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At the beginning of 2018, a new player in the Credit Card arena popped in. When Brim Financial website went live, it brought a lot of hype. And for a good reason! There offering was beyond everything that the no annual fees card offered
- Open rewards;
- Cashback;
- No Foreign exchange fees; and
- Free Global WiFi
The Foreign Exchange fee issue
For those who don’t know the foreign exchange fee problem, here’s a little wake up call. When you are buying in another currency, let’s say in USD, either from a seller in the US or one of the many Asian sellers out there, you are charged an extra fee on top of the exchange rate.
How much, you ask? The typical Canadian Credit card will charge you an extra 2.5%, plus a very small spread from the bank. All in all, it’s lower then 3%.
How much is your card giving you as cashback?
Generally, it would be 1%, except if you have a high end card or are paying astronomical annual fees.
After some “very hard” maths, that extra fees is not only eating your reward but it makes your transaction even more expensive! Also, if for some reason you are unhappy with what you bought and are returning it, that extra fee is still applicable! So you are loosing an extra 2.5%!
All in all, you are loosing close to a whooping 6% with a round trip transaction.
Not a good deal!
The Credit Card Landscape
Almost all credit card will charge you those extra fees.
Still, a limited number of option still exist that charged absolutely no extra foreign exchange fee.
However, a lot of these card are disappearing, namely the Chase Amazon. ca Visa and the Marriott Visa.
Remaining cards have often axed that discount or give some kind of bonus instead.
The Brim Revolution
Enters Brim Financial with their promise to revolutionize the credit card world.
Here what you get:
Brim Mastercard
- No annual fee
- 1 point per $1 spent
- No foreign transaction fees
- Free global WiFi
- Real-time notifications
- Extended warranty
- Mobile device insurance up to $500
Brim World Mastercard
- $99 annual
- 1.5 points per $1 spent ($25K spend limit on points)
- No foreign transaction fees
- Free global WiFi
- Real-time notifications
- Extended warranty
- Mobile device insurance up to $1,000
- Travel medical insurance 8 days under the age of 65
Brim World Elite Mastercard
- $199 annual
- 2 points per $1 spent ($25K spend limit on points)
- No foreign transaction fees
- Free global WiFi
- Real-time notifications
- Extended warranty
- Mobile device insurance up to $1,000
- Travel medical insurance 15 days under the age of 65
- Trip cancellation / interruption
Extras
They have partnered with Amazon, Netflix, Spotify, Foodora, UberEats and many more. When you buy anything with these partners, your reward is doubled!
Brim On The Go
Brim has not stopped at designing and creating a good cashback card with a lot of extra perks, it also include an account management app. Granted that other company have done so in the past. But I have always found them… not appealing and hard to use. This application is minimalist and quickly gives you the empowerment you need at our fingertips. Note that this app is still in beta test!
Dashboard
The dashboard quickly gives you an overview of what is happening on your card. On this tab you will find:
- Current balance;
- Available credit;
- Minimum payment;
- Installment payment; and
- Recent and pending transactions.
Another very nice option on the dashboard is that you have some security functionally accessible and that can quickly activated:
- Lock Card: Very useful if you loose your card or you think someone is using it without your consent. it will prevent anyone from doing any transaction with the card;
- Lock Online: Most often, stolen card or stolen card number are used online. With that option, you can prevent anyone from buying anything online with your card.
- Lock Foreign: The card cannot be used to do transaction in foreign currency.
The dashboard also give you the total accumulated reward points and the breakdown of those earned point in the transactions.
Activity
On this tab you can review all the activity that has happened with your card. All transactions will be listed here. You can then click on the transaction to access additional feature such as the Redeem It button to allow the application of your reward points onto that transaction.
You also can switch the view between the different types of transactions:
- Transaction: the day to day transaction of your card.
- Installment: This is where the Installment payment eligible transaction will be displayed and you will be able to select them.
- Statement: This is where you can access your current statement and previous ones.
Budget
This little tab will show you the total amount of your transactions and will break them down into different categories. It will give you an overview of were you are spending your money with the credit card.
Account
This tab allows you to update all of your account information
- My information: Contains all of your contact information. It’s here that you can change your password and secret question answer
- My Card: Contains the same information as on the Dashboard. You also have the same instant security options.
- Setting and Notification**: This section let you set up the different notification from the app and email notifications: Purchase Notification, Credit Limit Notification, Spending limit notification from extra cardholder and Payment received notification.
- Travel Notice: No need to call the card issuer anymore to tell them you are going for a ride outside the country! You can set up your complete trip before leaving. No blocked card at the most inopportune moment anymore.
- Contact: Contains Brim Financial contact information
- Sign in Method: Here you can choose your preferred sign method, from Pin to Pattern passing by fingerprint.
Security
Brim Financial takes security very highly. Not only does it uses the latest in security and encryption technology much like other players,
- Very secure architecture;
- State of the art data encryption;
- Two factor authentication; and
- Much more
but they are actually pushing it a step further by providing some instant security feature.
Instant Security Feature
Brim as integrated a certain customization of security feature for you. They are all available through the app and are applied instantaneously. As such, you can individually and instantly lock the following
- Lock your card
- Lock online purchases
- Lock Foreign transaction All of these are yours to control.
Also, Brim provides you with instant transaction notification through an app notification and through an email notification, if you set them both. Like that, you are aware of what is happening in real time. You will be able to stop any fraudulent activity right from your app!
You can look at the detailed of the security feature here
Extra Goodies
Like all credit cards issuer, Brim his trying to bring you some extra goodies that will make their card that much appealing. These extra feature will bring your partnership with Brim to a new level:
Free World Wide WiFi
Ok. That one is pretty cool. Specially for frequent travelers. They have partnered with Boingo to offer their customer a Global Wifi offering for free! It gives you access to over 1 million WIFI hotspot on the planet including some airlines, airport, hotel, train and many more location. And it’s not a time limited feature. For as long as you keep your card, you access is free.
Open Rewards and Brim Marketplace
Brim’s reward program is seamlessly integrated into the day to day usage of the card.
It’s the first card in Canada that let you redeem your point towards a transaction directly. No need to wait for end of month, or end of year, cashback. You can also, at any time, apply the points directly to your monthly statement as cashback.
Admittedly, this has the same impact on your statement as putting a cashback on your statement at the end of the month. However, it’s not like certain card where you need to spend in a certain category or on certain articles to get the actual money back. As they say, they’ve put us back in control of our points and how to deal with them.
Also, with most other card, you need to spend into certain categories to be able to get the extra rewards and between 0.5 and 1% for the rest of your purchases. With Brim’s Marketplace, the choices is yours, and on your day to day transactions. You still get your base reward, but for Brim’s partner, it pays to shop there more often. The Brim’s Marketplace is a location where retailer are “bidding” for your business by offering you:
- Surge Multipliers. Reward multiplier when you buy at a participating retailer (1x, 2x, 3x and even more!).
- Exclusive Offers. Brim’s partner also list exclusive offers to members!
- Milestone bonuses. Brim’s partner often offers Bonus Reward points for reaching some milestones, like for your first order.
Customer Service Issues
This is where I had an issue with this company. Customer service.
There are several ways to contact them.
- Email;
- Twitter;
- Facebook;
- Phone;
But, it seems that they are overloaded by the number of application and questions. Granted it’s a new company and it seems that there are a huge need for a card like them, but you cannot let your customer in the dark! They have never responded to any of my email regarding questions on how feature works or on the application process.
However, every single time I have called them, they were very quick to answer, both in English and in French! As such, if you have to contact them, give them a call!
What’s in it for you.
If you are a frequent traveler or if you are often dealing in Foreign Currency, Brim has a card for you!
Not only does it fill the gap of a free No Foreign Exchange fee credit card for Canadian, but it also give you some extra perks such as:
- Global WiFi;
- Open Rewards;
- Brim Marketplace;
- Installment Plans;
- Many others!
Now it’s time, it’s your turn to Join The Credit Card Revolution
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