Chase Canada Closes Applications For Amazon.ca Rewards Visa
One of the hidden gems in the Canadian rewards card space is now closed to new applicants. A statement posted on Amazon.ca says the application for its Amazon.ca Rewards Visa card is no longer available:
As of April 3, 2017, we are no longer accepting applications for the Amazon.ca Rewards Visa Card and there is no other way to get the card at this time.
For customers who applied before April 3 and your Amazon.ca Rewards Visa Card application was approved, Amazon.ca will send you a welcome email and will automatically add your Amazon.ca Rewards Visa Card as the default payment card for any purchases on Amazon.ca. You will receive your paper Cardmember Agreement and physical card in the mail within two weeks of being approved. After that, you can use your card to make purchases wherever your Amazon.ca Rewards Visa Card is accepted.
If your application wan’t approved, you may be advised that you need to call Chase Cardmember Services to provide some additional information for your application. Otherwise, you will be informed of your application status after Chase has completed its review process, usually within 2 to 4 weeks after applying.
Here are the top no FX credit cards on the market:
Amazon.ca Rewards Visa by Chase
The Amazon.ca Rewards Visa by Chase was unique in that it did not charge a fee when converting foreign currency purchases back to Canadian dollars. Nearly all Canadian credit card issuers charge 2.5 percent foreign currency transaction fees. This feature made the Amazon.ca Rewards Visa a popular choice for those who travel to the U.S. and abroad or shop online and deal in foreign currency.
While this news is sad for anyone that may have been interested in signing up for the Amazon.ca Rewards Visa, it’s also troubling for existing cardholders who are left wondering about the fate of their go-to card for foreign transactions and Amazon.ca spending.
Curious as a cardholder myself I logged-in to the Chase website and was surprised to see Scotiabank notifications on the home page.
Back in late 2015 Scotiabank bought from Chase what (at the time) was believed to be just its Sears MasterCard portfolio. Some recent activity from those 2 million cardholders suggest they will be transitioned to a new card called the Scotia Momentum MasterCard as of June 1st, 2017.
Could it be that Scotiabank also bought the Amazon.ca Visa portfolio from Chase? I called the number listed on the back of my Amazon.ca Rewards Visa, as well as a different number I found online under ‘Account Services’. Both numbers led to a Scotiabank call centre, but it was after hours and no representative was available.
The Chase.ca website didn’t provide any additional information. Indeed, the Amazon.ca Rewards Visa application seems to be closed. No word on whether its only other rewards card offering – the Marriott Rewards Premier Visa card – is also closed to new applicants.
In any case, at first blush this looks like Chase will be exiting the Canadian credit card market and handing over the reigns to Scotiabank. And that doesn’t bode well for existing Chase cardholders.
*Update from Scotiabank*
After another phone call to the call centre, where I asked whether I was calling Chase or Scotiabank, the agent admitted that it used to be a Chase call centre but it was purchased by Scotia in 2015, along with a number of other credit card assets.
I reached out to the Scotia credit card team and this is what they had to say:
Scotiabank acquired the MasterCard and private label credit card portfolio and the related credit card operations from JPMorgan Chase, formerly associated with Sears Canada Inc. The acquisition did not include the Amazon portfolio from Chase or the Marriott Visa portfolio.
Our acquisition also included the acquisition of JPMorgan Chase’s credit card operations in Canada, including a highly-skilled bilingual call centre in Ottawa with fraud, collections, recovery and customer service expertise. Through that call centre, we are now servicing the customer base of JPMorgan Chase’s other cards in Canada.
Operators are trained to recognize Scotiabank customers and other JPMorgan card holders by the incoming call and to answer the phone with a greeting tailored to that call. In this instance, the operator made a mistake with his or her greeting to you.
My husband already has the Scotia card and he has been informed that come June 1st they will be charging foreign exchange on his card.
Then they can cancel my card!!!Too bad, once again Canadian banks take advantage of their customers and the lack of a competitive market let’s them get away with it!! Just look at the difference between the countries when it comes to Cash Back card rebate amounts!!!
Scotiabank aquired the former Sears Master Card from Chase, not Amazon Visa. They both had same web page login for account maintenance. The new warning message is for the ex Sears Master Card not Visa. People, if you don’t know, shut up, don’t assume and create panic amongst Amazon Visa holders. By talking nonsense about the future of Amazon Visa falling from Chase into another bank’s hands, you only confirm acceptance and give some other bank (be it Scotia) the green light to go ahead. They’ll say, here, customers already talk about this.
I also have the Amazon.ca Visa from Chase and when I go to login I do not get any notice about Scotiabank (https://online.chasecanada.ca/ChaseCanada_Consumer/Login.do?promoCode=AMZ). The ONLY reason I have this credit card is for the no foreign transaction fee. If they institute one in the future, I will be cancelling this card. As Canadians we are getting fewer benefits on our choice of credit cards unless we are willing to pay an annual fee and/or have high incomes enough to qualify. Where does this leave the rest of us?
It looks like the Marriott card is still available…for now. I happened to be hanging onto an invitation to apply for one in my inbox.
I have the Scotiabank mastercard which was the replacement card for the Sears mastercard. The only reason for having it is because of no foreign currency transaction fee. I will be cancelling it and use another credit card in June when they start charging. It’s not like they had extra work involved to offer the feature. Corporate greed trumps customer loyalty everyday!
Those who missed the Amazon boat should check out Rogers and Fido cards.
They charge 2.5% on FX, but give 4% cashback on foreign transactions, so the net% is better than the regular 1.5% cashback at Fido, and close to the regular 1.75% at Rogers.
But no cashback on ATM withdrawals, so the Amazon card remains the winner there.
[…] just last week Chase Canada closed its Amazon.ca Rewards Visa to new applications. This card is particularly useful for those who travel and shop in the U.S. or […]
I’ll be really, really sad if Chase closes down in Canada – not just because I’ve been taking full advantage of no foreign transaction fees from both the Amazon and Marriott Visa cards, but also because I love, love, love having a hotel card for the Marriott chain. I get great value of my Cat 5 cert every year, and almost exclusively stay at Marriott hotels when I travel and get great value from the 5x points I get for charging stays to my Marriott Visa.
I guess there’s some solace in knowing that I can turn to an SPG Amex and transfer those points to Marriott if I want to, but the SPG Amex annual fee does not offer any annual incentive like the Marriott Visa did…I’m not sure I can reach the $30-$40K annual spend to get any real benefit from it and justify the $120 AF.
To make matters worse, I’m still smarting from the loss of my IHG Mastercard, too….OH the humanity!