Simplii Financial · Visa
Best for restaurants, if you eat out lightly
4% on restaurants with no annual fee is a good headline, but the cap arrives at $5,000 of dining and the other categories share one pot. Not available in Quebec.
Rates and features verified 2026-08-18Full terms and conditions
What we like, and what we don’t
Worth having
- No annual fee
- 4% on restaurants, bars and coffee shops
- Very low $15,000 household income requirement
- No fee for additional cards
Watch out for
- Not available to Quebec residents at all
- The 4% dining rate caps at $5,000 a year, which is about $200 of cash back
- Gas, groceries, drugstore and pre-authorised payments SHARE a single $15,000 cap, not one each. Most comparison sites get this wrong
- The base rate is 0.5%
- No travel insurance of any kind. The CIBC travel medical on the product page is a separate paid product
- Cash back is held all year and paid out once, on the December statement
What this card earns
- Groceries
- 1.5%
- Gas
- 1.5%
- Dining and restaurants
- 4%
- Drugstore
- 1.5%
- Recurring bills and subscriptions
- 1.5%
- Everything else
- 0.5%
- Bonus rates apply up to
- $20,000 of annual spending after that, the base rate
The earning fine print
NOT AVAILABLE TO QUEBEC RESIDENTS. Two separate annual spend caps. The 4% rate on restaurants, bars and coffee shops has its own $5,000 cap (about $200 a year). Gas, groceries, drugstore and pre-authorized payments SHARE a single combined $15,000 cap at 1.5% (about $225 a year). They are not four independent caps, which is how most comparison sites get this card wrong. The $20,000 recorded here is the sum of the two bonus-eligible spend caps. Spend past a cap drops to the 0.5% base rate, which is uncapped. Cash back accrues from the January statement and is paid out automatically on the December statement date.
The welcome offer
- Welcome bonus
- $100 after you spend $500, within 3 months
What the offer actually requires
"Up to 20% cash back" is a first-three-months promotional rate on up to $500 of eligible gas, grocery, drugstore and pre-authorized payment spend, capping at $100. It is not an ongoing earn rate. No offer end date is published.
Fees and interest rates
- Annual fee
- None
- Additional card
- Free
- Foreign transaction fee
- 2.5%
- Cash advance fee
- $5
- Dishonoured payment fee
- $45
- Purchase APR
- 21.99%
- Cash advance APR
- 22.99%
- Balance transfer APR
- 22.99%
- Balance transfer fee
- 3%
Who can get this card
- Minimum personal income
- Not published by the issuer
- Minimum household income
- $15,000
- Not available in
- QC
Insurance and benefits
- Purchase protection
- Included
- Extended warranty
- Included
What the benefits really mean
No included travel insurance of any kind. CIBC Travel Medical Insurance is marketed on the card page but is a separately purchased optional product, not a card benefit. Purchase Security and Extended Protection share a $60,000 aggregate maximum. Penalty rates of 24.99% purchases / 27.99% cash advances apply after two missed minimum payments in 12 months.
Our verdict
Fine as a free second card if you eat out a moderate amount, and genuinely bad if you expected the headline rates to apply to real spending. The shared $15,000 cap across four categories is the detail that decides this card, and it is buried. Read it as about $425 a year at most, if you optimise, rather than as a set of independent 1.5% categories.
If you are in Quebec you cannot get it. If you want a no-fee card, the Tangerine is better for most people because the 2% categories are uncapped.
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Compare this against every card we track
Where this came from. simplii.com product page, cash back Visa rates page, cardholder agreement PDF, benefits guide. 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.