American Express Cobalt Review 2023 – Forbes Advisor Canada - Forbes

Earning Membership Rewards

Earning rewards with the Amex Cobalt is easy, as there are enough purchase categories earning Membership Rewards to cater to almost any lifestyle. You can earn Membership Rewards points anywhere American Express is accepted.

While you may think American Express isn't accepted in many places, it's a common misconception. Most major retailers, gas stations and restaurants do accept Amex, and, with Amex's push to support smaller businesses, its increasing acceptance among those local neighbourhood gems is consistently improving.

This is a major positive because with the Amex Cobalt you can earn 5 points per dollar spent at coffee shops, restaurants and cocktail bars. If you're more of a homebody, you still have the same great earning potential through simply buying groceries or ordering food delivery. This earn rate is available up to a maximum of $30,000 in net purchases posted annually to your account.

You can also earn 3 points per dollar spent on eligible streaming subscriptions in Canada, including Apple TV+, Apple Music, Crave, Disney+, Netflix, Spotify, and TSN GO. (Sorry, bundling is not included).

You can also earn 2 points for every $1 at gas stations, travel bookings by air, water, or rail and even local commuter transport from the subway and taxis to rideshares and limos. Plus, If your purchase doesn't fall within those categories, you still earn one point for every $1 spent on everything else.

If all this weren't enough, you'll earn one additional Membership Rewards point for every dollar you spend for eligible travel purchases (hotels, flights, car rental bookings, etc.) made through the American Express Travel Website.

Redeeming Membership Rewards

You can redeem your points for Ticketmaster tickets, gift cards or statement credits, but if you want the best redemption value, Forbes Advisor recommends redeeming your Membership Rewards towards travel.

The flexibility of your redemption options on travel alone is excellent with no less than four options for travel redemption:

1. Transfer points 1:1 with Aeroplan for a return rate of 4.5% on your spending (e.g., 30,000 points at $0.02 each point is worth $600)
2. Transfer to the Fixed Points Travel Program, which gets you the same value of up to $0.02 per mile, but only for short-haul flights (think Toronto to Montreal). Meanwhile, one step down, at a return rate of 3.76% or 1.75 cents per point, is long-haul flights within North America (think Calgary to LA).
3. Transfer points to hotel programs like Hilton Honors or Marriott Bonvoy. Since the Bonvoy has better redemption, we'll focus our example there: An average Marriott Bonvoy point is worth $0.097, but transfer a Membership Rewards point to Marriott Bonvoy and the value jumps to 1.16 cents each.
4. Transfer to the Flexible Points Travel Program to ensure you always get at least $0.01 per point. Book any kind of travel with any provider, pay for it with your Amex Cobalt and each point is always worth $0.01 (e.g. 50,000 points is worth $500).

Rewards Potential

If you spend about $2,000 per month ($24,000 a year) using your Amex Cobalt, you get $1,080 in potential rewards or a return on spending of 4.5%.

That's again, if you redeem your points for the most value, like transferring to Aeroplan or British Airways for flights. Using Amex's Fixed Points Travel Program drops the value to $945 per year. If you use it for statement credits or charitable donations, you get $540 per year. If you're using the points to shop at Amazon however, they're only worth $378 per year.

Again, we highly recommend using this card for travel and the associated perks of being an Amex member.

The competition, when compared against the best travel rewards cards in Canada, makes the American Express Cobalt a smart pick. Let's take a quick look.

The BMO Eclipse Visa Infinite Card at 5 points per $1 spent on eating and drinking may seem like a smart pick, but at a 1.61% return on spending, your annual rewards max out at $386 when you redeem for any travel.

When spending $2,000 a month with the Rogers World Elite Mastercard, you get a 1.5% return on spending of $360 that you can use towards statement credits. Even if we add the no annual fee, (bumping its value to a relative $480) it still pales compared to Cobalt.

The potential rewards of the Amex Cobalt also make it the best travel credit card in Canada in addition to the best grocery card.