TD Canada Trust – Company Review

TD Canada Trust’s Credit Card Lineup

While the bulk of the cards here are indeed travel cards, TD Canada Trust also has cash back, business and other cards available for applicants.

Travel Credit Cards

We’ll begin with the type of card that TD devotes the most resources to: their travel cards. They are divided into two main groups depending on what reward system they use, but we’ll begin with the ones that TD uses their own internal system for. The first and most humble of them is the TD Rewards Visa Card, the only free card available in this set. Using it will get you 2 TD reward points for every dollar spent on restaurants, fast food, groceries or recurring bill payments and 3 reward points per dollar for travel booked through ExpediaForTD.com. For everything else, you’ll only get 1 point per dollar. The card does not come with any benefits beyond a small discount on Avis and Budget car rental purchases, but its reward value alone is decent considering that it won’t cost you anything.

If you want to earn points a little more quickly, you might look into the TD Platinum Travel US Visa Card; the standard rewards earning rate is 2 TD points per dollar on all purchases. As for bonus categories, you can get 3 points for each dollar spent on recurring bill payments and groceries and 5 points per dollar spent on travel that you book through ExpediaForTD.com. There are also benefits to consider this time, including baggage insurance, flight delay insurance, and common carrier accident insurance, as well as auto rental insurance. All this for an $89 fee is not a bad deal, although many will be happy with just the basic card if they don’t travel very often.

The last of the cards that use the TD reward system is the TD First Class Travel Visa Infinite Card, which will get you 3 TD reward points per dollar on normal purchases and 9 points per dollar on online travel purchases through TD’s Expedia portal. This card will yield far more points than the others for most people and is much easier to use. It also comes with 21 days of travel medical insurance, 48 days of rental car insurance, trip cancellation and interruption insurance, baggage insurance, and common carrier travel accident insurance. At only a slightly higher $120 fee, this is a worthwhile upgrade if you can get it.

The second set of cards uses the Aeroplan rewards system, and they are noticeably a step above the TD cards in terms of rewards, benefits and exclusivity. There is no free option here; the very lowest-ranking card you can get is the TD Aeroplan Visa Platinum Card, which costs $89 a year to hold. Using it gets you 1 mile per dollar you spend on gas, groceries and drug store items, or 1 mile per $1.50 when you buy outside of those categories. You can also earn double the miles when you shop at an Aeroplan partner retailer (an opportunity that applies to the other two Aeroplan cards here as well). You’ll also get 3 kinds of basic travel insurance and auto rental insurance to top it off.

For $120 instead, you can get the TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite Card. With this one, you’ll receive 1.5 miles per dollar on the aforementioned bonus categories, plus 1 mile per dollar on other purchases – a considerable boost from the previous card. You’ll also be granted benefits that include 21 days of travel medical insurance, trip cancellation insurance, flight delay insurance, car rental insurance and more. Finally, you’ll be eligible for additional perks and freebies on Air Canada flights booked with Aeroplan points. This is clearly the superior option as compared to the lower card. The significant reward boost alone is clearly worth the slight increase in fees, but as with the other Visa Infinite options, you’ll also need to make at least $60,000 a year to be considered.

If you happen to have an extra $399 lying around every year and make at least $200,000 in yearly income as a household, you can upgrade even further to the super-elite TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite Privilege Card. With it, you’ll still get the same 1.5 miles per dollar on gas, grocery and drug store purchases as well as on Air Canada purchases, but your regular rate will increase to 1.25 miles per dollar instead. With that in mind, it should be obvious that that’s not the real reason to upgrade. With this card, you’ll receive 22 days of travel medical insurance as well as 5 other kinds of travel insurance – everything included in the lower tier cards. There are more perks than that to come, though: a complimentary Priority Pass that also comes with 6 free passes to international airport lounges, Visa Infinite Privilege airport benefits that allow you access to fast track lines and special benefits at when you stay at certain hotel brands, exclusive food and dining experiences and concierge service whenever you want it, and the same Air Canada privileges mentioned above. You’ll be able to enjoy the utmost comfort and security while you travel, which may make this pricy card worth the investment.

Cash Back Credit Cards

Cash back cards are very obviously not TD’s main focus in the credit card arena, but the fact that they’ve decided to offer them anyway is nice. There are only two to examine, so let’s begin with the TD Cash Back Visa Card. This card is simple and also free, but not overly generous; it gets you 1% cash back on groceries, gas and recurring bills and 0.5% back otherwise, and includes only car rental discounts for benefits. Other providers have better cards at this level, but at least this one exists and is here if you want a cash back option from TD.

As usual, there’s an upgraded version of that card available, and this time it’s the TD Cash Back Visa Infinite Card. The reward rates are much better on this one: 3% back instead on the same gas, groceries and recurring bills and 1% back on everything else. Benefits-wise, this card is relegated to 10 days of travel medical insurance, baggage insurance and car rental insurance, as well as a free Deluxe TD Auto Club Membership that gets you access to roadside assistance service at any time of day or night. That’s not a huge package for a card that costs $120 a year and insists that you have a high income to get it, but to its credit, it includes the most valuable and sought-after components of most insurance sets anyway. There’s more than enough value here overall to justify the upgrade if you’re at all interested in it.

Business Credit Cards

TD also offers several cards meant expressly for business use. The TD Business Visa Card is the most basic of this set. This is just a standard credit card with no rewards, though it does come with baggage insurance, common carrier accident insurance and rental car insurance. It’s main purpose it to provide businesses with access to a line of credit at all, but for the $50 fee it charges, that isn’t quite enough to make it a very viable option. You can get as much or better from other providers for only a little more, so consider that if you’re thinking about this card.

The TD Aeroplan Visa Business Card, meanwhile, is a decent option for businesses with somewhat heavy travel requirements. It gets you 1.5 miles per dollar you spend on travel purchases or gas, or just 1 mile per dollar otherwise. What’s likely to be more useful is the benefits assortment, which covers 15 days of travel medical insurance, trip interruption insurance, baggage insurance, and auto rental insurance. You’ll also get the Air Canada perks on Aeroplan flights that were mentioned above in the travel section, plus a slight discount on your purchase interest rate to make it less punishing to carry a balance for a while. The $149 annual fee may be a bit steep for those who aren’t absolutely certain that they will use the insurance, however.

Another option for heavy business travellers is the TD Business Travel Visa Card. Reward rates sit at 3 TD rewards points per dollar and 6 TD reward points per dollar on travel booked through TD over the phone. You can also get 3 more points each time if you book that same travel online for a total of 9 points per dollar. That gives you several ways to earn points at a much faster rate, and you should be taking advantage of that if at all possible. You’ll also get the same benefits package as the Aeroplan version offers, minus the Air Canada bonuses that are exclusive to that system. The 15 days of emergency travel medical insurance is still present, however, and that’s the main selling point. The costs of the two cards are also identical at $149 per year.

The last and most unusual of this line is the TD Venture Line of Credit Visa Card. This card offers a low TD Prime-based rate for business customers who need a little more time to pay off the balances they run up, and it also includes access to the Visa SavingsEdge program. These two things in combination make it a solid choice for reducing costs among businesses who anticipate the need to carry a balance on whatever card they choose, and the fact that it’s free doesn’t hurt either.

Other Credit Cards

There are two other TD credit cards to touch on before we’re through, and the first is the TD US Dollar Visa Card. This card allows you to avoid paying pricy foreign exchange fees when purchasing items in USD by simply using that currency instead. Not only can this allow you to save a fair amount of money, but you can also make use of some of the modest travel insurance it comes with on any cross-border trips you make. Trip interruption insurance and delayed or lost baggage insurance aren’t much compared to what some cards offer, but for the small $39 USD annual fee this one costs, that’s not a bad package.

The last option is the TD Emerald Flex Rate Visa Card, meant to give customers access to lower interest rates. Just like the Venture Line business card described above, this one also uses a TD Prime-based rate for its interest charges that varies based on the applicant’s credit – although in this case, the rate can’t drop quite as low as the business card’s rate can. All the same, you can easily shave off a few percentage points from the standard 19.99% interest rate you’ll pay elsewhere if you have moderately good credit, and for some, that will be worth the $25 annual fee.

Conclusions

TD Canada Trust, like many of the bigger credit card providers, prioritizes benefits over rewards in terms of value in pretty much all of their offerings. This is most useful in their hallmark travel cards, where the benefits have the potential to make every trip you take all year into a much more enjoyable experience. Their wide-ranging selection of travel cards even incorporates a middle option between the low-level and high-level cards, a strangely rare offering in the Canadian market.

What We Think

TD’s credit card line isn’t as high-value or multi-purpose as some other providers’ cards might be, but the travel card category specifically allows for a lot of choice on your part as a consumer. There are far worse deals out there, and it’s always nice to have a big-name provider behind you for customer service purposes. If you’re a travel card enthusiast, you’ll likely be happy with what this provider can give you.