Oct 10 Highlight: Mobile-Based Wallet To Convert Points and Miles into Cash, Priority Club Point Breaks and free Amtrak points

I want to thank everyone who has voted so far in the Canada's Choice portion of our Top Travel Rewards Credit Card rankings 2012 and want to welcome new readers and subscribers who may have only joined us today as result of the social media coverage provided by Aeroplan (Thanks AP!)

News, Tips & Tricks
PointsPay, a division of Swiss based loyalty consulting company Loylogic, is being heavily promoted as the first Mobile Payment solution for using your points and miles as cash. PointsPay launched earlier this year with the Etihad Airways Guest rewards program (if some of Rewards Canada's 10th Anniversay winners of Guest miles haven't used their miles yet, here is another option) and allows you to use your miles/points right at the point of sale. In the first few days of the program’s launch on Etihad Guest, PointsPay issued close to 1,500 PointsPay Virtual and Plastic Cards and loaded 50 million miles. For online purchases it can be done right on your phone and what is really cool is that you can order a free plastic PointsPay card that works at over 30 Million merchants Worldwide that accept Visa or MasterCard. You load the card (so like a prepaid credit card) with the currency of your choice by converting your miles and points. For Canadians, this is similar to Air Miles Cash where you can use your Air Miles Rewards Miles right at the cash register however only at several Air Miles sponsors. So this is where PointsPay is different as it treats your miles/points like true cash in that you are not limited to where you can use them. This is definitely an interesting development in the loyalty industry and I will keep a watch on it for Rewards Canada readers as right now, unless you have Etihad Guest miles, there isn't a huge market for it here. For more details you can visit PointsPay.com

Yesterday Qatar Airways announced that they are joining the oneworld alliance, which is a boost for Canadian members of American's AAdvantage program as Qatar Airways serves Canada directly with their Montreal-Doha route that has ongoing connections to many destinations in Asia, Africa and Australia. It is always good to get another option for earning and burning miles regardless of which oneworld program you may be a member of.

In the bonus offers sectoin there is an offer for free Amtrak Guest Rewards points, anyone can get them but unless you plan on earning Guest Rewards points from other methods it probably won't be worthwhile for you. Really it would only be useful to those who may use Amtrak service to the U.S. from Montreal, Toronto or Vancouver

Bonus Offers
Amtrak Guest Rewards (on FrequentFlyerBonuses.com only)
- 100 Guest Rewards Points when you connect your Amtrak Guest Rewards with your Facebook account. More... Until Nov 3, 12

Ethiopian Sheba Miles
- Double Sheba Miles for flights between Ouagadougou and Addis Ababa. More... Until Dec 31, 12

InterContinental Hotels Group Priority Club
- 5,000 points per award night - Priority Club Point Breaks. Redeem only 5,000 points for stays at select hotels Worldwide. Offer and participating hotels are subject to change at any time, valid for stays thru Dec 10, 2012. More...

Miles & More
- Earn up to Quadruple Miles & More Miles on all Hertz rentals Worldwide. More... Until Dec 31, 12

Starwood Preferred Guest
- 1,000 Bonus Starpoints for stays at the Sheraton Silver Spring Hotel. More... Until Dec 31, 12
- 1,000 Bonus Starpoints on every Sheraton Club stay at the Sheraton Anchorage Hotel & Spa. More... Until Nov 30, 12

Virgin America Elevate (on FrequentFlyerBonuses.com only)
- Double Elevate Points on qualifying flights between Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Palm Springs, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle. More... Until Nov 15, 12

Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
- 100 Bonus Flying Club Miles per transaction when you book any car rental Worldwide using your Hertz #1 Club Gold® profile. More... Ongoing