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Everything you need to know about BMO Ascend World Elite, from what travel rewards are included to whether it’s worth the annual fee.
If you’re itching to travel again, BMO has a card designed to help you get there. With an attractive insurance package and perks like airport lounge access, the BMO Ascend World Elite Mastercard seeks to tempt users into the BMO Rewards program. But here’s the big question: Is the card good enough to justify the $150 annual fee? We delve into what the card offers and show you exactly how it stacks up against other travel reward cards.
Annual fee: $150
Welcome offer: You can earn up to 100,000 bonus points (a $667 value)
Card details
| Interest rates | Interest rates: 20.99% on purchases, 23.99% on balance transfers, 23.99% on cash advances |
| Income required | Personal income of $80,000 or household income of $150,000 |
| Credit score | 760 or higher |
| Point value | 1 BMO Rewards point = $0.0067 when redeemed for travel. |
With BMO Rewards, the redemption process is as simple as logging in to your account. To redeem for rewards, you can avail yourself of the full-service online travel agency or shop from their catalogue. You can book with any airline without blackout dates or seat restrictions, and BMO also offers price matching, so you can be sure you’re getting the very best deal.
Points redeemed for travel come in at a value of 140:$1 ($0.007 per point), meaning that you’ll need 35,000 points for $250 towards travel expenses. Importantly, you don’t have to redeem a minimum number of points, or any, to book travel—and you can pay whatever your points don’t cover by charging that amount to your card. Redemptions for gift cards and merchandise are just as simple (you select from an online catalogue), but you’ll typically get less value from your points compared to travel. Finally, you can redeem your points for financial products, but this option comes at a steep reduction in value. For 7,000 points you can get $50 in a BMO investment account (which is about $0.007 per point), or for 15,000 points you’ll receive $50 towards your credit card bill (about $0.003 per point). With all these redemption options, the BMO Rewards program is extremely flexible—this is one of the main reasons it’s so popular—but for the very best point-to-dollar ratio, travel rewards are the way to go.
The BMO Ascend World Elite Mastercard has a strong travel coverage package, the card offers both trip cancellation and trip interruption insurance. The card has got you covered for up to $1,500 for the non-refundable and non-transferable portion of your canceled trip. As for trip interruption, BMO has also got your back, as it will cover up to $2,000 for the cost of one-way airfare departure and any unused non-refundable prepaid arrangements.
With the BMO Ascend World Elite Mastercard, you get a free membership to Mastercard Travel Pass, which gives you four annual airport lounge visits that can be used at 1,000 airport lounges worldwide.
Even though the BMO Rewards program offers numerous redemption possibilities, travel rewards give you the very best value—with no seat restrictions or blackouts. Add to that the card’s airport lounge access, and travel and medical insurance, and you’ve got a very competitive product for travellers.
Despite a very strong showing in many respects, there are a few drawbacks you should be aware of. The first is that the BMO Ascend World Elite Mastercard commands an income threshold of $80,000 per year for an individual (or $150,000 per household) and an annual fee of $ (most travel cards come in around the $120 mark). An extra $30 per year may not matter much to high-earners, but the fee may give you pause, especially when you consider that some cards offer more lucrative bonus categories. The Scotiabank Gold American Express, for example, offers 5 Scotia Points on restaurants and groceries. Finally, the BMO Rewards website could use some work, given that it’s the portal through which users must make redemptions. Improvements to site speed would go a long way to keeping customers happy, and would help cement the brand’s reputation as a top-tier provider. The $ annual fee on the BMO Ascend World Elite Mastercard is nothing to sneeze at, but for frequent flyers, the travel rewards more than make up the expense. If you’re interested in BMO cards, but don’t want to collect travel rewards, check out our list of BMO’s best credit cards.
The answer to whether the BMO Ascend World Elite Mastercard is worth the high annual fee of $150 will depend on a variety of factors. If you’re a frequent flyer and traveler and earn more than the card’s income requirement, the answer is yes. The annual fee would most likely be canceled out by the free lounge access and travel insurance, if you’d be paying for those two services out of pocket each time you travel. On the other hand, the card’s high-income requirement and annual fee may be a barrier for some and a reason to choose another card instead. And, if you’re a fan of earning cash back instead of points then may not be the best choice since there is no such offering with the card.
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