Desjardins have posted notices on their website that there are some changes coming to their cards at the end of this month. On June 29 their travel focused portfolio of cards will see adjustments, both good and bad, to several earn rates. The cards affected by these changes are the Desjardins Odyssey World Elite Mastercard, Desjardins Odyssey Gold Visa and Desjardins Odyssey Visa Infinite Privilege.
Let’s look at those changes:
Desjardins Odyssey World Elite Mastercard
The popular Desjardins Odyssey World Elite Mastercard is on the receiving end of both good and bad change to the earn rates.
It will see a new increased earn rate up to 2% in BONUSDOLLARS on eligible travel purchases. Based on how this card works, the use of terminology of “up to” means there will be an annual cap on the 2% travel rates. So cardholders will earn 2% on all travel purchases until they hit the annual cap limit and then earn 1% (the new base earn, see below) on all travel purchases after that. At the time of posting this article I could not find the details of what the annual cap will be on the travel purchases.
Next the card will also see it’s “Restaurants” accelerated earn rate category boosted to 3% from 2%. This is another “up to” category as dining purchases has an annual cap of $6,000 after which it will earn the new 1% base earn rate.
To offset the new accelerated travel earn rate and increased restaurant rate they are dropping the base earn rate (referred to as All other purchases) to 1% from the current 1.5%.
Unfortunately the change to “all other purchases” from 1.5% to 1% will mean this card will no longer rank in the Top 5 Mastercards to use at Costco as a card needs to offer at least a 1.5% return to do so!
All other earn rates on the card remain the same.
Depending on your spending habits these earn rate changes can be seen as either a win or a loss! If you are not using the card for much spending outside of the accelerated categories it’s definitely a win but if you are a heavy base earn rate spender (ie Costco) it is a pretty big loss.
Click here to learn more about and apply for the Desjardins Odyssey World Elite Mastercard
Desjardins Odyssey Gold Visa
The popular Desjardins Odyssey Gold Visa is also on the receiving end of both good and bad change to the earn rates.
Just like the World Elite Mastercard it will see a new increased earn rate up to 2% in BONUSDOLLARS on eligible travel purchases. Based on how this card works, the use of terminology of “up to” means there will be an annual cap on the 2% travel rates. So cardholders will earn 2% on all travel purchases until they hit the annual cap limit and then earn 1% (the new base earn, see below) on all travel purchases after that. At the time of posting this article I could not find the details of what the annual cap will be on the travel purchases.
To offset the new accelerated travel earn rate they are dropping the base earn rate (referred to as All other purchases) to 0.65% from the current 1%. Ouch! The trade off between the travel purchases earn rate and all other spending is a hard pill to swallow with this card. To be paying a $110 annual fee and only earning 0.65% ranks this card with BMO in my constant berating of the latter bank in that if you are a paying a significant annual fee you should be earning no less than 1% in rewards.
All other earn rates on the card remain the same.
Click here to learn more about and apply for the Desjardins Odyssey Gold Visa Card
Desjardins Odyssey Visa Infinite Privilege
The ultra premium Desjardins Odyssey Visa Infinite Privilege receives one earn rate change and it’s a negative one at that.
The only change here is to the base earn rate (All other purchases category) which will be dropping down to 1.5% from the current 1.75%. Definitely an unwelcome change and a devaluation no matter what – but surprisingly even at 1.5% the card remains pretty strong compared to its direct competition (Visa Infinite Privilege cards from BMO, CIBC, RBC, Scotia) which is probably why they felt safe enough in making this change and not increasing any other earn rates, which are already quite good on their own right and are staying the same.
Click here to learn more about and apply for the Desjardins Odyssey Visa Infinite Privilege
Wrapping it up
Desjardins is making changes to the earn rates on their travel focused credit card portfolio. Two cards will see both positive and negative changes, while their Ultra Premium card strictly gets a negative change. Depending on a person’s spending habits the changes to the Odyssey World Elite Mastercard and Odyssey Gold Visa card could be seen as either an enhancement or a devaluation while the Odyssey Visa Infinite Privilege cards sees a slight devaluation.
