After having my shiny new credit card for just over a month, I have to say, I’m pretty surprised by the number of times I’ve made that, “Man, that’s pretty sweet” face.
You know, with the lips out and the eyebrows up?
I just got back from a half-work-half-play trip to Nicaragua. It had been a dream trip of mine for quite some time and, thanks to my credit card, it was a trip that went off without a single nightmare. I’ll get into those details in the next post (yes, it involves surfing, disc golf, and demonic monkeys).
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Upon my return though, it was very quickly back to life as usual.
I had nothing in my fridge. Emergency. I hit the grocery store and prepared myself for a monster restocking bill. I bought a week’s worth of groceries and my bill came out to about $200. No, I wasn’t shopping at the high-end gourmet grocery store and yes, I know that I have a black hole in my stomach.
Normally, I would have winced at the total, paid for my groceries and then walked away. This time, it was different; I did a quick calculation in my head and made that face I talked about earlier because my broccoli and my grapefruits help me earn cash back. The Scotia Momentum® Visa InfiniteTM Card gets me up to 4% cashback on groceries.
Huge. The only thing I love more than grapefruit with my cottage cheese is earning cash back towards EVEN MORE grapefruit with cottage cheese.
Next, because it literally never ends, I had to plan a work trip to Las Vegas and L.A. When most people hear, “L.A.”, they hear things like, “Sunshine, “Movie Stars”, “Palm Trees” and “Plastic Surgery”. When I hear, “L.A.”, I hear, “The Clippers”.
The last time I went to L.A., I was twelve years old and couldn’t convince my parents to take me to a game. This time around, I wasn’t going to miss out. I had the time, I had the credit card, and because I had the credit card, I had the concierge service.
I called the toll-free VISA Infinite Concierge number and within a minute I was on the phone with the very friendly concierge agent, Wilfredo. I told him that I wanted to see the Clippers while I was in L.A. I gave him my dates and he put me on hold for about four minutes to “research”. You know what I did then? I actually got work done while he looked into the details.
When he returned, he gave me some pricing and location options, and within another five minutes, I had a PDF version of a ticket in my email inbox.
My card saved me the nuisance of snooping and tinkering with settings, logging into my Ticketmaster account and not being able to get work done while sorting the whole thing out.
“At your service,” said Wilfredo as he signed off of the call.
Now, with summer fast approaching, I’m planning a few nice nights with family and friends. In particular, I’m taking my mother to Niagara-on-the-Lake for a few nights of spas and moderate to more-than-moderate wine consumption. Just to see what else the card could do, I jumped into the VISA Infinite Offers & Benefits interface and under the “Food and Wine” section found something entitled, “Winery Benefits Directory – Ontario”. Sure enough, in there was this:
The following wineries in Ontario offer VISA Infinite and VISA Infinite Privilege cardholders exclusive benefits such as complimentary tastings, discounts on purchases, private vineyard tours, and more.
Jackson-Triggs Niagara Estate Winery
2145 Niagara Stone Rd., Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON L0S 1J0 T: 905.468.4637
Complimentary tasting of 3 table wines and back vintages
20% discount on signature Savour the Sights dinner experience
That was just one of the special offers listed.
So, day in and day out, this card and I are getting along wonderfully. And I haven’t even told you about the dream vacation stuff yet. That’ll be next time. For the moment, I have some more stuff I need to buy.
Now is also the perfect time to open a Scotiabank Momentum Chequing Account – today until July 31st, you earn double the cash back on all of your debit purchases – up to a maximum of $600 cash back in the first year! For more details about the offer, visit scotiabank.com/momentumchequing.
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