You’re probably tired of your friends who bank at RBC and CIBC talk about Apple Pay (and those AMEX early adopters) by now, right?
While we know TD, Scotiabank and BMO are set to launch support next month for Apple Pay, what about other credit cards, such as the Capital One MasterCard from Costco?
On May 10, Capital One told customers on Twitter they had “nothing to announce” regarding Apple Pay. One week later, they clarified “There are no immediate plans for Apple Pay but we’ll be evaluating it & other payment tools.”
Now Costco Canada is being more explicit about Apple Pay support from their warehouse MasterCard. They’ve been telling customers on Twitter the Capital One MasterCard “won’t be supporting this payment method.”
The contactless terminals at Costco, according to iPhone in Canada readers, can accept tap up to $200, with something being able to tap for slightly higher amounts.
While it can be disappointing to learn the sole MasterCard you may own won’t support Apple Pay, it’s probably a better idea to go with a card from a big bank that will, so you don’t wait forever. At least terminals at Costco accept tap for MasterCard, so that means you can still pay with a different MasterCard (or your debit card).
Thanks @theadub
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This is awful news. What the hell Costco.
This sucks!!
Bye bye Capital One MasterCard. You’re site and app are garbage, was holding out for Apple Pay, but now I have no reason to keep it. Will be looking for a new MasterCard
Same but what one?
BMO Rewards World Elite
BMO World Elite has 1.75% Cash back which is pretty good, but the $120 annual fee is a bit much. You need to spend $600 a month to be of benefit..
The rewards on Capital One’s Costco card seems to be the best out of the no – low fee cards.
RBC has a no-fee cash back card but only 1%.
Wish Costco renewed their AMEX deal..
Scratch that, Tangerine claims they were have Apple pay within “6-8 weeks”(about two weeks ago) and their MasterCard has 2% cash back on any two categories, no annual fee.
So far that’s my choice, hoping they stick to their word
Yeah I was thinking tangerine as well. I don’t feel the need to spend $120 anal fee for a credit card. Last year my Costco card netted me over $700. Gonna miss it????
3 categories!
Three categories only if you have a bank account with them and have the MasterCard tied into it.
I’ve been looking at that one, among others, but the biggest problem with any of these is that if you buy most of your groceries and gas at Costco, you don’t get the bonus rewards as Costco’s MCC codes don’t match up. For groceries that sort of makes sense (they’re not a “grocery” store, after all), but it’s annoying that this isn’t the case for their gas pumps either.
So you’ll only get 1% cash back as apposed to the 2 and 3% with the Costco MC?
Well, Costco is only 3% on restaurants and 2% on gas, and “up to” 1% on everything else — if you read the fine print, it’s actually 0.5% on the first $3,000/year in purchases, and 1% after that. So other purchases at Costco would only net you 0.5% to 1%.
This is on top of what you get by having a Costco Executive Membership (if you’re at that level), however, so that’s probably why Costco doesn’t do anything special with the MasterCard for Costco purchases — they’d rather you pay for the more expensive membership. However, the Executive Membership doesn’t give you cash back on gas purchases, but the Costco MasterCard does, so they’re clearly trying to balance that one out both ways — the Executive Membership gives you 2% back on most of your purchases inside the Costco store, and the Costco MasterCard gives you 2% back outside at the gas pump.
Other cards, however, won’t recognize Costco gas pumps as “gas stations” for the purposes of cash back rewards, so if you get the Tangerine MasterCard and buy all of your gas at Costco, you won’t benefit by having “gas” as one of your cash-back categories. Likewise, if you choose “groceries” as one of your categories, food you buy at Costco won’t count toward that either — you have to shop at traditional grocery stores for that benefit.
Appreciate the clarification, Thank you!
The Rogers MasterCard is straight %1.75 Cashback on everything. Really great card.
Sounds good but I have a beef with Robbers and will hopefully never use another one of their services.
I hate Robbers too, but it really is a great card. Can’t deny it, it’s one of the best no/low fee Cashback cards in Canada.
I could try it for the first year as it’s free. Maybe by then Cap 1 will get their head out of their ass.
But…no apple pay support right?
That’s right, not yet. I just applied for the BMO Cashback card %2 for the first 6 month and will support ?Pay in June. I’ll use that card for 6 month and then never use it again, hopefully by then the Robbers card will have ?Pay.
Just want to mention I’ve been using ?Pay from the beginning with Amex ????
Tangerine has 4% for the first 3 months then 2% after that for 2 or 3 services based on options. I thought that was great. Thanks for your info bud. Sometimes I wish iphoneincanada.ca still had their forums up and running for this reason alone.
I believe that %4 is only in certain categories, I could be wrong. I’m also waiting for the PC world elite MasterCard to get ?Pay, it’s also a great card if you shop at any loblaws owned stores, including shoppers drug mart.
I don’t shop at those stores. I’m weird. I only shop at farmers markets and Health food stores for the most part. Costco for gas and tons of organic produce plus household items.
Yeah, “2 or 3 services based on options” is what I believe Jason said. It’s a promotional offer providing 4% in those categories for the first three months to get people to sign up, after which it drops to the normal 2%.
It’s two categories of your choice by default, but you get a third category if you have your “Money-Back Rewards deposited into a Tangerine Savings Account.”
The biggest gotcha though is that you have to shop at places that will fall into those categories based on Merchant Category Codes (MCCs). For example, only traditional grocery stores would fall into the “Grocery” category — places like Costco and Walmart do not (although I’ve been told Walmart Super Centres do), even if you buy only food there. Also, Costco gas pumps do not qualify in the “Fuel” category as they don’t use the proper “Service Station” or “Automated Pump” MCCs.
All other categories are 1%, but it’s a full 1% across the board from the get-go, not this “up to 1%” nonsense that other cash back cards offer, where you have to do a minimum amount of spending to get the highest return rate.
Think i’ll wait to see what Tangerine does next month. Their card seems decent as well.
Yes, it’s also a great card. I just hate the stupid categories, but it is a great card.
Yeah, but I’m not holding my breath about that one coming to Apple Pay anytime soon 🙂
Scotia Gold Amex….4% on groceries, restaurants, gas and entertainment… anyone that doesn’t take Amex doesn’t get my sale. Simple. I’d gladly pay double the current annual fee for this card, it’s amazing and has amazing benefits, insurance etc too.
Is it Costco or is it Capital One holding back on Apple Pay? I don’t think the article makes that clear. So if you’re a non-Costco Capital One MasterCard user, we may still have Apple Pay in the near future.
Yeah, it’s hard to say for certain. By all indications, the Costco Capital One MasterCard appears to be a very different animal, using an entirely different back-end system, from the other traditional Capital One MasterCards.
For example, when you log in to the online portal for the Costco MasterCard, it’s an entirely separate web page — not even a unified login that directs you to a different section of the site, but a totally isolated section of its own.
Capital one already supports Apple Pay in the states. It has to be Costco. For every 100 dollar used on Apple Pay costco has to pay 5 cents to apple.
Their app is pretty basic, but then they only have credit cards in Canada; it tells you what you’ve charged and what has been authorized so that’s fine for me for mobile. I’d 100% disagree about their website. It has tons of info about your account, rewards, services, you can secure message them, you can set travel alerts and on and on. There’s really nothing I can think of that I’d ever use that isn’t available on their website and it’s pretty well laid out and organized as well.
I’ll be extremely disappointed if this means none of their cards will be getting Apple Pay, but I’m not about to base my financial decisions on the ability to tap my phone on a reader. My Capital One Aspire Travel World Elite MC is the best travel credit card in Canada bar none. I’d be a fool to give it up simply because I can’t add it to my phone.
Yeah, but I assume you’re experience is based on that Aspire Travel World Elite. The Costco card is a whole different system. Doesn’t show you how much cash back per purchase, can’t make manual payments, only set up autopay not to mention it looks like something that would have run on Windows ’98. I believe the regular Capital One cards, like you have, are a completely different experience.
As for “basing my financial decisions on the ability to tap my phone”, the Costco card offers 0.5% cash back on regular purchases until I’ve spent $3000. Where as Tangerine gives 2% cash back on most of my purchases, and 1% on the others. Financially, that card is better, Apple Pay would be an extremely welcome bonus.
Rogers MC is a better choice. 1.75% cash back on all purchases, plus no foreign transaction fee.
I have the costco card and it shows me my rewards on the webpage, not per purchase, but it updates daily. And i can make manual payments through my RBC account, so it technically isn’t only autopay.
I use the Canadian Tire MasterCard with Apple Pay at Costco…Works great!!!!
And Iw as just about to sign up for the Costco Card – Guess not!
Well hat sucks, but good to know (i.e. no need to hold out waiting anymore). I guess I’ll just hang onto it for restaurants (3% cash back, and they rarely have tap anyway) and for Costco warehouse access, but shift everything else over to my CIBC VISA.
Stupid Capital One. Why Capital One launched Apple Pay in US but not in Canada?
It was an awful decision to dump American Express – their customer service was far superior to Capital One.
please go back to amex. a far better company than capital one…
It probably has to do with the fact that the Costco MasterCard doubles as your membership card.
I thought of that too, but technically I can’t see how that would prevent them from getting on board. Sure, there’d be less of a point, as you’d still need to have your physical membership card with you (and they might be concerned about people not realizing that and showing up without it), but as long as you can show a membership card, it shouldn’t matter how you’re paying.
Of course, Costco should do something really innovative and switch to digital membership cards, or even just tie the membership in more directly — if you’re using a Costco MasterCard, you obviously must be a member, and half the cashiers don’t really care or even look at the picture on card most of the time anyway.
Unfortunate, but it kindof make sense, since that credit card was also a Costco membership card – which can’t be put into Apple Pay. They could separate the two, and just use the credit card for payments, but I don’t think they’d want to do that..
Why don’t you guys get MBNA Travel Rewards World Elite? This gives you 2% cash back on everything. $89 annual fee. Does not support Apple Pay yet but they have confirmed on twitter that it is coming soon. Other cards might have a limit on how much cash back they can have, or some will have 4% on certain categories and 1% everywhere else, but with this MBNA card, it is on every single purchase. Can redeem as statement credit which is far easier and flexible
The best Cash Back card in Canada is the MBNA World Elite Mastercard because it gives a straight 2% cash back on all purchases, no teaser categories at 3 or 4% and then a measly 1% on most purchases. And because MBNA is a division of TD, they say Apple Pay is coming soon! Furthermore it works at Costco. It’s my primary and Rogers Platinum Mastercard at 1.75% is my secondary card for foreign transactions only since it charges no 2.5% FX commission like almost all cards in Canada.
I wonder if there is any update to this.