# $US rewards credit card for Canadians



## Cents (Apr 3, 2011)

I currently have a TD Bank $US Visa credit card associated with my TD US "Borderless account" that is included with TD's Select Service Package. I get this package for free by keeping CDN $5,000 in my Select Service account. However, this TD $US Visa credit card has no rewards associated with it. DOes anyone know if there any $US Visa/Mastercard or whatever that a Canadian can get that has rewards attached to it that I could use instead?


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## Square Root (Jan 30, 2010)

Have looked but never found such a card. My wife and I have debated the use of our US $ card versis a regular Cdn dollar rewards card. When we use the US card we save the 2.5% exchange fee but lose any rewards points. We still need to buy the US currency to pay the balance and probably still have to pay maybe 1% exchange spread on this. So it boils down to whether you think your rewards points are worth about 1.5% of purchases. We figure it would be so have now pretty well reverted to using our Cdn cards.


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## Cents (Apr 3, 2011)

Thanks for your reply. 
I know the credit card companies charge 2.5% on the forex conversion. I also know that I get 1.5% rewards on my CDN TD Visa infinite card (4.5% if booking travel through TD rewards which doesn't matter here). When I buy $US online for my TD US Borderless account I pay a premium of approximately 1.5% over the FX spot prices I see from online sources (for TD online purchases its 2.5% if you don't have their US Borderless account).
So to buy US I am paying 1.5% and foregoing a 1.5% TD travel reward by not using my CDN TD VISA infinite card, total cost =3%. Offsetting that I am avoiding paying 2.5% Forex conversion fee that is charged by Visa on the Canadian card. What I don't know and I am hoping you or someone else can advise on is what rate the TD Visa infinite credit card converts US to Canadian at (is it at the spot rate or does it have some built in premium to the spot rate)? I admit I have assumed there was at least a .5% premium if not more on the Visa transactions that made it at least a wash to use the US credit card. From this analysis I have been making a mistake if they do use the spot rate and have been foregoing .5% that I could get by using my $CDN Visa. Can you or anyone else please advise if they know. Thanks in advance for any information provided.


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## Square Root (Jan 30, 2010)

I believe it is the "spot" rate but if you read the fine print this should confirm it. I think we are both reaching the same conclusion. It is probably better just to use the Cdn card unless you can buy US for less than 1% spread over spot.


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## Cents (Apr 3, 2011)

Square root. I think your right. I googled for the info and found this calculator on a corporate Visa website, where I put in 0 % market so that I could see what they would use today. It came back with .968328 I looked at the current TD borderless rate and its .9805. The .9805 contains a 1.5% premium so the rate they are using is really .9655. Its better than the Visa rate but only by .28%. So this would mean for me (using the convenience of a Borderless account transfer, rather than trying to find some other means to get the 1.5% cost for converting a few thousand at a time down to a lower rate) it would be better to just use my Canadian TD Visa Infinite card. I will try this conversion test again on Monday when there is clearly more trading activity to see if this relationship still holds. Thanks again for your input.
http://corporate.visa.com/pd/consumer_services/consumer_ex_rates.jsp?src=ex_rez


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## mcu (Dec 6, 2009)

i have a RBC US$ Visa that earns me reward points. Check out their site


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## Cents (Apr 3, 2011)

MCU. Thanks for the info. The US RBC card is $95.00 per year and since all my regular banking is with TD (excluding the internet banks), I would have to start dealing with moving money to Royal. I get the TD US Visa for free as a result of leaving $5K in the chequing account each month and foregoing the $37.50 of interest their regular savings account would pay. I am already collecting travel points with TD. To make this work I would need to probably get some kind of premium account with Royal.
I realize that I just don't want to go through the hassle. I'll just start using my Cdn TD Visa card instead of the US.
Thanks again for your input.


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## mcu (Dec 6, 2009)

I thought it was $65/year, but you are right. I also have a TD select account and wanted a free visa, to get rid of the yearly fees with my US$ visa and RBC avion, but I would not get points on the USD one and would lose all my points on my CDN one. I wonder if it would be bad to have the extra credit card with TD or if it would hurt my credit score


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## Cents (Apr 3, 2011)

The $95.00 fee was including the extra card for my wife. Again today I went to the Visa site to check the rate and compare it to the borderless plan rate. As of about 11:10am today on the west cost the quoted borderless rate was .9783. I know that there is a 1.5% fee (over the spot rate) included in the borderless rate, which makes the spot rate .9633. The rate on the Visa website was .9665 or approximately .32 or .33 premium. Given that I have gotten this twice I will add it to the Visa cost. So the Visa cost is 2.50+.33 = 2.83%. By buying US and then using the TD Visa I am paying 1.5% and am foregoing 1.5% on my infinite card, total cost of 3%. Not much of a difference but I am just going to stop acquiring US except for when I need to pay in cash. (I need to do the same thing for Amex as my Costco/Amex card goes through the same process when I shop in the US.
Re credit rating: I know there are a lot of subtleties. I don't know really how that works and unless it becomes an issue in my life I will ignore it and just get the cards that do the job. I am hanging on to a MasterCard that I only keep for emergencies in case I can't use my Visa. (I believe Tim Horton's) only takes MasterCard.


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## Square Root (Jan 30, 2010)

I think your analysis is right. I guess the only other thing that might work is to find a way to get a US addressed card. Buying some US real estate would probably do it. Expensive way to solve this problem though.


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## Cents (Apr 3, 2011)

I'm not sure if getting a US post box would work or not (but I doubt it).


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## Square Root (Jan 30, 2010)

I doubt it as well.


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## sprocket1200 (Aug 21, 2009)

i think the timing of the transactions is worth using the US$ credit card. if you use CDN card then you pay the exchange rate that day. you have no flexibility of the rate. by using US$ card you don't have this worry as you can prepare by buying US$ early or have the 20 odd days to find a good day to do your exchange.

as for the US po box, just don't call it a PO box. call it suite #101....


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## Square Root (Jan 30, 2010)

sprocket1200 said:


> i think the timing of the transactions is worth using the US$ credit card. if you use CDN card then you pay the exchange rate that day. you have no flexibility of the rate. by using US$ card you don't have this worry as you can prepare by buying US$ early or have the 20 odd days to find a good day to do your exchange.
> 
> as for the US po box, just don't call it a PO box. call it suite #101....


Agree on the timing point and have used this as justification for using our US card, but in the longer term I think the benefit is small and sometimes can backfire. Especially if you afe buying small amounts.
US credit card companies are pretty good at recognizing addresses that are not acceptable to them.


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