Brim or Home Trust Credit Card?

[kuhltiffany]

I love my PC Mastercard but always like to have a back up. It won’t get used much so it’s not worth spending on a yearly fee. Bonus if it has no forex/exchange fees…

Does anyone have either of these? Wondering what you think

 

[Debbie]

I have Home Trust. I like it...a lot apparently, since I got $155 credit this month for all my spending last year! It works well anywhere in the world where VISA is taken. And, if I'm shopping online and I'm not 100% sure the cart is in Canadian funds, the HT is the card I use. I got it a few years back when my daughter was in Finland for school because of the no forex charges.

 

[efrant]

I love my PC Mastercard but always like to have a back up. It won’t get used much so it’s not worth spending on a yearly fee. Bonus if it has no forex/exchange fees…

Does anyone have either of these? Wondering what you think

Between those two cards, I would recommend the Brim card. The HT card doesn't give any rewards at all on non-CAD spend, while the Brim card gives 1% cashback. Additionally, the HT card has a 10-transaction daily limit -- they don't allow you to do more than 10 transactions a day -- weird.

 

[isabellea]

We have a Brim and is now our primary credit card except for grocery expenses (we use PC World Elite at Loblaws and BMO at IGA). We always had a great exchange rate with USD and we really like how easy it us to use our 1% cashback (we apply it to our monthly statement). We also extra cashback when shopping at certain stores.

 

[bgula]

I went from HT to Brim after HT stopped giving points for foreign transactions. Got first year of Brim Elite for free. Went to downgrade to regular Brim this past month to avoid card fee and they eventually offered me another free year of Elite - without me even asking for them to do this. Elite gives you 2% CB. I love being able to use the CB whenever I want, whereas HT is once per year.

 

[mort1331]

thanks for this info,,,we hope to goto hawaii in july,,,pick up the brim card and have everything on that.

 

[efrant]

Just throwing this out there as an FYI in case anyone is interested:

Another card to consider is the HSBC World Elite MasterCard. It also has no foreign transaction fees (like Brim, Home Trust, and two cards from Scotia). Yes it does have an annual fee of $149 (and I know that turns some people off), but it comes with a $100 credit (that can be used on Expedia, or other online travel agencies), so the net annual fee is really only $49. The card gives you 3.0% in points on travel charges (hotels, airfare, car rentals) and 1.5% in points on all other charges (vs. the Brim card which gives you 1.0% on everything). So, if you plan on spending at least $9,800 a year on non-travel charges or $2.,450 on travel charges (or a combination somewhere in between), you will earn more on the HSBC card than the Brim card. Plus you get the better insurance on the HSBC card. The only negative is that the minimum redemption is $125, so you have to earn $125 in points before you can redeem, vs. Brim which I believe you can redeem any amount. That said, you earn $125 in points from spending $8,300 on non-travel charges, or $4,200 on travel charges.

 

[kuhltiffany]

We've had that card before, and will likely get it again once we re-start our usual travel. I cancelled it when COVID started, since I couldn't justify the fees. This trip we won't be spending much and we won't likely be doing any out of country travel again for a while...

Just throwing this out there as an FYI in case anyone is interested:

Another card to consider is the HSBC World Elite MasterCard. It also has no foreign transaction fees (like Brim, Home Trust, and two cards from Scotia). Yes it does have an annual fee of $149 (and I know that turns some people off), but it comes with a $100 credit (that can be used on Expedia, or other online travel agencies), so the net annual fee is really only $49. The card gives you 3.0% in points on travel charges (hotels, airfare, car rentals) and 1.5% in points on all other charges (vs. the Brim card which gives you 1.0% on everything). So, if you plan on spending at least $9,800 a year on non-travel charges or $2.,450 on travel charges (or a combination somewhere in between), you will earn more on the HSBC card than the Brim card. Plus you get the better insurance on the HSBC card. The only negative is that the minimum redemption is $125, so you have to earn $125 in points before you can redeem, vs. Brim which I believe you can redeem any amount. That said, you earn $125 in points from spending $8,300 on non-travel charges, or $4,200 on travel charges.