CIBC Dividend® Visa Infinite* Card Review

If you’re someone who spends a lot of money on gas and groceries (especially gas), then the CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite Card could be the credit card you’ve been looking for.

This card will persuade you with its generous sign-up offer, its popular cashback categories, and its first-year-free rebate.

To discover more, keep reading.

How You Earn Rewards with the CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite Card

We mentioned the CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite Card’s strong rewards program at the start of this review, but let’s break down this card’s cashback even further.

As a cardholder, you can expect to earn:

• 4% cashback on gas, electric vehicle charging, and groceries if they are in the first $80k transactions of the year and $20k of categorical spends
• 2% cashback on transportation, dining, and recurring payments if they are in the first $80k transactions of the the year and $20k of categorical spends
• 1% cashback on all other credit card purchases

While gas and groceries are the most optimized earn categories on this card, you can also collect solid cashback on other everyday spend categories like transportation, dining, and recurring payments – making the card’s earning potential pretty well-rounded.

Redeeming your Rewards with the CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite Card

CIBC makes collecting your earned cashback extremely simple. All you have to do is request your cashback as a statement credit through the online banking portal or app as soon as you’ve accumulated at least $25.

5 Benefits of the CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite Card

According to our scoring system, the CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite Card is a decently rated option.

Let’s take a closer look at what earns this card an above-average score.

First-Year-Free Rebate

Firstly, this card caters to the budget-conscious by voiding the annual fee for the first year of membership.

Generous Welcome Bonus

The card also offers applicants a nice head-start by providing extra cashback for the first few statements on net purchases of up to $2,000 – so start spending right away!

Valuable and Versatile Reward Opportunities

As you’ll recall, the CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite Card earns you top cashback rates on everyday spend categories like gas and groceries, plus admirable rates on other popular categories like transportation, dining, and recurring payments. Overall, cardholders receive high reward rates on common categories and a ton of optimization in general. 

Not to mention, if you’re most interested in optimizing your fuel expenses, note that the CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite Card is considered to be the best overall gas credit card in Canada.

Unlimited Base-Rate Cashback

Sure, there are some transaction caps on specialized categories, but these caps are pretty high. Thankfully, even if you do happen to meet these limitations, the standard base rate on the CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite Card remains uncapped.

Benefits for Road Trips

If you tend to travel by car, you’ll be pleased to know that the CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite Card provides cardholders with gas discounts at participating Pioneer, Fas Gas, Ultramar, and Chevron gas stations, plus car rental discounts at eligible Avis and Budget locations across the globe.

3 Downsides to the CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite Card

At the same time, the CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite Card also comes with a couple of downsides.

Higher Income Requirements

The card becomes less accessible on account of its annual income requirements.

The CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite Card requires either a personal annual income of $60,000 or a household annual income of $100,000.

Lacks Extensive Coverage

For a paid credit card, some cardholders might expect the CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite Card to have more extensive insurance coverage.

As of now, the card offers basic coverages like purchase protection and extended warranty insurance, plus mobile device insurance, emergency out of province medical insurance, car rental damage and theft insurance, and travel accident insurance.

Relatively Less Impressive Rewards Program

Unfortunately, the overall earn-rate of the CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite Card isn't quite as optimized for the average spender compared to other cashback credit cards.

Simply put, everyday earn categories like dining tends to be a much bigger expense than, say, gas (the most notable earn category on this card), so cards that boost dining expenses at a higher rate might be more beneficial overall – unless of course you're looking to prioritize your fuel payments in particular, plus groceries on top of that.

Comparison to other CIBC Dividend Credit Cards and Another Top Grocery and Gas Contender

Of course, before we bring things to a close, we’re going to compare the CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite Card to its closest competitors. These competitors include other CIBC Dividend credit cards, plus another top grocery and gas contender.

Take a look at this comparison table for an overview of this section:

CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite Card vs CIBC Dividend Platinum Visa Card

For a slightly lower annual fee (one that’s also waived in the first year) and lower income requirements, you can apply for the CIBC Dividend Platinum Visa Card instead of the CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite Card.

This card will earn you a little less cashback on gas and groceries, but the same amount of cashback on transportation, dining, and recurring bills – all with the same spending caps.

Unfortunately, the coverage on the CIBC Dividend Platinum Visa Card is even less extensive than the CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite Card, offering only extended warranty and purchase protection insurance, plus travel accident insurance, and car rental damage and theft insurance.

Overall, the CIBC Dividend Platinum Visa Card is only superior to the CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite Card if you’re looking to save more on annual fees or if you don’t meet the higher income requirements of the CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite Card.

CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite Card vs CIBC Dividend Visa Card

Maybe you’re looking to avoid annual fees altogether. If that’s the case, consider the CIBC Dividend Visa Card.

This card earns you about half of the cashback on groceries, and only standard cashback rates on gas, electric vehicle charging, transportation, dining, and recurring payments (a rate that’s the same as the overall base rate).

Of course, with a no-fee contender, you’re going to have to compromise on benefits and perks too. The CIBC Visa Card has the least amount of insurance coverage out of all of the CIBC Dividend competitors. This contender only offers extended warranty insurance, purchase protection insurance, and travel accident insurance.

As far as benefits go, all CIBC Dividend credit cards have the same perks – the car rental and gas discounts at participating locations.

All in all, you’d likely only pick the CIBC Dividend Visa Card over the CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite Card if you want to be extremely budget-friendly and forgo all annual fees but still hang on to similar (although less optimized) rewards.

CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite Card vs Neo World Elite Mastercard

Finally, let’s compare the CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite Card to the Neo World Elite Mastercard, another top credit card in grocery and gas optimization.

Initially, the Neo World Elite Mastercard offers even better cashback rates when it comes to groceries and recurring payments – two specialized categories that both the Neo World Elite Mastercard and the CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite Card share. The Neo World Elite Mastercard actually has a unique rewards program where initial cashback rates can be boosted either by keeping $5k - $10k in a Neo everyday account, or by purchasing products or services from Neo Partners including groceries and gas – which adds bonus cashback on top of the card’s categorical cashback. With these boosting opportunities in place, when it comes to gas – a category that is initially less optimized by the Neo World Elite Mastercard than it is with the CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite Card, if you keep $10k in a Neo everyday account, you can meet the gas cashback rate of the CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite Card, plus optimize groceries and recurring payments even further. If you cannot save $10k in a Neo everyday account, you can also match the gas cashback on the CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite Card by purchasing your fuel at Shell, Esso or Petro Canada – all of which are Neo gas partners.

If a big drawback of the CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite Card for you was the lack of extensive insurance, note that the Neo World Elite Mastercard features 10 insurance categories – including valuable protections like trip interruption and trip cancellation insurance, hotel burglary insurance, and car rental accident insurance.

With the Neo World Elite Mastercard, you won’t receive any car rental discounts or gas discounts, but you will get an airport lounge Dragon Pass membership (without complimentary visits).

So, what’s the cost of the Neo World Elite Mastercard’s extra perks? The annual fee is actually only $5 dollars more than the annual fee for the CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite Card, but of course, it isn’t waived in the first year of membership. Another important detail to note is that the Neo World Elite Mastercard has higher income requirements than the CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite Card – meaning it’s intended for high-earners.

Ultimately, you might consider the Neo World Elite Mastercard over the CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite Card if you’re a higher-earner who wants even more cashback on groceries and recurring payments, who intends on either saving $10k in a Neo everyday account or purchasing your gas at Neo partnered stations, and who wants better insurance coverage. 

Final Verdict

At the end of the day, the CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite Card is one of the best cashback credit cards for gas and groceries (particularly gas).

There are other CIBC Dividend credit cards that offer similar rewards for lower annual fees and income requirements, but their reward rates and coverage tend to be less extensive.

If you are a higher-earner who wants even better grocery rates and the opportunity to boost your gas cashback rates to the same rates as the CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite Card, you can also consider the Neo World Elite Mastercard instead, an option that also comes with better insurance coverage.

If you're not trying to optimize gas expenses specifically, there are other everyday cashback cards worth considering (including the Neo World Elite Mastercard). For a full catalogue of this category, check out our Best Cashback Credit Cards in Canada blog.