Do you have university going children at home? Then, its time to consider getting them set up with their own credit cards and start building their credit history and move them away as being purely supplementary card holders. This will no doubt also help them to responsibly manage credit and handle bill payments on their own.
CIBC now offers a suite of cards targeted towards students and professional students.
For students, there are 3 types of cards to choose from:
CIBC Aventura Visa Card for Students
CIBC Dividend Visa Card for Students
CIBC Aeroplan Visa Card for Students
All come with an annual fee of $0, require a minimum annual income of $0 and comes with a minimum credit limit of $1000.
All three cards come with a welcome offer:
CIBC Aventura Visa Card for Students – Up to 2,500 Aventura Points
CIBC Dividend Visa Card for Students – $30 cash back
CIBC Aeroplan Visa Card for Students – 10, 000 Aeroplan points
Plus, you also get a free SPC membership.
Professional students in the Medical, Dental, Optometry, Law, Veterinary and Pharmacy programs get access to exclusive premium travel and cash back cards when they bundle the credit card with a CIBC Professional Edge Student Line of Credit.
In other words, eligibility is limited to students in the above six programs and must hold a Professional Edge Line of credit in order to be eligible for this offer.
Here also they have another set of three cards to choose from:
CIBC Dividend Platinum Visa Card
CIBC Aventura Gold Visa Card
CIBC Aeroplan Visa Card
Lets look at the Welcome Bonus, Annual fee, minimum income required and the credit limits:
All require a minimum annual income of $0 and comes with a minimum credit limit of $10,000 for medical and dental students and $5,000 for all other professional students.
Some of the differences by cards are as below:
CIBC Dividend Platinum Visa Card
– No other welcome bonus
CIBC Aventura Gold Visa Card
– Get 15,000 Aventura Points on first purchase and additional 5,000 Aventura points when you spend $3000 or more during the first 4 monthly statement periods.
– Priority Pass membership with 4 visits per year
– Nexus application fee rebate of $50
CIBC Aeroplan Visa Card
– 10,000 Aeroplan Points on your first purchase
So, what is a CIBC Professional Edge Student Program?
It is a Line of Credit for professional students where they can borrow upto $350,000 to help pay for tuition, living expenses, books and supplies.
This comes at a low interest rate as low as CIBC Prime minus 0.25%.
Note that the limit depends on the program the student is enrolled in and the lowest for e.g. is for Nursing or Engineering where you can get up-to $60,000 at an interest rate of CIBC Prime plus 1%.
The process for the first 3 “Student” cards is simple and straightforward and one get approved immediately in a matter of seconds.
If the student doesn’t have a banking relationship with CIBC, the card will be shipped to a CIBC branch closest to you and you will have to pick it up in person.
So, again, this is a great way to get a no-fee or low-fee cards to get students started on their journey to build credit, collect rewards (and add to Family Sharing under Aeroplan) and pay for everyday purchases.
Written by Dominic Fernandes aka CanadaPointsGuy.