Tangerine Money-Back Credit Card Review

Dec 17, 2024 4:03 PM UTC

The Bottom Line

While we think Tangerine isn't the best single credit card to own, it's still a valuable card to have in your arsenal for maximizing your rewards. It offers one of the highest cashback rates for pharmacy and recurring bill payments, areas where your other credit cards might not provide significant rewards. This card only requires a Fair credit score, making it an excellent choice for people who don't have a high credit score yet.

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Tangerine Money-Back Credit Card

4.4

Finly Rating

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on Tangerine's website

Welcome Bonus

10% Cash Back (up to $100 value) + 1.95% balance transfer promo rate for 6 months

Rewards Rate

0.5% - 2%

Cash Back

Annual Fee

Interest Rates

20.95%* / 22.95%*

RECOMMENDED CREDIT SCORE

300

Poor

560

Fair

660

Good

725

Very Good

760

Excellent

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Card Details

Rewards

2% on the choice of two categories chosen from the 10 offered by Tangerine (Grocery, Restaurants, Gas, Entertainment, Furniture, Hotel-Motel, Drug Store, Reoccurring Bill Payments, Home Improvement, Public Transportation and Parking).
Have your cash back Reward deposited in a Tangerine Savings Account and get a third 2% Money-Back Category.
0.5% cashback on all other credit card purchases.

Insurance

Coverage

Purchase Protection
90 days
Extended Warranty
Up to a year

Eligibility

Credit Score
Good
Annual Income
N/A

^*11 Balance Transfer Promotional Offer at 1.95% for 6 months (1% Balance Transfer Fee) A Promotional Rate of 1.95% will apply to any and all Balance Transfers made within 30 days of the Account opening, and will remain in effect for 6 Statement Periods from the date the last such Balance Transfer was posted to the Account (the “Promotional Rate Period”). To take advantage of this Promotional Offer, you must complete the Balance Transfer request within 30 days of Account approval. You must also activate your Card within 45 days of Account approval for the requested Balance Transfer to be processed, or the Balance Transfer will be automatically cancelled. Balance Transfers are treated as Cash Advances on your Card and do not have an interest-free grace period. Balance Transfers may not exceed the available credit on the Account. If the Balance Transfer exceeds the available credit, the Balance Transfer transaction will not be processed. A 1% Balance Transfer Fee will be charged on each Balance Transfer amount and will be immediately charged to your Credit Card. This Balance Transfer Fee is waived by Tangerine if you are a resident of the province of Quebec at the time you accept this offer. Interest does not accrue on the Balance Transfer Fee, however it is included in the Minimum Payment amount on your monthly statement. You must continue to make all of your monthly Minimum Payments by the Payment Due Dates shown on your monthly statements. If you still have an amount owing from your Balance Transfer when the Promotional Rate Period ends, the Cash Advance interest rate of 22.95% will apply to that amount. You must continue to make the Minimum Payments on your Account, regardless of whether the Balance Transfer has been processed to your Account. We don’t charge interest on new Purchases that appear on your statement for the first time if we receive full payment of the Balance on your statement (including payment of any Balance Transfers included in that Balance), by the Payment Due Date on your statement. This means you will pay interest on new purchases that appear on your statement for the first time unless we receive payment of your entire balance each month by the payment due date. For example, if you do a promotional (or non-promotional) balance transfer for $7,000 and spend $500 in new purchases during the same statement cycle, we must receive payment of the entire balance of $7,500 on or before your payment due date to avoid paying interest on your new purchases that month of $500. Balance Transfers may not be used to transfer money to or from another Tangerine Account. See the Tangerine Credit Card Cardholder Agreement for more information about how we apply payments to your Account. Check here for full details and current product information.

Card Details

Interest Rates

Purchase APR

20.95%*

Cash Advance APR

22.95%*

Balance Transfer APR

22.95%*

Promotional Balance Transfer Rate

Promotional Rate

1.95%*

Promotional Period

6 months*

^* The annual interest rate on Purchases is 20.95% and Cash Advances (including Balance Transfers) is 22.95%. Rates are subject to change. If you don't make 2 consecutive monthly Minimum Payments, or at any time thereafter, an interest rate of 25.95% will apply to your Account on Purchases and 27.95% on Cash Advances (including Balance Transfers).

Fees

Annual Fee

Additional Cards

Eligibility

Minimum Individual Income

N/A

Minimum Household Income

N/A

Credit Score Estimate

Good

Type

Card Type

Credit

Reward Type

Cash Back

Pros & Cons

Pros

Allows you to change the categories, and you get a 2% reward depending on how your spending is changing every 90 days.
2% cashback on recurring Transactions and pharmacy purchases. One of the highest cashback rates on these categories among credit cards in Canada.
Has cashback on Furniture and Home Improvement categories. Two categories that are not covered by any other card in Canada.
Easy credit score requirements needed for this card.
Overall, it is a good no-annual-fee cashback credit card, especially if you have a Tangerine Savings account.

Cons

Insurance coverage is the most basic.
Very low cashback rate on the other categories not selected.

Our Detailed Review

The Tangerine Money back card is one of the only two credit cards offered by Tangerine. There are some unique features on this card that make it very different and versatile compared to other credit cards that we will explore in this in-depth review.

This card is very similar to the Tangerine World Mastercard but with fewer benefits. The only reason you might go for the Tangerine Money back in favor of the World is that you don't have the requirements of the World Mastercard, which are not that easy to qualify for ($60K individual or $100K household income).

The Rewards

The Tangerine Money-Back credit card allows you to choose which categories you want to get extra cashback in. This is unique because no other credit cards allows you to choose which categories you want to have extra cashback.

You have the option to choose from 10 categories:

Grocery
Furniture
Restaurants
Hotel-Motel
Gas
Recurring Bill Payments
Drug Store
Entertainment
Public Transportation
Parking

You can choose two of these categories, and you will then receive 2% cashback on them and 0.5% on all your other categories.

One good thing about the categories is that you can choose two and, after opening your account, request the categories change. After every change, you can wait another 90 days and request a change again. You can use this to your favor. So, for example, if you know you are going to pay a huge amount for a Hotel soon, you can change one of your categories to Hotel-Motel to get the extra cashback.

If you decide to go with this card, we highly advise going for the Tangerine Savings account as well because it allows you to choose three categories to earn 2% in, which will make this a very good card.

Welcome Bonus

Tangerine offers 10% Extra cashback on your purchases up to $100 earned. This extra means that if you buy something in the 2% categories selected, you will earn 12%; if you buy something outside of the 2% categories, you will earn 10% on top of the 0.5%, meaning %10.5.

So for you to get all the $100 welcome bonus, you need to spend a total of $1000 in the first two months.

2 benefit of Tangerine Money Back Card

1. Good cashback rate for a card with No annual fee

The Tangerine cards give good cashback for a card that has no annual fee. There are some other cards that might beat it in terms for users with different spending categories, but in general, it usually is in the top 5. No annual fee cards are recommended to the users.

2. Easy Approval

To get the Tangerine Money Back credit card, we estimate that only a fair credit score is required. In addition, a $12K personal income is asked for, which is a very low number; most people, even the ones with part-time jobs, are making over that number.

Downsides of the Tangerine Money Back Credit Card

Low Insurance Coverage

The Tangerine Money Back offers just the basic purchase protection and an extended warranty, which are standard features found on most free cards. This is a limitation, especially when there are No annual fee cards out there offering perks such as roadside assistance and no foreign transaction fees.

Therefore, if you're in search of a card with more extensive benefits, the Tangerine Money Back might not be the best choice for you.

Final Verdict

First off, if you have a high income ($60K personal or $100K household and a good creditscore, then the World elite version of this card is a better choice. But if you don't have those requirements then we can look at the Tangeride Moneyback card.

Based on this information, whether to go for the Tangerine Money Credit card or not depends on a few things.

If you want a card with many benefits then this card might not be for you. Tangerine only has the basic benefits and there are some cards that provide more benefits.
If you are willing to use multiple credit cards, then we advise you to go for this card. The main reason is that even though it might not be the best card for Grocery and Restaurant purchases, which are the biggest spending categories for many people, it is one of the best cards (Among all credit cards, both paid and free!) for Recurring purchases, Gas and Pharmacy. So having this card in for these categories in addition to another card for your Restaurant and Grocery purchases would create a great combo!