CIBC Aventura Visa Card

CIBCVisa

CIBC · Visa

2.5out of 5, our rating

Free, and it earns a point per $2 on most spending. The bonus categories share a $6,000 annual pool, which is small.

Annual feeNone
Purchase APR21.99%
Welcome offer2,500 pts
Minimum income$15,000Household

Rates and features verified 2026-08-18Full terms and conditionsHow we research cards

What we like, and what we don’t

Worth having

  • No annual fee and no fee for additional cards
  • 1 point a dollar at grocery stores, gas stations, EV charging and drugstores
  • Aventura points can be redeemed against any travel booking rather than one airline
  • A low $15,000 household income requirement

Watch out for

  • The base rate is 1 point per $2, which is half a point a dollar
  • The bonus categories share a single $6,000 annual pool, the smallest cap in this comparison
  • Past $6,000 of bonus spending everything drops to the half point base
  • No travel insurance despite the travel branding
  • CIBC's own free Dividend Visa pays 2% on groceries against roughly 1% here

What this card earns

Groceries
1x
Gas
1x
Travel
1x
Drugstore
1x
Everything else
0.5x
Bonus rates apply up to
$6,000 of annual spending after that, the base rate
Bonus categories at once
1 you choose which
What we value a point at

The earning fine print

Base earn is 1 Aventura Point per $2 spent (0.5 points per $1). Accelerated earn is 1 point per $1 at eligible grocery stores, gas stations, EV charging stations and drug stores. But ONLY on the first $6,000 in total annual spending across those bonus categories combined (a single shared counter, not per category). Past $6,000 those merchants drop back to the 1-point-per-$2 base rate. The $6,000 limit resets to zero the day after your December statement is printed. Statement-driven, not calendar-year and not anniversary. Separately, travel booked through the CIBC Rewards Centre (CIBC by Expedia) earns double points, i.e. 1 point per $1; the benefit guide does not attach the $6,000 cap to this travel multiplier. Points not earned on cash advances, CIBC Global Money Transfers, interest, fees, balance transfers, payments, convenience cheques or points redemptions.

The welcome offer

Welcome bonus
2,500 points after you within 2 months
Second tier
10,000 points after you spend $1,000, within 4 months

What the offer actually requires

Up to 12,500 Aventura Points, advertised as up to $125 in travel value and up to $200 total offer value. Tier 1: 2,500 points for completing five specified account activities within 60 days of approval. This tier is activity-based, NOT spend-based, so bonus_tier1_spend is null. Tier 2: 10,000 points if $1,000+ in net purchases post during the first 4 statement periods. Remainder of the advertised value is a first-year free Skip+ membership (stated $110 value). No offer end date published on the product or travel-cards page.

Fees and interest rates

Annual fee
None
Additional card
Free
Foreign transaction fee
2.5%
Purchase APR
21.99%
Cash advance APR
22.99%
Balance transfer APR
22.99%

Who can get this card

Minimum personal income
Not published by the issuer
Minimum household income
$15,000

Insurance and benefits

Purchase protection
Included
Extended warranty
Included

What the benefits really mean

Common Carrier Accident Insurance up to $100,000 CAD per insured person, requiring at least 75% of the travel fare to be charged to the card. Purchase Security (90 days) and Extended Protection (doubles manufacturer warranty up to one additional year). Despite being marketed as a travel card, there is NO emergency travel medical, NO trip cancellation/interruption, NO flight or baggage delay, and NO rental car CDW. HEADLINE VS SUBSTANCE: the product page lists the 1-point-per-$1 category rate with no cap disclosed anywhere on the page. The $6,000 annual bonus-category cap appears only in the benefit guide PDF. The $6,000 cap is SHARED across groceries + gas + EV charging + drug stores combined, not $6,000 per category. It is a very low ceiling, roughly $500/month of category spend. Cap resets the day after the December statement prints, not 1 January and not on account anniversary. Base rate is 1 point per $2, which is easy to misread as 1 point per $1. Recorded as earn_base 0.5. Welcome tier 1 (2,500 points) requires completing five account ACTIVITIES within 60 days, not a spend threshold. A spend-only filter will misprice this offer. Marketed as a travel card but carries no travel medical or trip cancellation insurance whatsoever. Interest rates render as placeholder tokens on the live page; taken from PDF 11995-en.

Our verdict

The $6,000 shared cap is what kills it. A household spending $500 a month on groceries and fuel uses the entire annual allowance in a year, and everything after that earns half a point a dollar, which is around 0.5%. That is the worst effective rate of any free card here.

CIBC's own Dividend Visa is free, has the same $15,000 household income requirement, and pays 2% on groceries against roughly 1% here with a far larger allowance. Unless you specifically want Aventura points rather than cash, and there is no travel insurance here to justify wanting them, take the Dividend instead.

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Where this came from. CIBC product page; CIBC Aventura Visa Card benefit guide (avv-benguide-en.pdf); CIBC Summary of Annual Interest Rates and Fees 11995-en, effective 1 Aug 2026. 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.