Picking the best credit card to get the best savings isn’t always an easy choice. I’ve used a variety of different cards over the years to test out which cards provide the best rewards. Let’s look at the Tangerine Credit Card, and see how my spending habits would mean $250 cash back over the year!
If you find the information on this page helpful, consider supporting this blog by using the links found on this page if you sign up for a Tangerine Credit Card , or use my Orange Code – 48022177S1 – when signing up to Tangerine so that you can also benefit from referral rewards.
Tangerine Credit Card Rewards
To start off, let’s look at the rewards that the Tangerine Credit Card, a MasterCard, offers:
- 2% cashback in 2 spending categories
- 2% cashback in an ADDITIONAL spending category, when you setup your Tangerine MasterCard rewards to deposit into a Tangerine savings account
- 0.5% cashback on all other purchases.
To make more sense of these rewards, here are the spending categories that Tangerine Credit Card offers:
- Grocery
- Furniture
- Restaurants
- Hotel-Motel
- Gas
- Recurring Bill Payments
- Drug Store
- Home Improvement
- Entertainment
- Public Transportation and Parking
Tangerine offers a very good selection of rewards categories that really allows you to take advantage of the best rewards based on how you spend your money. And you can change the categories over time. As per the rewards agreement:
Whether you choose your 2% Money-Back Categories or they are chosen for you, you can make one (1) 2% Money-Back Category change request at any time after the Credit Card Account opening. Any further 2% Money-Back Category change requests will take effect on the first billing date following a 90-day hold period after the previous 2% Money-Back Category change took effect.
This means you can change around your rewards if you know you have some big purchases coming in certain categories, but can’t change them day-to-day, you’ll have to wait 3 months.
No fee credit card
When trying to calculate which credit card is best for you, keep in mind that the Tangerine Credit Card is a no annual fee credit card! As long as you pay off your balances on time, you will be charged $0 for using this credit card. Other cards that might seem to offer higher rewards usually have an annual fee associated to use the card – and that can eat into your earnings very quickly.
How to change your Tangerine Credit Card rewards categories
It’s very easy to switch your Tangerine MasterCard rewards categories through the Tangerine website. Login to your Tangerine account and select your Tangerine Credit Card account. Then select the “Rewards” menu:
This will now show what your current money back categories are. You can now select the “Change Categories” button:
You can now select whether you will deposit your rewards into your savings account (giving you a bonus 2% category) or whether your rewards will go directly onto your credit card. Here you can de-select any categories you don’t want anymore, and select the new ones that you do:
From here, if you select depositing into a savings account (which i highly suggest that you do), you can select which one and confirm:
The next screen will confirm when the change will take place. Make sure you take note of the date, to understand when you’ll start making the additional rewards on your newly selected categories. You will continue to earn rewards on your old categories until the noted date.
Determine your spending habits
Looking over the past few months of your spending should make it pretty obvious where your biggest spending categories are. For me, it’s definitely Groceries and Restaurants, with my 3rd highest switching between Gas, Home Improvement, and Entertainment. I categorize and track my spending pretty closely using mint.com, which is very helpful tool I use to analyze my past spending habits. Make sure you understand how you spend your money to best set the category rewards for yourself!
How I would save $250 over the last year
Let’s break down my spending habits over the past 12 months, and see how having three 2% cash back categories, and 0.5% cashback on everything else would play out.
My highest spending comes in the form of food (groceries and restaurants) and gas:
| Category | Spent (over 12 months) | Reward percentage | Total reward |
| Groceries | $2,910 | 2% | $58 |
| Restaurants | $4,386 | 2% | $88 |
| Gas | $1,132 | 2% | $23 |
| Rest of spending | $16,190 | 0.5% | $81 |
| Total | $24,618 | – | $250 |
I swear I didn’t change my spending numbers to add up exactly to $250.
That is $250 cash back, just for using my Tangerine Credit Card on all possible transactions, and paying off my monthly balance to ensure to additional fees.
Is this card right for you?
There is no yes or no answer to this question. The credit card that best suits a person is based off of their individual spending habits, and what kind of rewards they want from their credit card. The Tangerine Credit Card is great for the following people:
- Those who pay off their balance every month, and use credit cards strictly for their rewards
- Those looking for monthly cash back rewards. You don’t have to wait until the end of the year, and you don’t get rewarded with points you can only redeem for certain things. This card provides money in your savings account every month!
- Those unsure of the spending habits, and need the flexibility to change based on upcoming spending.