Pros & cons
Pros
- Low interest rate of 12.99% on purchases.
- Low annual fee of $25.
Cons
- No balance transfer interest rate.
- No rewards on purchases.
Your rewards
How you earn rewards
This card does not earn rewards on purchases.
Details and eligibility
- Estimated Credit Score
- 660 - 724
- Personal Income
- N/A
- Household Income
- N/A
- Annual Fee
- $25.00
- Extra Card Fee
- $0
- Card type
- Credit
- Purchase
- 12.99%
- Cash Advance
- 12.99%
- Balance Transfer
- N/A
Insurance coverage
- Extended Warranty
- 1 year
- Purchase Protection
- 90 days
- Travel Accident
- $100,000
Please review your insurance certificate for details, exclusions and limitations of your coverage, terms and conditions apply.
Learn more about the value of credit card insurance coverage.
Genius Rating
American Express Essential Credit Card's 2.6 Genius Rating is based on the weighted average of the following scores:
Methodology
All scores are produced by our math-based rating algorithm that takes into account over 126 credit card features.
Top cards from American Express
Our review
Getting on top of credit card debt is difficult, but hopefully, with cards like the American Express Essential, it can be a little easier.
You max your savings with a 12.99% interest rate that doesn’t depend on your credit score. You either qualify or you don’t - no bait and switch with low teaser rates here. That means you can start paying down your balance faster.
Also, that low 12.99% is on everything: purchases and cash advances. And it’s 7% lower than most cards (the typical interest rate for a credit card is 19.99%). However it has no balance transfer rate.
There is a $25 annual fee for this card, but that doesn’t keep American Express from giving you access to different perks and benefits, like American Express Invites and access to the hottest events, just for being a cardholder.
Here’s more: Amex also gives you 3 different types of insurances, covering your purchases with extended warranty and purchase protection as well as giving you $100,000 of travel accident insurance – not bad for a no fee low interest card.
Because this card is American Express, it's worth noting that it’s not accepted everywhere. But that’s easy to fix if you pair it with a no fee Mastercard or Visa.
If lower permanent rates are what you're after, the
Key benefits
User reviews
Reviewed by 3 Canadians
Thank you for your review!
Hang tight while we verify and approve it.
If you want to see your review right away...
Create an account:
My pick HSBC rewards plus master card 11.9% interest on everything including cash advances plus is a master card accepted everywhere.
Their generous rewards easily off set $29 annual fee. I don’t think there is any other better card out there. Some with slightly lower interest like MBNA still charges sky high 24.9% interest on cash advances and no rewards at all.
This is an excellent card! I was very fortunate to get it at a lower rate (8.99%) and use this as my main card. Like the previous reviewer, TD Bank was charging me very high interest rates despite a great credit score and perfect payment history over the past 15 years. Amex has excellent customer service and a lot of exclusive offers. One that is on-going now (until September 13th) is statement credits of $5 for each eligable small business you spend more than $10 at up to a maximum of $50 worth of credits. I think this a great idea to help small businesses recover.
My only (small) complaint with Amex is that the payment due dates sometimes fall on the weekend which in my opinion is not very fair to the consumer.
I'm paying 13.95% on my Emerald Visa with TD. After being a loyal customer for over 13 years with no missed payments, I asked TD why I was paying such a high rate now. I use to pay anywhere from 10-11% which was OK compared to most cards out there. My Transunion score is 840 and Equifax in 846, so I figured I could find a better rate. After doing some research, I found the Amercian Express Essential Card had the best interest rate for purchases and cash advances at 8.99% with no annual fee. I was happy to be approved for the card with a $7,500 limit immediately after applying. I won't be using my TD Visa anymore now (only use 1x year to keep active). I'm now also going to be looking for another bank with lower fees. I would highly suggest anyone with a good credit score to apply for this card and take advantage of the lower interest rate.
