CIBC Aventura Visa Infinite Card Review
The CIBC Aventura Visa Infinite Card is easily one of Canada’s most underrated travel rewards credit cards. You get a decent earning rate and great travel benefits. The rewards are flexible, and the annual fee for the first year is typically waived.
Even though CIBC is one of the big six banks in Canada, their credit cards don’t seem to get as much attention as American Express and co-branded travel credit cards. That’s a mistake, as this card offers a lot of value. Read my CIBC Aventura Visa Infinite Card review now for the full details.
CIBC Aventura Visa Infinite Card
- $139 annual fee – First year free
- 15,000 Aventura points when you make your first purchase
- 20,000 Aventura points when you spend $3,000 in the first 4 months
- Earn 2 points per $1 spent on CIBC travel
- Earn 1.5 points per $1 spent on gas, grocery, and drug store purchases
- Earn 1 points per $1 spent on all other purchases
- Visa Airport Companion Program membership and 4 free annual passes
Welcome Bonus and Earn Rate
The CIBC Aventura Visa Infinite Card typically has a welcome bonus of 35,000 – 50,000 Aventura points. This offer is usually broken down into two parts. You get the first bonus when you make your first purchase, and the second bonus is given when you spend $3,000 in the first four months. Right now, you get another 25,000 Aventura points when you spend $6,000 in the first four months. This is the best offer the card has ever had.
It’s worth noting that CIBC gives you four months to meet the minimum spending requirement to get your full welcome offer. This is relevant since most other credit card providers only give you three months. The card does have an annual fee of $139, but it’s usually waived for the first year.
The earning rate is a respectable 2 Aventura points per dollar spent on CIBC travel bookings, 1.5 points on gas, grocery, and drug store purchases, and 1 point on all other purchases. This isn’t the highest earning rate available out there, but it’s similar to other comparable travel rewards credit cards.
Benefits and Perks
The CIBC Aventura Visa Infinite Card is an excellent travel credit card because it provides a fair amount of benefits for people who are on the move. It’s a bit shocking more people don’t consider this card, especially since the annual fee for the first year is usually waived.
Airport Lounge Access
Cardholders get a free Visa Airport Companion Program membership, plus four free annual passes. This gives you access to 1,200+ global airport lounges in more than 100 countries. To give you some context, the value of these passes is about $190, so this perk alone is worth more than the annual fee.
NEXUS Application Rebate
Another travel benefit of the CIBC Aventura Visa Infinite is the NEXUS application rebate of $50. It’s good every four years, but NEXUS memberships last five years, so you’re essentially getting your NEXUS for free. Keep in mind that you must charge your NEXUS application to your CIBC Aventura Visa Infinite card to be entitled to the rebate.
Travel Insurance
- Travel medical – $5,000,000 for 15 days / 3 days if you’re 65 or older
- Trip cancellation – up to $1,500 per person / $5,000 total
- Trip interruption – up to $2,000 per person
- Flight/trip delay – up to $500 / 4 hours
- Delayed and lost baggage – up to $500 / 6 hours
- Auto rental collision/loss damage – 48 consecutive days / $65,000
- Hotel/motel burglary – $2,500
- Common carrier travel accident – $500,000
Your out-of-province emergency travel medical insurance covers you for up to 15 days if you’re under the age of 65 or for three days if you’re 65 or older. Although 15 days may seem short, you can purchase extended coverage.
Mobile Device Insurance
The CIBC Aventura Visa Infinite Card is one of the few travel cards that also come with mobile device insurance. Your eligible devices (cell phones and tablets) are covered up to $1,000 from theft, loss, and accidental damage. To be eligible, you must charge the full cost of your device to your card. If your phone is being subsidized, then you must charge the full amount of your bill to your card.
Purchase Insurance
- Purchase security – 90 days
- Extended protection insurance – Up to one additional year
Cardholders that charge the full cost of their purchases to their CIBC Aventura Visa Infinite Card are covered for loss, theft, and damage for 90 days, thanks to the included purchase security. In addition, the manufacturer’s warranty is doubled, up to one additional year.
Visa Infinite Benefits
- Concierge service – Have someone plan your trip, make reservations, deliver presents and more.
- Luxury Hotel Collection – When booking hotels through the Visa Infinite Hotel Collection, cardholders can access the best available rates, free Wi-Fi and room upgrades (when available).
- Dining and Wine Country programs – Enjoy food and wine discounts and invites to private events.
How to Redeem Your Points
CIBC Rewards points are pretty easy to earn and understand. You can redeem 1,000 Aventura Points for $10 in travel, so your CIBC Aventura Visa Infinite card earns you 1% – 2% in rewards.
What’s nice about Aventura Points is that you have a few options. You can book online through your CIBC rewards account or via the Aventura Travel Assistant. What many people don’t realize is that the Aventura Travel Assistant is a full-service travel agency, and they can book a few things that you might not find through the online portal, such as attraction tickets and rooms at certain hotels. Basically, just about anything you find on Expedia can be booked through the Aventura Travel Assistant.
Since all travel being booked is done in real-time, there are no blackout dates to worry about. Plus, you can pay any taxes and/or surcharges from your flights if you book via your CIBC rewards account.
There’s also a fixed points option to redeem your points for flights based on five different zones. For example, Canada and the U.S. (long haul) require 25,000 – 35,000 points and have a maximum ticket price of $800. If that flight costs you more than $800, you’ll need to pay the remaining balance in points at $1 = 100 Aventura points ratio. On occasion, CIBC runs promotions where fewer points are required to redeem a flight, so the fixed points option can be quite lucrative.
CIBC Aventura Visa Infinite Card Eligibility
- Canadian citizen or permanent resident
- At least the age of majority in your province or territory
- You have a minimum annual personal gross income of $60,000 or a household income of $100,000
Although no formal credit score is required, I recommend one of at least 700 before applying. That puts your credit score in good standing, which is ideal for a mid-tier credit card.
How the CIBC Aventura Visa Infinite Compares
Since the CIBC Aventura Visa Infinite Card is a mid-tier travel credit card, it has a lot of competition. That said, the card is very strong so to determine what’s best for you, you need to see what else is out there.
CIBC Aventura Visa Infinite Card vs. BMO World Elite Mastercard
I personally think the closest competition the CIBC Aventura Visa Infinite Card has is the BMO World Elite Mastercard. The BMO card also typically has no annual fee for the first year, 4 free annual airport lounge passes, and slightly better travel insurance.
Some people will also point out that the BMO World Elite Mastercard has a better earning rate, but it takes 150 BMO Rewards points to earn $1 in travel. That means overall, you’re probably coming out ahead with the CIBC Aventura Visa Infinite Card.
CIBC Aventura Visa Infinite Card vs. Scotiabank Passport Visa Infinite Card
Another card worth considering is the Scotiabank Passport Visa Infinite card since it comes with six free annual lounge passes. I consider Scotia Rewards to be slightly more valuable than CIBC Rewards, but the Scotiabank Passport Visa Infinite does not waive the annual fee of $139 for the first year. The card does come with no foreign transaction fees, which will appeal to many travellers.
CIBC Aventura Visa Infinite Card vs. American Express Gold Rewards Card
There’s also the American Express Gold Rewards Card. this card gives you four free annual Plaza Premium lounge passes, similar to the lounge passes you get with the CIBC Aventura Visa Infinite Card. This card is also appealing because of the higher earning rate of 2 American Express Membership Rewards points per dollar spent on grocery, gas, pharmacy, and travel purchases. You can also transfer your points to Aeroplan at a 1:1 value, which could increase the value of your points.
Final Thoughts
My CIBC Aventura Visa Infinite Card review is positive. The card is ideal for the people in the following situations:
- You want flexible rewards: Use your points on travel booked through CIBC travel or the fixed points travel option.
- You want travel benefits: Get airport lounge access, a NEXUS rebate, and travel insurance.
- You don’t want to pay a high annual fee: The yearly fee is waived for the first year, so you can test out the card.
Although the card doesn’t make my list of the best travel credit cards in Canada, it’s still a great travel credit card. You get great travel benefits, flexible rewards, and a decent earning rate. Admittedly, there are other cards out there that may offer higher earn rates, or better perks, but not many are as well-rounded as the CIBC Aventura Visa Infinite Card.
Hey Barry, hope you’re doing well!
– $100 travel credit when you book travel with an Aventura Travel Assistant until … October 31, 2019 .vs November 1, 2018
– 1.5 (vs 5 … wish it was 5 lol) points per $1 spent at gas stations, grocery stores and drugstores
Thanks for the awesome summary + review!
Anna,
Thanks for catching the typo with the multiplier. As for the travel credit, read between the lines. . .
Did you get a chance to compare the fixed points travel booked via Amex MR vs Aventura Travel?
William,
It depends. Amex and CIBC are similar as both offer flights on just about every major airline without blackout dates but it’s the number of points required that could make a difference. Amex’s fixed pricing starts at 15K points on short popular routes whereas CIBC is a little more variable.
There’s no clear winner since it depends on the timing and situation. CIBC often runs promotions and deals so that’s worth a look but Amex points are easier to accumulate since there are more cards you can earn points with.
Technically speaking, CIBC will probably cost you fewer points within North America, but you should always compare.
Thanks! They sure don’t make it easy for consumers to compare.
For the Priority Pass membership and four complimentary lounge entries per year. If I will be traveling in one month time, do I have enough time to get this benefit? Thanks
Hi Peter,
I think so. I would call CIBC right after you apply to see if they can rush you the card. Once you have that, just register for Priority Pass ASAP and download the app so you don’t have to wait for the physical card.
If I am the cardholer and my wife is not. Can my wife also use the lounge if she is travelling with me? Thanks
Yes as she would be your guest and you would be using one of your passes.
WARNING: Aventura Travel INSURANCE: I thought I would share my bad experience encountered with the travel insurance included with the Aventura card. They use a company called Global Excel to handle the insurance. My wife and I had a trip booked with Aventura that had to be cancelled a week before because of an accident. We filled out the appropriate paperwork with Global Excel, including the doctors sign off etc. A month later I received a letter in the mail indicating my claim was DECLINED. After many emails back and forth, it turns out since the Airlines (Air Canada / WestJet in Canada) offer a one year flight credit for the ticket, they won’t pay the insurance until that credit is gone – Thus you need to wait a year before you can receive the payment. So if you want to try an book a new trip that uses a different airline, then you are OUT OF LUCK. I tried to work with the travel agent and WestJet to cancel the credit, but Global Excel want to see very specific evidence of cancellation before they would pay out. WestJet was not able to cancel the credit for reasons I don’t understand.
BUYER BEWARE – Nova Scotia..
Can I buy my parents the tickets from our personal travel agent and get the points
Can my parents use the complimentary lounge entries if I purchase them the tickets on my cc
Lucky,
Not unless they have a Priority Pass Membership.
In regards to booking travel and being insured under the card for baggage and delayed flights. Can this travel be booked directly through a travel agent or the airlines website (independent of Aventura travel agent)?
Tush,
As long as you pay for your travel with the CIBC Aventura card, the travel insurance would apply.
WARNING: I am moving away from my CIBC Aventura Visa Infinite card and from travel cards in general because I’m finding it increasingly difficult to get good value when I try to redeem the Aventura points I earn.
Certainly, those penguin ads are correct – you can redeem your points for flights on any airline at any time with no blackout periods. The catch comes when you calculate what your points would earn you by subtracting the taxes/fees the CIBC Rewards system wants to charge from the full price of the ticket(s) you would pay if you booked the tickets on any third party website, then dividing that difference by the number of points you have to redeem. In some cases, your points are earning you less than 0.5%.
Round trips to Europe are now particularly bad value based on my searches to date. Specific example: Calgary to London non-stop on Air Canada – 50,000 points + $670 in “Taxes and Fees” gets you a ticket that would cost you $862 on aircanada.com. Do the math: (862-670)/50000 = 0.00384 or 0.384%. It’s even more annoying when you notice that the taxes quoted on aircanada.com are only $270. Why the $400 difference?…..look at the price breakdown on aircanada.com and you’ll see the Air Transportation Charges are made up of a Base Fare of $192 and a “Carrier Surcharge” of $400.
Certainly, there are better values elsewhere, particularly select flights within North America, to Latin America and Asia where I can still find redemption values of up to 1.5% or higher. However, you need to check each case to see if you’re getting good value. More and more airlines are inserting these “surcharges” or “fees” into their base ticket price to deflate the value of the points in their own reward systems. Air Canada and many European carriers have been doing this for a long time. But now I’m finding US carriers like United and Delta, who weren’t doing it up to a year or so ago, are climbing on this bandwagon. My fear is that it is only a matter of time until all carriers adopt this trick.
CIBC offers other avenues for redeeming your points such as merchandise, payment with points and financial products with points. These options get you anywhere from 0.6 to 0.8% in value. Another option – buying all-in vacation packages – seems to be the best choice as you essentially redeem 100 points for every $1 (1%) you would pay if you bought the package from Sunwing, Westjet, etc. That’s great if you’re a vacation package family – we’re not.
Where am I taking my business? The Scotiabank Passport Visa Infinite which doesn’t charge foreign exchange fees (worth ~$1000 per year to me), awards 1-2 points per $ in purchases, gives decent spending bonuses and allows you to cash your points for a predictable 1 point = $0.01 (1%). Overall, I estimate my purchases will earn me $0.024 per dollar I spend or a 2.4% value versus the 0.5 to 1.5% I’d get (depending on the travelling/redeeming I’m doing) if I stayed with CIBC Aventura.
I also have a PC Financial World Elite Mastercard which we use for the vast majority of our grocery and gasoline purchases in Canada. With all of the weekly grocery bonuses and the 7 cents/litre in gas bonuses, I estimate I’m earning over 3% on this card because I focus its use in these areas. The Scotiabank Visa will replace the CIBC Visa for all of my other spending.
In summary, do the math to calculate the real value you’re getting from your card. You might be surprised.
Hey Mike,
These are ALL very good points and 100% valid. It’s basically whey I hate Air Miles. Aeroplan/Air Canada can offer good value but usually on specific routes or when you books business class flights. A lot of people have switched to cash back cards these days since it’s an easier system to understand.
The Scotiabank card as you stated is predictable and gives you good additional travel benefits. The PC Financial World Elite Mastercard is one of my favourites as I also do a lot shopping at their stores. I just signed up for PC Insiders as I did the math and realized that I would get good value for the $99 annual fee.
Agreed. My only apprehension in making the switch to the Scotiabank Passport is that there is some hidden restriction in Scotia’s points system that renders it less valuable than the “glossy brochure” language on their website would suggest. I would love to hear from someone who’s had actual hands-on experience redeeming Scotia points.
Not being able to peek inside the underlying points system before you sign up and commit yourself is the single biggest unknown in calculating the value of a given reward card. I’d much rather go with a straight cash back card if I could find one that gives a decent % on purchases and doesn’t charge foreign exchange fees.
With Scotiabank, I believe you can use your points at a 1% ratio. You can do this through their portal or on your own and then claiming the points towards your travel purchases after.
I’d love to use my hard earned Aventura points but I’ve tried for several days now at over an hour on hold each time to reach the rewards centre and a travel assistant to book a couple of hotels. Points are not worth much to me if I can’t talk to someone about redeeming them. I’ll keep trying I guess. Apparently, though, my call is very important and they’ll be with me shortly. Not impressed!
For the ” 7 cents/litre in gas bonuses” with PC Financial World Elite Mastercard. Is that available for people living in Toronto? If yes, how do I go about in getting that? Thanks so much
Hi Tom. I live in Calgary. Across Western Canada, Loblaws had a number of service stations co-located with their grocery stores. They have since sold the stations to Mobil but the 7 cents per litre is still offered to those who use their PC Financial card to make the purchase. You don’t get a direct reduction at the pump but instead earn 70 Optimum Points for every full litre you buy. You can then redeem those points for purchases in their grocery stores.
Because I don’t live in Toronto and am not familiar with what is offered in that part of the country, I don’t know if the same offer is available to you.
Are Aventura points still able to be transferred to Aeroplan points?
No, that partnership ended.
Your commercial on tv with penguins needs to be reworked. Penguins dont travel , have credit cards or talk on phone. Use real people and tell it like it is not a load of crap. Maybe to somepeople this ad is funny but to my wife and me it is a stupid ad and whoever thought it up should give their heads a good shake. More people should email you guys and give you feedback. Ask people what they think of ads and it might help your business.
From the CIBC website:
The $750 value is based on the following, as at July 1, 2019:
i. $120 travel credit as disclosed in the offer Terms and Conditions as provided below;
ii. $400 value is based on the maximum redemption value for 20,000 Aventura Points on a short haul airfare purchase, based on the Aventura Airline Rewards Chart at http://www.cibcrewards.com, before taxes and other charges;
What concerns me is the “on a short haul airfare purchase” so that means you can only use these points for flights that are 180 mins or less? That seems to significantly lower the value of these points…
Jeremy,
CIBC is just trying to justify how you get $750 in value. the $400 maximum value refers to their fixed travel program. You can use your points on any flight. You can check out their redemption chart here.
https://rewards.cibcrewards.com/travel/
This is a helpful review, Barry. Thanks.
We find good value with Scotia Momentum Visa, a cash back card. We appreciate the 4% rebate on groceries and recurring bill payments, i.e.; Netflix, Telus, Spotify…
Don,
The Scotia Momentum Visa is an excellent card.
Barry, excellent read
How can I transfer points from my USD Visa to my CAD Visa accounts?
Hey Neil,
I really have no idea, you’d have to contact CIBC to find out.
I have waited up to 21/2 hours for a reply when trying to book a flight oh, that music! I finally gave up and drove to the airport and booked directly, using my card. Absolutely dreadful service. Thinking of dumping the card, why should you gave to go through the hassle to do something so simple?
I just received my CIBC Aventura Infinite Card. I am thinking of applying for Nexus card for myself and my spouse. Will the Nexus Fee be waived for both of us or just the card holder? Thanks
Hi Awan,
It applies to a one-time use. You could use it for you or your wife, not both.
“Receive one (1) statement credit up to a maximum value of $100 CAD when NEXUS application fee is charged to an eligible card, regardless of NEXUS application approval.”
Hey Barry,
Just a heads up that Aventura (and others) have teamed up with Dragon pass to give cardholders with Plaza Premium lounge access. More info here!
https://ppg.dragonpass.ca/Landing
All the best!
FT