Thursday, November 24, 2011

1,500 Bonus Marriott Rewards Points Per Night for stays across Canada

Marriott loves to reward Canadian's for stays at their hotels and the following is their promotion for the first quarter of 2012. Please note that this offer can be combined with any system-wide offers like Marriott's MegaBonus promotion. Depending on the hotel the bonus point rate may cost a little more then the best available or AAA/CAA rate but we have also found some nights/locations where the rate is no different, so if you are paying for the room yourself (ie not billing it out to your employer/client) make sure you check all the available rates first and see if paying a bit extra is worth the bonus points.

Earn 1,500 Bonus Rewards Points PER NIGHT for stays at 14 participating hotels across Canada. Maximum bonus per stay is 7,500 points. Full Details and Online Booking  Valid for stays Jan 1 - Apr 16, 12
Participating Hotels
Calgary Marriott Downtown Hotel
Montreal Airport Marriott Hotel
Edmonton Marriott at River Cree Resort
Residence Inn Gravenhurst Muskoka Wharf
Halifax Marriott Harbourfront Hotel
Residence Inn Montreal Downtown
Ottawa Marriott Hotel
Vancouver Airport Marriott Hotel
Toronto Marriott Downtown Eaton Centre Hotel
Toronto Marriott Bloor Yorkville Hotel
Renaissance Toronto Downtown Hotel
Toronto Airport Marriott Hotel
Vancouver Marriott Pinnacle Downtown Hotel
Renaissance Vancouver Harbourside Hotel

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

RBC Avion 50% Transfer Bonus to British Airways is back

British Airways and RBC are once again offering Avion cardholders a 50% bonus on transferring RBC Rewards points to BA Avios points. The offer runs until January 31, 12 and the only difference we can see this time around is that you have to transfer a minimum of 10,000 RBC Rewards Points.

Despite the change to British Airways program (from Executive Club to Avios) this can still be  a great offer to take advantage of if you are not looking at booking travel using the set RBC Rewards chart as the new BA Avios program has seen a reduction in the number of miles required to fly from Montreal/Toronto to London and huge reductions in some short haul flights in North America. See our post on the new Avios program here.  They also offer miles for upgrades so if you do not have enough miles for a business class or first class flight you can use miles to upgrade a paid fare in economy, economy Plus, or business class. Another good use of BA miles is with their partners from the OneWorld Alliance which means you don't have to redeem for BA flights via London but go direct on airlines like Cathay Pacific to Asia or American Airlines to the U.S. One thing to watch out for however with BA is seat availability, we have heard mixed stories of people being able to get or not get reward seats on flights plus redemptions on BA to the U.K. can carry heavy taxes and fuel surcharges.

For more details on this offer please visit British Airways

Book an Award Stay with Club Carlson and receive 9,000 bonus Gold Points

The latest and greatest in the slew of promos coming out of the Club Carlson camp is this offer on award night stays called Redeem Points, Earn Points

Redeem Points, Earn Points.
Register and stay at any of our more than 1,000 Carlson℠hotels, on a Award Stay between December 1, 2011 and January 31, 2012, and earn 9,000 Gold Points, enough for a future Award Night at select hotels worldwide. Points + Cash reservations are not eligible for this offer.
Full details and registration

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Avios is now the official program for British Airways and Iberia

It had been announced awhile ago that the FFPs of British Airways (Executive Club) and Iberia (Plus) would be merged into one big loyalty program which also would bring in the Air Miles UK program. When the announcement came out the news hit many North American's members of BA's Executive Club hard as some of the great redemption opportunities in that program (North America to Asia and South America) were lost as the new redemption schedule is based on distance and not to a set reward chart. All day today I have been reading various frequent flyer blogs looking at the new Avios system and while those great offers mentioned above may be gone there are some new gems to be had within the program, in particular for flights within North America on BA's partners.

Since the Avios program now works on distance rather then the set reward chart a lot of the shorter haul redemptions have actually gone done in price. For example a one-way flight between Toronto and New York can be had for only 4,500 Avios points (9,000 round trip) and used to be 12,500 miles (25,000 round trip), compare this to 15,000 Aeroplan Miles, 25,000 AAdvantage Miles etc.. Toronto to London has also become cheaper as it used to 50,000 miles for a round-trip redemption in economy and that is now 40,000. These lower redemption rates make the semi annual RBC Avion 50% transfer bonus to BA even more attractive (that is if they keep the bonus around)

Another issue that seems to arise in addition to the redemptions that became more expensive is the fact the if you want to build an itinerary with a connection (think stopover in previous Executive Club terms) you have to price out each connection separately. So where you used to be able to get a round trip flight Calgary to Paris for 50,000 miles with a connection in London (and the option to stopover in London for a few days) now has to be priced at Calgary-London for 50,000 miles and London-Paris for 9,000 miles so in the new program it will cost you 9,000 more points.

What do you think of the changes to the program? For those of you who are BA flyers will it make you shy away from BA and take your business to another airline or will you take it as it is and continue with your loyalty to BA?

To see some more news on the good and the bad of the new Avios program here are some other blog posts made today (bear in mind all of these are U.S. based but do hold some merit for Canada):
Dan's Deals has a good run down of redemptions that have gone down, stayed the same and increased
View from the Wing - it always good to hear Gary's take on programs
One Mile at a time had numerous posts today: Post 1 | Post 2 | Post 3

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Aeroplan fuel surcharge saga continues

In our last post on the new fuel surcharge for Star Alliance award tickets from Aeroplan, we first mentioned it was going to be on few Star Alliance carriers, then Aeroplan retracted that and said it was only for Lufthansa then yesterday they release this:
With the increasing cost of fuel, many airlines have started charging fuel surcharges on redemption tickets. All fuel surcharge amounts are applied by Aeroplan on behalf of the ticketing carrier and are passed through directly to the ticketing carrier. Fuel surcharge amounts are determined by each airline and may change from time to time. Aeroplan has applied fuel surcharges for flight rewards on Air Canada since 2004. The fuel surcharge amounts to be applied by Aeroplan for flights on Star Alliance airlines will be the same as those applied by the individual airlines within their own frequent flyer programs.

Fuel surcharges to flight rewards on the following Star Alliance airlines will be effective as of the dates noted below:

November 30th, 2011: Asiana Airlines, THAI, ANA, Austrian Airlines, LOT Polish Airlines, bmi

December 14th, 2011: Aegean Airlines, Adria Airways, TAM, South African Airways, TAP Portugal

These are in addition to fuel surcharges to flight rewards on Lufthansa that became effective on November 9th 2011 at 7pm.

Members making voluntary changes after the applicable effective date to existing bookings with these airlines will also be subject to the fuel surcharges.

Fuel surcharges to flight rewards on other Star Alliance member airlines not referenced in this notice will come into effect only if those airlines elect to apply them within their own frequent flyer programs.

So as you can see fuel surcharges are back on the carriers that were first mentioned and even more. Some Star Alliance carriers will still not have any fuel surcharges but the door has been left open for Aeroplan to add them in the future

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Aeroplan now charging fuel surcharges for award tickets on select Star Alliance carriers

One of the biggest complaints I always hear about Aeroplan is the fuel surcharge imposed on redemptions for flights on Air Canada metal. A way around this has always been to redeem Aeroplan miles for flights on their Star Alliance partners as members were not charged the fuel surcharge. Well that changed earlier this week when a member on the FlyerTalk forum posted that he was told by an Aeroplan call center agent that they will begin imposing fuel surcharges on Star Alliance awards as of November 9th and it does appear that this has become reality.

Apparently the fuel surcharges can now be found on Lufthansa, ANA, Asiana and Thai Airways (see update below). No word yet on the other Star Alliance partners. Now when you book an Aeroplan award for these airlines you can expect to pay a few extra dollars for short domestic flights or in excess of $500 more for trans-Atlantic or -Pacific flights. Granted if these Star Alliance carriers are charging the fuel surcharge to Aeroplan, Aeroplan must recoup those charges but the question that begs to be answered, why now? Most of these airlines have had fuel surcharges for years and have not changed or increased them. Did they not charge these to Aeroplan and unilaterally decide that they would start charging them? Another question that will probably go unanswered.

Overall another not so good year for Aeroplan news
First came the increases to select redemptions off of the Aeroplan and Star Alliance reward charts and now this. Many people, both frequent and infrequent flyers love to hate Aeroplan and Air Canada and this latest move, especially without proper communication to its members will just exemplify why people feel this way. I have said it before and so have many others, if you communicate changes properly, sure you will feel the heat but at least you will keep and/or gain the respect of your members for being truthful, honest and proactive. Now Aeroplan will have to go on the defensive, justifying the move and explaining why they did not communicate this. (I can think of one reason, there would have been an onslaught of bookings prior to the effective date and they would lose out on the fuel surcharge that with proper assumption is being paid to the carrier that the member is travelling on). In the end you would think that Aeroplan, which is part of Aimia a corporation that happens to be at the forefront of loyalty marketing not only in Canada but globally would know that customer engagement and retention is key to a loyalty program and making unannounced negative changes goes against all aspects of those two key factors.

Now, believe me, I hate putting Aeroplan in a negative perspective as overall I am a fan of the program but it is my duty as an unbiased consumer resource to let Canadians know about these changes since Aeroplan did not.

* Nov 13 Update:
Later on November 10th,  after we posted this Aeroplan posted on their website that they are charging the surcharge only on Lufthansa flights (retracting the fuel surcharges on ANA, Asiana, Thai) but stating that other Star Alliance carriers will be added as applicable. See here for more details

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Priority Club® World MasterCard® from Capital One Review

This review is taken in its entirety from the original review on the Rewards Canada website

The newest travel rewards credit to come onto the market is the Priority Club® World MasterCard® from Capital One (and it's little sister card the Priority Club® Platinum MasterCard®). The card which was announced earlier this spring and truth be told been in Priority Club's sights for at least three years was finally released today. Rewards Canada was lucky enough to receive all the details of the card at the start of summer so that we could include it in our annual Top Travel Rewards Credit Card rankings where the card tied for top spot in the small category of Hotel Points cards. With this cards introduction, Canadian's can now choose from 5 major Worldwide hotel frequent guest programs to tie a credit card into.

Overview
The Priority Club® World MasterCard® from Capital One is a hotel rewards card that earns points into InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) Priority Club program. The IHG group of hotels includes the Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, InterContinental Hotels & Resorts, Candlewood Suites and numerous other brands. Being a 'World' version of the MasterCard brand the card comes with an excellent insurance and benefits package that is the same across Capital One's suite of World MasterCards. It comes with some nice signup and ongoing bonuses, accelerated earning for stays at all the IHG brands, instant Priority Elite status and bonuses for ongoing spending.

Costs
The Priority Club® World MasterCard® from Capital One comes with an industry standard $120 primary card annual fee. The card offers a decent sized 30,000 point welcome bonus which could garner as many as 6 free nights if you take advantage of Priority Club's point break offers. Like all Capital One cards, adding an authorized user is free which gives this card a slight edge in the cost department over its biggest competitor the Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card from American Express. The interest rate on the card is 19.8% placing it right in the middle of the pack of competitors.

Earning
The Priority Club® World MasterCard® from Capital One earns 2 Priority Club points for every dollar spent on the card for all purchases except those made at IHG properties. For purchase made at IHG properties, the card earns 5 Priority Club points per dollar spent. The card also offers a 5,000 Priority Club points bonus for every $10,000 spent on the card.

Redeeming
See Application

Features and Benefits
As stated above the Priority Club® World MasterCard® from Capital One comes with an excellent insurance and benefits package that competes with all the other high end cards. The card features Trip cancellation which is only offered as a standard feature on a few other travel rewards cards and Travel Medical insurance which only comes standard on about 50% of the cards in the market. .

The other primary benefit that the card comes with is Platinum Elite Status. What does Platinum Elite Status from Priority Club get you? It gets you a 50% bonus on your base point earnings for IHG stays, priority check-in, complimentary room upgrades and guaranteed room availability.


What is good about this card
There are a few really good things about the Priority Club® World MasterCard® from Capital One outside of the great suite of features and benefits, there has to be otherwise the card would not have split first place in our Hotel Credit card ranking for 2011. First off, is the vast number of hotels worldwide that you can earn and redeem your points at, with over 4,500 locations the InterContinental Hotels Group provides great global coverage from small towns to large cities to luxury resorts. Next, the point breaks redemption option provides an extremely high value return on your spending especially if you redeem for higher end hotels. Last but not least is Priority Club's rule that all points count towards status, not just your hotel stay points. Last but not least, the Priority Club World MasterCard from Capital One now guarantees Platinum Elite Status guaranteed for the life of the account.

What is not so good about this card
As mentioned above, one of the things that is not so good about the Priority Club® World MasterCard® from Capital One is Priority Club's conversion ratio to airline programs. If this is a feature you really look for you could be better off with another hotel loyalty program that does have a credit card in Canada. The elite status levels from Priority Club also leave a little to be desired when compared to other frequent guest programs.

Conclusion
This latest entry into the crowded travel rewards credit card market should do quite well because of what the card and the Priority Club program do offer. If you are looking for a hotel credit card that offers many hotel choices in Canada and Worldwide then then Priority Club® World MasterCard® from Capital One is for you because of the large number of hotels under the IHG banner. Existing Priority Club members who make IHG their number one choice when booking hotels will probably latch onto this card right away. The general public in Canada may not do so as fast until they learn about the true value of hotel frequent guest programs and their flexibility advantage over frequent flyer programs. When you look at the ease of earning points on this card and on IHG hotel stays it can and couple that with some great hotel reward redemption options you can see why this card shot to top and tied last years top pick in our Hotel Credit Card category.

Care to comment? Do you agree or disagree with us? Tell us your experiences with the Priority Club® World MasterCard® from Capital One on our blog

Related Links:
Priority Club® World MasterCard® from Capital One on the Capital One website
Priority Club® Platinum MasterCard® from Capital One on the Capital One website
Rewards Canada's Hotel Credit Card Comparison including the Priority Club® World MasterCard®

Other cards to consider if you are looking at this card:
Chase Marriott Rewards Platinum Visa
MBNA Best Western Rewards Platinum Plus MasterCard
MBNA Choice Privileges MasterCard
Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card from American Express


“The interest rates, fees, rewards details, benefits and other details of the Capital One product(s) described in the article may have changed since the time of publication. Please consult the product information pages on the Capital One website for accurate product details. In the event of any conflict between the product details in this article and the Capital One website, the details on the Capital One website shall prevail.”

Monday, November 7, 2011

American Express Gold Rewards Card: TripFlex Highlight


In my third post focusing on Canada’s #1 Hybrid* credit card, we look at one of the key features that gave it top spot, TripFlex. The TripFlex feature of the American Express Gold Rewards Card gives true definition to the often-used marketing copy of “Travel anywhere at any time.” I have actually twisted that copy a bit, most cards say something to this effect: “Fly any airline at any time” but TripFlex is not limited to flight redemptions as it can be used for any eligible travel purchases. Add to this the low redemption requirements, the 12-month redemption period and the ease of use and you’ll see why this feature helped me rank this card number one in our 2011 Top Travel Rewards Credit Cards rankings.

Redemption requirements
Unlike some other hybrid and travel points cards, with TripFlex you don’t need the full amount of points to redeem; rather you can redeem as little as 1,000 points for a $10 statement credit towards any travel that has been charged to your card. This means if you find a last minute seat sale or book through a travel agent, you can pay for it on your card and call Amex to use your points for a statement credit against the charge. The beauty of not having set redemption levels with TripFlex means you only redeem the amount of points you want or need to, whether it’s the 1,000 points for $10  or 50,000 points for $500. For example, on one of my TripFlex redemptions, my flight came in at $606.93 and I was able to redeem the exact amount of points right down to the penny – and that included the taxes and fees.

Redemption Period
Unlike airline credit cards and many other travel points & hybrid cards, you don’t have to redeem your points before you book your travel with the Gold Rewards Card. In fact, you can be on vacation and put a travel-related charge such as a hotel stay on your card and then redeem your points for that charge when you get home from your trip. Technically speaking, you can redeem points before, during and/or after you travel and you have up to 12 months after the travel charge is posted to your account to redeem your points for a statement credit. Very few cards on the Canadian market offer this sort of redemption flexibility.

Ease of Redemption
Speaking from experience, the process of redeeming my Membership Reward points was extremely easy. I simply called up American Express, said I wanted to redeem my points against a travel charge on my account and after a few questions such as which charge do I want to redeem for and do I want to redeem the full amount or a partial amount of points, it was all said and done. And the statement credit was posted to my account within 3 days of calling in.

As you can see, the TripFlex feature of the Gold Rewards Card provides the utmost in flexibility for travel rewards – and when you combine this with the other features of the card including the ability to transfer points to Aeroplan, 2x points on eligible spending along with a good suite of insurance benefits you can see why I ranked this card #1 in the Hybrid category.

Click here to learn more about the American Express Gold Rewards Card

* A Hybrid card is a combination of an airline and/or hotel card and a travel points card. You can convert your points to airline or hotel frequent travel programs or use the points to book travel via the credit card's travel agency or with some cards to book travel how you want and then redeem the points against the charge on your account.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

50,000 Club Carlson Points for a single Radisson stay

Carlson Hotels sent out a press release yesterday announcing a promotion to celebrate to opening of their first luxury Radisson Blu Hotel in the United States, the Radisson Blu Aqua Hotel in Chicago. The promotion goes like this, the first 50,000 Club Carlson members to register for the promotion (registration starts on Nov 10), book at Radisson or Radisson Blu stay in the U.S., Canada or Caribbean after registration and complete that stay by December 30 will receive 50,000 Bonus Gold Points. If you register after the first 50,000 then you will be awarded with 15,000 Bonus Gold Points for your completed stay.

What can you get for 50,000 Club Carlson points? Five nights in a category 1 hotel or one night in a luxurious category 6 hotel and various nights inbetween for category 2-5 hotels.

Is this a good deal?
Considering you should be able to get one Radisson stay in the $100-$150 range to earn the 50K bonus, the resulting reward stays could be worth $300-$600 or even higher so this is definitely a good deal

The registration page is up although you cannot register yet at
www.radissonbignightgiveaway.com/



thanks to One Mile at a Time for the insight on this offer:

Rewards Canada November Updates

In case you missed the big banner above or the banners all over the RewardsCanada.ca website, we launched our 10th Anniversary contest on November 1st with some huge prizes supplied by American Express Canada, Aeroplan and Etihad Airways. In total there are 10 prizes ranging from Sheraton Bath Robes to 125,000 Aeroplan Miles. For all the details and to enter the contest visit rewardscanada.ca/10years.

But that was not the only news we had come out on November 1st, we actually had two more updates come out the same day. The first was a redesign of the RewardsCanada.ca website which is slowly being integrated into all the pages on the site as each is updated, roughly 50% of the site has the new look incorporated. Feel free to comment below on what you think of it!

Finally, the last update was the launch of our YouTube channel called Rewards Canada TV which will feature news, reviews, rants, raves, tips and tricks and much more on the travel rewards industry in Canada. You can visit the channel at youtube.com/rewardscanada and view my first video below:

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Emirates: Earn 12,000 Bonus Skywards Miles in 1st Class between Toronto & Dubai

Each month Emirates releases bonus offers on select routes across their network called 'Miles Accelerator' bonuses and for the month of November, you can earn 12,000 bonus Skywards miles when you fly First Class between Toronto and Dubai.

About Miles Accelerator:
The Miles Accelerator feature allows you to search out routes, presumably the ones you need to fly on and see if any of them are offering more miles. Typically flights that are seeing less demand will see a bonus offer. For example, city pairs that have more then one flight a day may have different bonuses offered depending on the flight.  As you can see on the following Frankfurt - Dubai screen grab for November, the early morning flight to Dubai has no bonus for economy class presumably because the flight is showing enough demand:

Sometimes the bonuses are the same for the return flight but on many occasions they are not, as seen on the return Dubai to Frankfurt routing:




Here are some other routes that have bonuses for the month of November
Route First Class Business Class Economy Class
Abidjan - Dubai 16,000 bonus Miles 8,000 bonus Miles Not available
Amsterdam - Dubai 10,000 bonus Miles Not available 2,000 bonus Miles
Bangkok - Dubai 6,000 bonus Miles 4,000 bonus Miles 4,000 bonus Miles
Beijing - Dubai 6,000 bonus Miles 4,000 bonus Miles 2,000 bonus Miles
Copenhagen - Dubai 10,000 bonus Miles 4,000 bonus Miles Not available
Dar Es Salaam - Dubai 6,000 bonus Miles Not available 2,000 bonus Miles
Frankfurt - Dubai 10,000 bonus Miles 4,000 bonus Miles 2,000 bonus Miles
Geneva - Dubai 6,000 bonus Miles Not available 4,000 bonus Miles
Houston - Dubai 16,000 bonus Miles 12,000 bonus Miles 8,000 bonus Miles
Johannesburg- Dubai 10,000 bonus Miles 6,000 bonus Miles 4,000 bonus Miles
Kuala Lumpur - Dubai 10,000 bonus Miles 4,000 bonus Miles 2,000 bonus Miles
Los Angeles - Dubai 16,000 bonus Miles 12,000 bonus Miles 6,000 bonus Miles
Manchester - Dubai 10,000 bonus Miles 6,000 bonus Miles 2,000 bonus Miles
Osaka - Dubai 16,000 bonus Miles 8,000 bonus Miles Not available
Paris - Dubai 6,000 bonus Miles 4,000 bonus Miles 2,000 bonus Miles
Rome - Dubai 10,000 bonus Miles 4,000 bonus Miles Not available
San Francisco - Dubai 16,000 bonus Miles Not available Not available
Seoul - Dubai Not available Not available 6,000 bonus Miles
Toronto - Dubai 12,000 bonus Miles Not available Not available
Vienna - Dubai 10,000 bonus Miles 6,000 bonus Miles 2,000 bonus Miles

Overall the Miles Accelerator offer from Emirates is a good way to earn some extra miles on your EK flights if you do fly on one of them that is offering a bonus. The bonus miles do not cost you anything extra, all you have to do is opt-in each month into the Miles Accelerator program and see if you can take advantage of any of the routes that have bonus offers on them. It is wise to check the offers on a monthly basis or visit our Skywards page for a sampling of offers as sometimes the bonuses can get quite large as  witnessed earlier this year when you could earn 70,000 Bonus Skywards miles for flights in first class between Los Angeles and Dubai.

For more information on Miles Accelerator please visit Emirates.com

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

WestJet enhances their Frequent Guest Program

It was a little over 18 months ago that WestJet launched their Frequent Guest Program to so-so reviews from us and other industry analysts. Today, WestJet announced some changes to program that make the program better for its members. The biggest change comes in the removal of the $1,500 spend limit (I know I fell short in the first year by a couple hundred) which means you start earning WestJet dollars right from the onset of your first flight with WestJet. The complete changes as taken from the press release are as follows:
  • Frequent Guest Program members will now start earning with their first WestJet flight flown and vacation package taken. The $1,500 annual qualifying spend requirement has been eliminated.
  • There's no limit to the number of WestJet dollars members can redeem toward WestJet Vacations packages. The $500 maximum redemption amount for WestJet Vacations packages has been removed.
  • All WestJet RBC MasterCard members are now automatically members of the Frequent Guest Program with the ability to double-dip by earning WestJet dollars through purchases on their card and by flying with WestJet.
 According to the press release additional enhancements to program will be announced in the coming months.

Update from a WestJet Email I received:
We've removed the $1500 annual qualifying spend requirement.
You read that right. We listened to your feedback and have eliminated the requirement to spend $1500 each qualifying year before you can begin receiving WestJet dollars. Now all members can earn right away, starting with the first flight flown or WestJet Vacations package taken.

For WestJet flights, earning starts at 1% and increases to 2.5%.
Each qualifying year, you'll begin by earning 1% back in WestJet dollars on eligible spend between $1 and $1499. Once you reach $1500 in annual qualifying spend, you'll receive a bonus of $35 – for a total of $50 WestJet dollars. Even more, your earning rate will increase to 2.5% and will continue at that rate for the remainder of your qualifying year.

For WestJet Vacations® packages, earning starts at 0.5% and increases to 1%...on the entire
package price.
Each qualifying year, you'll begin by earning 0.5% back in WestJet dollars on your WestJet Vacations packages. Once you reach $1500 in annual qualifying spend on WestJet flights, your earning rate for WestJet Vacations packages will increase to 1% and will continue at that rate for the remainder of your qualifying year. Earn WestJet dollars for flights, hotel, car rentals or activities that you purchase as part
of your package.

How does this affect my account?
If your current qualifying spend is between $1 and $1499, a credit of 1% in WestJet dollars for WestJet flights will be posted to your account. Watch for your new WestJet dollars balance on the account update issued in early December. You'll then continue to earn and receive WestJet dollars at the rates provided above.

If you are currently over $1500 in qualifying spend you will not see any immediate change. You will continue to earn at 2.5% for WestJet flights and 1% for WestJet Vacations for the rest of your current qualifying year, with WestJet dollars posted to your account within 30 days of completion of travel.

Redeem as little as $25 WestJet dollars or as many as you like.
You'll need to use a minimum of $25 WestJet dollars at one time when redeeming for WestJet flights or WestJet Vacations packages. However you can now use as many as you like towards the purchase of a WestJet Vacations package – we've removed the maximum redemption amount!

Source: WestJet