Cash back rewards for the Rogers mastercard

[barndoor]

Seriously ????

Offering  4% cashback  on purchases made in foreign currency and only 1.5% on local purchases. 

Why  should I use a card that does that ??

[barndoor]

While I understand that  with the wording  my original  post  it may have been considered to not be courteous ... i would like to get a response  to the original question of why a Canadian company is offering such a significant  premium to those using foreign currency.  Surely their  must be a reason that doesn't make company represntatives feel apprehensive about answering such a question . 

[RogersCorey]

Good morning @barndoor,

You would have to call into Rogers Bank to seek answers to your questions. We are unable to support the Mastercard over the forums.

Please call: 1 855 775-2265 for full assistance.

RogersCorey

[57]

Originally Rogers Platinum card provided a 1.75% rebate on all transactions and charged no foreign currency exchange fee. The typical exchange fee for credit cards is 2.5%. Recently they started charging the exchange fee (probably makes it easier for them dealing with all the various other/foreign banks, etc).  In order to compensate for the 2.5% fee, Rogers upped the rebate to 4% on foreign transactions. This made the customer "roughly even" to the original rebate, although it's not quite as good.

Rogers Platinum is 1.75%. Rogers Fido is 1.5%.

I find the rebate rate good with this card (Platinum) and have already received hundreds of dollars in rebates. There are very few cards that consistently provide more than 1% cash back.

[barndoor]

Thank you  for the info @57 .

It's obviously the card of choice for those making foreign purchases but my question remains,  why is Rogers subsidizing foreign purchases ?

None of the major banks  seem to be able to afford to do that ... and  Rogers  handed me a $5 rate increase not long ago with no improvement in service .... who am I to think  is helping to pay for  the foreign exchange  subsidy?

[57]

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barndoor wrote:1. ...why is Rogers subsidizing foreign purchases ?

2. None of the major banks  seem to be able to afford to do that

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1. ...In order to get your business.  The foreign exchange is "mostly profit" for most institutions, so it's something that doesn't cost them a lot and is valued by customers.  There are other cards like Amazon Visa that do this (no foreign exchange).

2. Various cards give high rebates for various purchases, whether it's gas, restaurants, groceries, etc.  For example, CIBC Dividend Infinite Visa gives 4% on Gas and Groceries.  Costco gives 3% on Restaurants, 2% on Gas.  GM gives 5% on the first $10k yearly (towards the purchase of a vehicle).

It seems that everyone has a "hook".  If you need more information, you'll probably need to contact Rogers Bank directly and I'm not sure if they'll even provide the information.

Edit - I highly doubt that your $5 increase (on Cable/Internet/HP?) will subsidize RogersBank. That increase would have occurred with or without Rogers Bank.

[barndoor]

Maybe it is mainly profit ... but why do a significant majority of card providers not utilize  that particular "hook". Is it greed .. or is it because they feel that there are a limited number of people who will benefit from it and it will upset a larger number of people like myself that don't feel that subsidizing foreign purchasing is a welcome practise?

I agree that the change in my plan is completely isolated from any thing that happens at the R bank ...but  they  both fall under the "Rogers " umbrella  so when I  changed to a different provider because Rogers  seemed to feel no need to be competitive , I felt no guilt. 

[rcleno]

Purchase at Rogers outlet not eligible for Pay with Rewards????

I have saved my points for a while on my Rogers Platinum MasterCard for a while so I could use them to pay for a new phone. So today I went to my local Rogers store and got a new S9+ Before I made the transaction I made sure I had selected to use the rewards for all eligible purchases. But now when I look under transactions in the Pay with rewards app it said the purchase is not eligible for pay with rewards. I got this mastercard exclusively for upgrading my phone and now it doesn't work. I can't really afford the cost of a new phone but with the rewards it would have been free. now I will have a massive credit card balance I can't pay. Any help or insight would be appreciated thanks.

[57]

From the Rogers MasterCard Page:  https://www.rogersbank.com/en/rogers_platinum_mastercard_details

Redeem your cash back rewards towards anything Rogers including: Rogers, Fido and chatr monthly bills, purchases in Rogers, Fido and chatr branded stores, purchases at Today's Shopping Choice™, Toronto Blue Jays™ tickets, merchandise at Jays Shop™ online or in store, and at Rogers Centre™ concessions.2

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It would appear you should be eligible, however, some Rogers stores are independently owned and my not allow points to be used. I would contact Rogers and Rogers MC to see what they say.

You can also see the following more detailed explanation of Redeeming Rewards, item 7.

https://www.rogersbank.com/legaldocs/en/Platinum_Terms_Conditions.pdf

[hjbarker]

Because you are a Canadian snowbird, or you are a Canadian vacationing in the USA and you want to avoid foreign exchange fees.