If you only use the credit card for travel bookings, stick with the Ikea card, as it has the better travel insurance. You’re right, it slipped my mind that the Ikea card also has trip interruption insurance. It also has luggage insurance, and cover for extra expenses (food, etc.) resulting from delays/cancellations while traveling. Plus the ambulance and search and rescue cover.
Sorry, I was thinking more in terms of everyday benefits, in which case I find price protection and no foreign transaction fees (important if you shop online from foreign merchants) useful.
Only 50%, max. 500 francs per year. So around half of a short ride to a hospital in the same municipality.
In case of accidents, ambulance transportation in Switzerland is fully covered by occupational accident insurance (for employees). Outside of Switzerland, max. twice the cost of equivalent transportation in Switzerland.
Note that Digitec Galaxus accepts PayPal (where you can link an Amex card) so you can get the 1% cashback through your Swisscard Cashback. However, the PayPal payment option is sometimes not available (e.g., last time I ordered alcohol).
There are special limits for ambulance transportation which are different thant the standard insurance limits for medical care abroad. But that’s a topic for a different thread altogether.
You can find a table with a clear overview in the moneyland guide " Swiss Insurance for Search and Rescue, Ambulances and Repatriation Explained"
Are you sure? Swisscard T&Cs exclude cash equivalents and financial services from rewards programs. Have you tried it? If it works, that would be a good option for using the Cashback card at merchants which don’t accept Amex.
Assumptions are that you select Aldi, Lidl, and Digitec/Galaxus as the 3 favourite merchants of the Certo card.
You are free to select others from the below list, however, do not select any which accept American Express (e.g. Migros/Coop/CFF) because then you can just use the Swisscard cashback card.
Some good answers on insurance above which may make other cards more interesting. Personally I prefer to just pay for insurance separately if I find value in it.
Nice table.
From my previous’ year calculation, it seems that I can use Certo One at the top 3 shops I use and leave out the rest. The only issue I see is that I might decide to buy something expensive at the 4th shop and I can either wait one month or just buy it. I think from that point of view I’m sold with Certo One.
The only issue is if I buy stuff (say at Digitec) from time to time and never more than 30chf but at the end of the year I’ve spent 300chf or more. For that I think I can just forget the 3CHF of bonus and keep living. That’s why I think the dynamic top 3 should be the best solution. I suggest everyone on this thread to check their expenses and see if they are always the same between several shops. If you spend 1000chf at coop, 1000 at migros, 1000 at galaxus 1000 at lidl then it might be problematic, but if you spend 1000 at the top 3 and just 300 at the 4th, it might be easier.
Also I’m sure that this thread costs me more than the savings I made last year with my Visa.
Disclaimer: I spoke about cashbacks, not insurances or foreign transaction expenses.
Migros Bank’s markup on exchange rates, as per regular sampling, currently averages 2%. So it’s a good bit less favorable than e.g. Revolut’s rates. But if you don’t do a huge amount of spending abroad, the effective differences in costs may be minimal.
Yes, I am. I checked my last bill and by my calculation on accrued cashback it was credited for all my amex transactions, including through PayPal for Digitec-Galaxus, Too Good To Go and Jumbo.
This is way I don’t see no foreign transaction fees not really as a big advantage. That makes the Migrosbank card about as good as CSX, worse than Yuh and much worse than Neon, Wise, Revolut. I.e. it’s a mediocre card for foreign transactions. It’s also worse for domestic transactions than either Swisscard Cashback or the new Cembra card. Which leaves “fringe benefits” such as insurances or ebill or the app quality as basically the only reasons to go for the Migrosbank card. On costs/cashback terms it’s not worth it.
I should start a poll to see how much you guys spend on groceries and stuff.
A travel insurance costs at least 30-40chf per trip I believe. A travel insurance from those cards is free (but also worth less than a full travel insurance though). So if instead of paying 40chf you get less cashback on your travel costs, isn’t that good? Better would be to pay for full travel insurance and get the best card though.
Well, the Migros Cumulus is a credit card and the others you mentioned are debit cards. This is the first Swiss credit card with no foreign transaction fee, which is something to celebrate. But when you account for exchange rates, the debit cards you mentioned are more favorable. The possible exception is CSX. I have to check Credit Suisse exchange rates samples.
I think it’s perfectly fair to say that as far as Swiss credit cards go, the new Migros Cumulus is the cheapest for foreign transactions. But debit cards from neobanks are cheaper, at least for major currencies. But those neobank cards do not have complimentary insurance, so if you would pay for the “shipping insurance” offered by online retailers, for example, you’d generally come off better with the Migros Cumulus. It depends on your needs.
The Ikea credit card remains, in my opinion, the best Swiss free credit card for complimentary travel insurance benefits. Personally, I’ve saved a lot more money with complimentary insurance benefits than with rewards. But here too, it depends on your lifestyle.
Yes, it’s great that competition is working to create very attractive offers. The Migrosbank card would have been exceptional only a few years back, now it’s merely meh, in my view. Which is great in a way, since it demonstrates how much more attractive cards have become.
As you say, it depends on personal preferences. I mostly don’t care about the difference debit/credit. And I tend to buy insurance separately. The travel insurance from Migrosbank is incomplete in my view (no pre-trip cancellation covered) and you’d have to read the conditions very carefully in order to know if it is worth anything. I checked the one from Swisscard a few years ago, that was riddled with so many exceptions to be essentially worthless.
It might be the first free Swiss credit card without foreign transaction fee. However, UBS offers key4 credit cards (initially called Mastercard Global) for a couple of years now without foreign transaction fees and with an exchange rate of Mastercard + 0.5%, i.e. a bit better than Migros Cumulus. The catch is that the card has a monthly or yearly fee (CHF 6 a month as add-on to a banking package, or CHF 200 a year without banking package).
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