Tangerine credit card review: Is it the best no-fee card in Canada?

Damage and theft protection for your car rental for up to 31 consecutive days
Mobile device insurance for devices bought on your card (covers up to $1000 if the device is lost, damaged, stolen, or has mechanical failure)
A complimentary membership with Mastercard Airport Experiences Provided by DragonPass (no free lounge passes)

Table of Contents

How much can you earn with the Tangerine Money-Back Credit Card?

The amount you can earn with the Tangerine Money-Back card varies depending on your spending habits. To give you some idea of the earning potential, we chose three common bonus categories—groceries, recurring bills, and dining—while assuming a monthly budget of $2,000 is spent as follows:

Spending category	Earn rate	Monthly spend	Annual reward
Groceries	2%	$500	$120
Recurring bills	2%	$200	$48
Dining	2%	$300	$72
Everything else	0.5%	$1,000	$60
Total		$2,000	$300

Based on this scenario, you’d earn $300 in cash back annually, which is a nice bonus since the card carries no annual fee.

Tangerine’s unique rewards structure gives you the ability to choose your own bonus categories, which makes it ideal for pairing with another credit card to maximize your rewards as part of a two-card strategy. We like the Tangerine Money-Back in tandem with the SimplyCash Card from American Express*. The latter also has no annual fee but earns a flat 1.25% on everything you buy. With this strategy, you’d use the Tangerine card for purchases in accelerated categories and the SimplyCash from American Express for everything else in order to collect more cash back.

Spending category	Credit card and earn rate	Monthly spend	Annual reward
Groceries	Tangerine Money-Back 2%	$500	$120
Recurring bills	Tangerine Money-Back 2%	$200	$48
Dining	Tangerine Money-Back 2%	$300	$72
Everything else	SimplyCash Card from American Express 1.25%	$1,000	$150
Total		$2,000	$390

By simply using these cards together, you can bump up your annual earnings by $90—all without any annual fees.

Are there any drawbacks to the Tangerine Money-Back credit card?

The regular cash back rate on the Tangerine card is only 0.5%, which is better than nothing but it’s not going to make headlines. Also, there’s not much on offer by way of extras with this card (for instance, it lacks travel insurance benefits) though the standard purchase protection and extended warranty apply.

What about the competition?

Truth be told, there aren’t many products that compare to the Tangerine Money-Back card since no other card lets you pick your own bonus categories. However, these cards deserve consideration, too.

Simplii Financial Cash Back Visa Card

Though less flexible than the Tangerine card, this credit card from Simplii offers a huge 4% back on purchases at restaurants, coffee shops and bars up to $5,000 annually, and 1.5% back on gas, groceries, drug store purchases and pre-authorized payments up to $15,000 per year. Once a cardholder reaches those limits, they earn at the default 0.5%. For those who dine out frequently, this can be an excellent choice.

featured

Simplii Financial Cash Back Visa

go to site

Annual fee: $0

Welcome offer: Earn up to 10% cash back for your first 3 months (on the first $1,000 in purchases). Terms and conditions apply. (Not available for residents of Quebec.)

go to site

Card details

Interest rates	20.99% on purchases, 22.99% on cash advances, 22.99% on balance transfers
Income required	$15,000 per year
Credit score	660 or higher

SimplyCash Card from American Express

SimplyCash Card from American Express offers a competitive cash back rate of 2% on gas and groceries, plus a 1.25% base rate on all other purchases, making it one of the best cash back cards in Canada. American Express adds a boost with $100,000 in travel accident insurance and access to virtual events and special offers with American Express Experiences.