Scotiabank · American Express
$399 for a flat 2 points a dollar, no foreign transaction fee, ten lounge visits and a 9.99% interest rate. An unusual combination that suits a specific reader very well.
Rates and features verified 2026-08-18Full terms and conditionsHow we research cards
What we like, and what we don’t
Worth having
- No foreign transaction fee at all, a genuine zero
- A flat 2 Scene+ points a dollar on everything with no categories and no cap
- Ten airport lounge visits a year, the most of any card here
- 9.99% on purchases and on cash advances, roughly half the market rate
- $2,000,000 of travel medical cover for 31 days and $1,000 of mobile device insurance
- Up to 100,000 Scene+ points in the welcome offer
Watch out for
- Scene+ is fixed at a cent a point with no transfer partners, so 2 points is 2% and never more
- The $399 fee is high for a 2% return
- Emergency medical drops from 31 days to 10 days at age 65
- Additional cards cost $99 each
- American Express acceptance is narrower than Visa or Mastercard
- There are no accelerated categories at all, so heavy grocery or dining spending earns nothing extra
What this card earns
- Everything else
- 2x
- Bonus categories at once
- 2 you choose which
- What we value a point at
- 1¢
The earning fine print
Flat 2 Scene+ points per $1 on all eligible everyday purchases with no category distinctions and no published annual cap. Which is why every category field is 2. An additional 3 Scene+ points per $1 (5 in total) apply to hotels and car rentals booked through Scene+ Travel Powered by Expedia. There is no accelerated grocery or dining rate on this card.
The welcome offer
- Welcome bonus
- 60,000 points after you spend $5,000, within 3 months
- Second tier
- 20,000 points after you spend $10,000, within 6 months
- Offer ends
- 2026-11-01
What the offer actually requires
Up to 100,000 bonus Scene+ points across three tiers: 60,000 for $5,000 of spend in the first 3 months; 20,000 more for $10,000 of spend in the first 6 months; and 20,000 more for making one purchase in month 14. Offer period July 2, 2026 to November 1, 2026. The third tier does not fit the two-tier schema and is described here.
Fees and interest rates
- Annual fee
- $399
- Additional card
- $99
- Foreign transaction fee
- None
- Purchase APR
- 9.99%
- Cash advance APR
- 9.99%
Who can get this card
- Minimum personal income
- $12,000
Insurance and benefits
- Travel medical
- $2,000,000 first 31 days of a trip, age 65 and under
- Trip cancellation
- $2,500
- Trip interruption
- $2,500
- Flight delay
- $1,000
- Baggage delay
- $1,000
- Mobile device
- $1,000
- Rental car damage waiver
- Included
- Purchase protection
- Included
- Extended warranty
- Included
- Airport lounge
- 10 free visits a year
- Concierge
- Included
What the benefits really mean
Emergency medical up to $2,000,000 CAD. 31 days for cardholders under 65 but only 10 days for cardholders 65 and over. Trip cancellation and trip interruption up to $2,500 per person. Flight delay up to $1,000 for delays of 4+ hours. Baggage delay and loss up to $1,000. Mobile device insurance up to $1,000 CAD. Rental car collision. Priority Pass membership with 10 complimentary airport lounge visits per year for the primary cardholder and 4 per year for each supplementary cardholder. 24/7 concierge. Hertz #1 Club Gold membership. Amex Experiences and Front Of The Line access. Scotia SelectPay instalment plans. A minimum credit limit of $10,000 applies. The 9.99% purchase and cash advance rate is genuinely low, but it is bundled with a $399 annual fee. The card is not a low-rate product for someone who pays in full. foreign_transaction_fee is a genuine 0, not a missing value. Scotiabank's fees page explicitly exempts this card from the 2.5% conversion fee. Emergency medical drops from 31 days to 10 days at age 65, and the limit is $2 million, lower than most premium cards. Supplementary cardholders get only 4 lounge visits a year versus 10 for the primary, at $99 per supplementary card. The published minimum personal income is only $12,000 but a $10,000 minimum credit limit applies, so approval is driven by the limit, not the stated income floor. The third welcome tier only pays in month 14, after a second $399 annual fee.
Our verdict
This card is bought for the combination rather than any single feature. Zero foreign transaction fee, ten lounge visits, and a 9.99% interest rate is a set of things that normally live on three different cards. Somebody who travels several times a year and occasionally carries a balance gets more out of this than the fee suggests: $20,000 of foreign spending alone saves $500 in conversion charges.
For everyone else, 2% for $399 is an expensive way to earn 2%. Scene+ is a fixed value programme, so there is no clever redemption that turns those points into more, and the card has no accelerated categories to lift the average. If you do not travel and do not carry a balance, the SimplyCash Preferred pays the same 2% for a quarter of the price.
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Where this came from. Scotiabank Platinum American Express product page (fees, 9.99% rates, income and credit-limit requirements, earn rates, welcome tiers, offer period, insurance amounts, lounge visits, concierge) and Scotiabank's Credit Card Fees page, which explicitly names this card as one of only four Scotiabank cards with NO foreign currency conversion fee ('only the exchange rate applies'); 2.5% applies to all other Scotiabank cards.. 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.