RWRDS Canada prides itself on having some of the most comprehensive credit card comparison charts that are used by many to when selecting a new credit card. But, did you know they also come in handy for the credit cards you already have?
One of our readers let us know they use the charts to compare insurance coverage of the cards in their wallet to determine which they should use to pay for their travel. This can helpful as you may have one card that’s better for baggage coverage and another that’s better for flight delay and yet another that’s better for car rental CDW coverage etc.
For example, if you are buying flights for a route that is known to suffer from a lot of delays, you may want to use the card with better flight delay coverage. If you are taking a trip where you know you will be checking luggage, you may want to use the card that provides better baggage delay/lost/stolen coverage and so on.
Or in the case of a car rental, perhaps you will be going for a longer duration trip and will benefit from the card in your wallet that provides 48 days of coverage instead of the one that is only 31 days.
The charts can also be used to compare earn rates and relative value of those earn rates and thus they’ll help you determine which card you should use on certain purchases to maximize your return.
How to compare the cards in your wallet
To compare the cards that you have in your wallet simply navigate your way to our Comparison Charts and then select All Travel Rewards Cards if you want to compare your travel cards or All Cash Back Cards to compare your cash back cards. We recommend you do the comparison on a desktop or laptop computer as the sheer size of data comprised in the all the rows and columns makes it difficult to view on mobile.
Once you have selected which chart you want to compare cards on you’ll want to click on the drop down menu icon located right above the table:
This drop down menu lists all the cards that are part of the particular table and that can be compared. To begin with you’ll want to uncheck the “toggle all” option which will clear out all the cards (except for the very first one alphabetically)
Once you have done that you can select the cards you want to compare within this drop down menu – whether it’s one, three, five, ten or however many you like. You’ll want to uncheck the very first option that remained in place from the “Toggle All” if you don’t want to have that particular card in your comparison.
For the following example we went with someone who has the American Express Cobalt Card, MBNA Rewards World Elite Mastercard and the TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite Card in their wallet and selected those from the drop down menu:
Once you have selected the cards you want to compare simply click anywhere outside the drop down menu to close it and the table will be populated with the details of your selections. In our example, the three cards are the only ones displayed in the table:
The charts have a wealth of information starting with the card basics as shown above and then it moves into earn rates:
Very handy! You can see which card you should be using for each spending category! This is followed by any caps on spending and the very important categories of points value and redemption. Remember, you always have to look at the earn and burn ratio, not just one or the other!
Then you have a section on card benefits (no screenshot shown) followed by the insurance coverage, which may be the most important part when comparing the cards that you already have. In our three card example you can see it is probably best to buy flights with the TD Aeroplan Visa Card unless you want to make a points redemption from one of the other cards.
The insurance comparison continues and here you can see if you were renting a car, the best option out of these three would be the American Express Cobalt Card, not only for duration but also for maximum MSRP value. And don’t pay for your hotel with the MBNA card as there is no burglary coverage!
That’s all there is to it! It’s a pretty simple yet powerful tool for comparing all aspects of Canadian rewards cards – whether they are in your wallet or not.
What if you want to compare a Travel Card against a Cash Back card?
Right now that option is not available on RWRDS Canada. We’ve heard from several of our readers about adding a comparison chart that includes all travel and cash back cards and we are planning to offer one at some point in the near future. There is a lot of data between the two primary types of rewards credit cards, however it is not all the same data, travel cards have some items on the list that cash back do not and vice versa so it isn’t as simple as combining the data from the two varieties. So it will take a bit of work on our end to get it done but it will be done!
Wrapping it up
Not only do RWRDS Canada’s comparison charts come in handy when trying to find a new credit card but they are a great tool to compare your existing cards to see which provide the best insurance, earn the most points and so forth. You can also use them to compare your existing cards with any potential new cards you are considering to see if it is worth it to add that card to your wallet or make a switch from one you have to another.
Click here to see all of RWRDS Canada’s Credit Card Comparison Charts