we saw with its premium card sibling, the BMO eclipse Visa Infinite Privilege will see its annual spending cap on accelerated earn rates move from being an overall spend cap to being split amongst the categories.
- Starting Feb 3rd, 2025, we’re introducing individual category spend caps to the accelerated categories, which can be calculated from January 1st to December 31st each year:
- Dining and travel: $25,000 per category, per year
- Groceries: $20,000 per year
- Gas and drugstore: $15,000 per category, per year
Currently the card’s annual cap is $100,000 in spending across all those categories. If you add up the new category caps it works out to… $100,000. In my opinion this change to the card is relatively minor as it retains the same value and the new amounts allotted to each category are relatively high in that most cardholders may not even reach those caps.
Wrapping it up
The BMO eclipse Visa Infinite Privilege Card will be undergoing some changes in 2025 just like the other BMO credit cards. While not as bad as the changes to those other cards, this update to the BMO eclipse VIP can only be seen as a devaluation due to the increase in the annual fee. I may change my tone if BMO adds some extra benefits to the card but seeing what BMO has been doing with their cards for the past 6-8 years, that’s highly doubtful. Sometimes I ask myself, why does BMO even issue credit cards outside of their AIR MILES co-brand cards if they are just going to keep chipping away at them like this?