Neo World Elite Mastercard coming to Canada

Benefits of the Neo World Elite Mastercard

Neo does the service of breaking its tiers down with a handy calculator and slider on the World Elite page – I recommend checking it out and playing around if you’re interested. From a high level, let’s say you like Neo, but you don’t like keeping a tonne of cash, so you keep zero dollars with them. In that case, your World Elite card nets you 2% on groceries and gas and 1% on everything else. That piddly amount is almost certainly not worth your $149 annually.

But those numbers get better with the more cash you have at Neo. At $3,000, you’re making 4% on groceries and gas, and at $10,000 you’re making 5%, plus 2% on everything else. At the high end, if you shop and drive lots, you’re making very competitive cash back – up to a point.

Because of course there’s a catch (as their calculator reveals). Those high interest rates for gas and groceries drop to 1% over $500 spent monthly. And, given the cost of both those categories, it’s not hard to imagine blowing past the spend threshold.

The remaining bonuses are pretty basic, even limited. There’s extended purchase warranty, car rental insurance and the aforementioned out-of-province medical coverage. With the Neo World Elite, you’re in it for the gamified cash back gimmick, or not at all.

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Who is the Neo World Elite for?

I have a friend who’s terrified of investing. She’s also not super fond of debt, and stays as far away from credit card churning as she can. She loves a daily driver cash back card, which she uses to add to the literal tens of thousands she keeps in cash in her EQ high-interest savings account (I had to bully her to get it out of stock standard chequing).

This kind of person exists, and if you’re the type who doesn’t mind keeping a whack of cash on hand, the Neo World Elite Mastercard could be up your alley, so you can reap the highest tier rewards. But first you have to be eligible. This card has a high eligibility requirement, asking for $80,000 personal income or $150,000 household. Kinda steep for a cash back card with limited perks.

How does the Neo World Elite Mastercard stack up?

I’ll be honest – even for the cash back obsessive, I think you could do better than the Neo World Elite. The persona who would truly benefit from the high tiers is so specific it would be hard to make a general recommendation. And even then, for $149 a year (not to mention the high income requirements), there are just better cards out there with fewer catches.

For instance, the CIBC Dividend cash back is only $120 per year (first year fee gets waived) and offers 4% on groceries, EV charging and gas – no catches. Then it’s 2% on dining, transportation and recurring payments and 1% on everything else. If you met all the very specific preconditions on the Neo World Elite, you’d still probably fall short given the fee differential and the more varied spending categories of the CIBC card. Plus, there’s a dozen other perks that come with the Dividend cash back card, and there’s a handful of other credit cards out there nearly as good.

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Final thoughts

I struggle to think of anyone who’s fishing in the $150~ credit card pond who’d be truly drawn to the Neo World Elite. Its lack of perks, high-income requirements, complicated cash back tier system, and lacklustre rewards at lower-mid levels (and caps on cash back even at the highest) combine to make this a pretty uninspiring product offering from Neo.