MBNA · Mastercard
$120 for 5 points a dollar on restaurants, groceries, digital media, memberships and utilities. A wide accelerated set at a mid tier price.
Rates and features verified 2026-08-18Full terms and conditionsHow we research cards
What we like, and what we don’t
Worth having
- 5 points a dollar across five categories, including household utilities and memberships that other cards ignore
- $2,000,000 of emergency medical cover for 21 days and $1,000 of mobile device insurance
- Rental car collision damage waiver included
- 30,000 points in the welcome offer, 10,000 of which need only an e-statement enrolment
- Points are worth a cent when redeemed for travel
Watch out for
- Points are worth about 0.83 cents for cash back, so a points total overstates the cash value by roughly a fifth
- The welcome bonus is not available to Quebec residents even though the card is
- MBNA does not publish a foreign transaction fee anywhere we could reach
- MBNA's wording on the $50,000 cap is ambiguous, and we record the conservative shared reading
- Additional cards cost $50 each
- $80,000 personal or $150,000 household income required
What this card earns
- Groceries
- 5x
- Dining and restaurants
- 5x
- Recurring bills and subscriptions
- 5x
- Entertainment
- 5x
- Everything else
- 1x
- Bonus rates apply up to
- $50,000 of annual spending after that, the base rate
- Bonus categories at once
- 5 you choose which
- What we value a point at
- 1¢
The earning fine print
5 points per $1 on eligible restaurant, grocery, digital media, membership and household utility purchases; 1 point per $1 on everything else. MBNA's wording is that the 5x rate applies 'until $50,000 is spent annually in the applicable category'. Conservative reading: treat the $50,000 as a single shared annual cap across the five accelerated categories; after it is reached those categories earn 1 point per $1. MBNA does not state whether the cap resets on the calendar year or the account anniversary. A birthday bonus pays 10% of the points earned in the prior 12 months, capped at 15,000 points annually. Balance transfer fee is 1.00% (minimum $3.50).
The welcome offer
- Welcome bonus
- 20,000 points after you spend $2,000, within 3 months
- Second tier
- 10,000 points after you spend $0, within 3 months
What the offer actually requires
20,000 bonus points for $2,000 or more in eligible purchases within the first 90 days, plus 10,000 bonus points for enrolling in paperless e-statements within 90 days (no spend required for that tier). Limit one bonus offer per new account. MBNA states 'This offer is not available to residents of Quebec'. No offer end date published.
Fees and interest rates
- Annual fee
- $120
- Additional card
- $50
- Foreign transaction fee
- Not published by the issuer
- Purchase APR
- 21.99%
- Cash advance APR
- 22.99%
- Balance transfer APR
- 22.99%
- Balance transfer fee
- 1%
Who can get this card
- Minimum personal income
- $80,000
- Minimum household income
- $150,000
Insurance and benefits
- Travel medical
- $2,000,000 first 21 days of a trip, age 65 and under
- Flight delay
- $500
- Baggage delay
- $1,000
- Mobile device
- $1,000
- Rental car damage waiver
- Included
- Purchase protection
- Included
- Extended warranty
- Included
What the benefits really mean
Travel medical up to $2 million for the first 21 days, under age 65. Delayed and lost baggage up to $1,000 per person per trip for delays of 4+ hours. Flight/trip delay up to $500 per person for delays of 4+ hours. Mobile device insurance up to $1,000 for loss, theft, damage or mechanical breakdown. Rental vehicle collision damage waiver for rentals up to 31 consecutive days. Price protection up to $500 per item with a $1,000 calendar-year maximum. Redemption: 100 points per $1 toward travel; 120 points per $1 for cash or charitable donations. Points are worth 1 cent for travel and about 0.83 cents for cash. The welcome bonus is not available to residents of Quebec, although the card itself is. Excluded_provinces is left empty because the card is available, but the offer is not. 10,000 of the 30,000 welcome points require only an e-statement enrolment and no spend. The true spend-based bonus is 20,000. Points are worth 1 cent for travel but only about 0.83 cents for cash back, so a headline points total overstates the cash value by roughly 20%. The $50,000 5x cap is worded ambiguously ('in the applicable category'). The conservative shared-pool reading is recorded. Travel medical is only 21 days and only under age 65. MBNA does not publish the FX fee for this card.
Our verdict
Household utilities and memberships as accelerated categories is the unusual part. Most cards reward groceries and dining and stop there. Paying 5 points a dollar on your hydro bill, your gym and your streaming services covers spending that normally earns the base rate everywhere else, and for a household with high fixed costs that adds up fast.
Read the point value before you get excited. MBNA points are worth a cent redeemed for travel and about 0.83 cents redeemed for cash, so 5 points a dollar is 5% on travel and closer to 4.2% in cash. That is still very good. Quebec residents should note that the card is available to them but the welcome bonus is not, which is a distinction MBNA does not make prominently.
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Where this came from. MBNA Rewards World Elite product page and MBNA's rewards category page (annual fees, APRs, balance transfer fee, income requirements, earn rates and the $50,000 cap, welcome tiers and the Quebec exclusion, redemption ratios, insurance amounts). MBNA does not publish the foreign currency conversion fee on the open web. Its cardholder agreement defers to a separate Disclosure Statement, so it is NOT PUBLISHED.. We take every figure from the issuer’s own pages, never from another comparison site, and we leave a field blank rather than guess at it.