Review: Simplii Financial Cash Back Visa Card

At Frugal Flyer, we are about maximizing your miles and points, your cashback, and all the rewards you can earn from understanding and utilizing credit cards to their full extent.

However, there is a place for so-called ‘daily driver’ cards – credit cards that you use to make regular budgeted purchases or collect points from a specific spending category. These are cards that you keep in your wallet and use for regular purchases without trying to optimize every part of your financial life.

Let’s dive into our review of the Simplii Financial Cash Back Visa card to see if it has a place in your wallet.

Overview

Welcome Bonus

The Simplii Financial Cash Back Visa card currently has a welcome offer in which cardholders can earn up to $100 cash back:

  • Get 20% cashback in your first 3 months on eligible gas, groceries, drugstore purchases and pre-authorized payments (up to $500 spend)†
  • Plus: You can earn an additional $60 FlyerFunds Rebate on the Simplii Financial Cash Back Visa card when you apply through Frugal Flyer Rebates!
Apply Now Learn More Earn $60 in FlyerFunds upon approval.
Simplii Financial Cash Back Visa Card

The Simplii Financial Cash Back Visa card earns cash back and gives cardholders the opportunity to earn up to 4% cash back on purchases at restaurants, bars, and coffee shops.

Check out our Simplii Financial Cash Back card review for more details.

BONUS
$100 cash back
MINSPEND
$500
NET VALUE
$100+
ANNUAL FEE
$0
FOREX FEES
Yes
EXPIRY

Earning Rates

The primary draw to the Simplii Visa credit card is its generous earning rate on spending at restaurants, bars, and coffee shop purchases. You can earn 4% up to a maximum spend of $5,000 per year. That’s a total of $200 cash back which makes it one of the best no annual fee credit cards in Canada for restaurant purchases.

Furthermore, the card earns a 1.5% category bonus at gas, grocery, and drugstore purchases and pre-authorized payments, to a maximum spend of $15,000 per year. That would be a total of $225 cash back. However, the 1.5% is also hardly the most lucrative in these categories, and there are better cards that would get you more for your spending.

It is also worth mentioning that the Simplii Financial Visa credit card earns 0.5% cash back on all other eligible purchases, with no limit on spending. This however isn’t very competitive, and if you’ve maximized the category spend, you’re likely better off spending on another card. 

Annual Fee

The Simplii Financial Cash Back Visa card has no annual fee, making it a great choice if you are looking for a no-cost credit card to add to your wallet.

Benefits

The Simplii Financial Cash Back Visa card doesn’t wow with its benefits, but it does offer a few perks as a no annual fee credit card.

Insurance Coverages

The Simplii Financial Cash Back Visa card offers purchase security and extended protection insurance.

Purchase security insurance provides coverage for most insured items of personal property from being lost, stolen, or damaged for up to 90 days from the date of purchase. 

Extended protection insurance provides cardholders with an extended warranty for purchases made on the card, by a lesser timeframe of twice the original warranty period, or one additional year. The payment for the product must be entirely covered by your Simplii Financial Cash Back Visa card in order for you to be eligible for this benefit.

Additional Cardholders

Simplii Financial Cash Back Visa cardholders can add up to three additional cardholders to their credit card account for no additional fee. This might be a great option for couples who are looking to share one credit card account between themselves.

Redeeming Cash Back

Cash back earned on the Simplii Financial Cash Back Visa card is distributed annually on the December account statement as a statement credit. However, if you have a Simplii Financial banking account you could likely request the balance to be transferred to cash.

This is less flexible than other cash back credit cards that allow you to request a cash back payout at any point provided you have earned more than the minimum amount, but many cardholders may appreciate the once a year payout closer to Christmas time.

Conclusion

The Simplii Financial Cash Back Visa credit card presents a simple value proposition to those who are looking for a new credit card with an easy to understand rewards system and no annual fee. The welcome bonus is decent and the card presents a good opportunity on earning rates of up to 4% cash back on certain categories.

Frequently Asked Questions

Once per year, in the month of December. You will receive it in the form of a statement credit.

In the past you were required to have a Simplii bank account to open the Simplii Visa but this is no longer the case.

Simplii always pulls exclusively from Equifax, which can be monitored via Borrowell.

“Simplii Financial is a trademark and division of CIBC. Banking products and services branded Simplii Financial are offered by CIBC.” 

Unfortunately, the Simplii Financial Cash Back Visa card is not available to individuals located in Quebec.

The minimum income requirement for this card is $15,000 (individual or household).

Reed Sutton

Reed Sutton

Founder at Frugal Flyer
Reed is addicted to the art of earning and redeeming travel points, and frequently pairs his trips with his other hobby: photography. Through Frugal Flyer, Reed aims to distill some of the complex and esoteric points strategies into digestible information. Furthermore, he hopes to use his technical expertise to develop invaluable applications and tools for the travel community.

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2 comments on “Review: Simplii Financial Cash Back Visa Card

    • Hi Jay, I am not sure actually. I’m sure you could reopen the card but not sure if or when you’d be eligible for a bonus again.

      Reply