Liberty credit card

I got a Visa Liberty credit card in place of my free SBB credit card when they came out with the Swiss pass. Seems the Liberty card has an annual fee but I thought I would get some opinions before I decide whether to keep or quit. Is the Visa Liberty a good credit card?

There are three versions of the Liberty credit card from Swiss issuer Bonus Card: The Visa LibertyCard credit card, the Visa LibertyCard prepaid card and the Visa LibertyCard Plus credit card.

Here is a short review of the benefits and costs of these cards:

Visa LibertyCard credit card. This credit card has a CHF 60 annual fee and an annual interest rate of 12% for balances carried past the due date each month. You pay a foreign transaction fee equal to 2% of each foreign currency transaction. The cash advance fee is equal to either CHF 5 or 3.75% of the transacted amount - whichever is greater. A minimum cash advance fee of CHF 10 applies to withdrawals outside of Switzerland.

Benefits which come with this card include trip cancellation insurance (regardless of whether you use this card to pay for travel), luggage insurance, search and rescue insurance, bicycle insurance, travel legal assistance and zero liability for fraudulent transactions (when due dilligence is observed). This card can also be used with Apple Pay. Every CHF 1 charged to this card earns one Liberty point. You earn 2 points per CHF 1 charged for transportation purchases (train tickets, public transportation, gas stations, hotels, rental cars and more). The value of points is not high - 5000 points converts into just CHF 10 in cash back. However, you can get up to double that value when you redeem for vouchers (such as gas station, SBB or SWISS vouchers).

You can find more details about the Visa LibertyCard credit card here.

Visa LibertyCard prepaid card. This prepaid card has a CHF 60 annual fee. A loading fee equal to 1% (minimum CHF 2) of the amount you deposit into your prepaid account applies. The foreign transaction fee and cash advance fees are identical to those of the LibertyCard credit card. You also get all of the same benefits and earn the same rewards.

You can find out more about the Visa LibertyCard prepaid card here.

Visa LibertyCard Plus. This credit card has an annual fee of CHF 150, making it more expensive than the regular LibertyCard. However, it come with many unique benefits which are normally only found on high-end credit cards with much higher annual fees. For one thing, it includes a complimentary concierge service. On top of the benefits you get with the regular LibertyCard, this card comes with trip interruption insurance (regardless of whether you pay with this card or not), trip delay coverage (this covers the cost of food, drinks or lodging when a connecting trip is delayed), rental car deductible coverage (covers the cost of your rental car insurance deductible), bicycle theft insurance and travel medical insurance.

This Plus card also has a lower foreign transaction fee (1.75%). The cash advance fees are identical to those of the regular LibertyCard. The LibertyCard Plus earns double as many points for transportation purchases (4 points per CHF 1 charged to the card) compared to the regular LibertyCard.

You can find out more about the Visa LibertyCard Plus here.

I have had both the Libertycard prepaid and the Libertycard plus. The prepaid version has a loading fee which made it somewhat expensive to use. But in its defense, it had a decent reward program and travel benefits which did balance the cost somewhat. I upgraded to the Libertycard plus to escape the loading fee and to try out the concierge service.

I travel by air with my family between 1 and 3 times per year, and the travel insurance benefits saved us having to buy travel insurance. The collision damage waiver benefit also saved us having to pay for the waivers on rental cars. The rewards program let us redeem points for SBB, SWISS and Volg vouchers, which are things we spend on, so worth as much as cash back for us. On the whole, the benefits paid for the costs of the card and then some.

The customer service was also decent, and they were pretty quick to but the annual fee by half when I mentioned terminating the card agreement.

The concierge service on the plus card was a nice-to-have. It did come in handy when making last-minute car rental bookings or getting reservations at restaurants on buys weekends. When it comes to flights and hotels though, you can find cheaper deals yourself if you have the time.

You can see how the Libertycard and the Libertycard Plus compare to other Swiss credit card offers using the interactive credit card comparison.

The comparison also lets you sort credit cards based on different cardholder benefits.