Rewards Canada: Your premier points, miles & credit cards resource: November 2021

Tuesday, November 30, 2021

November 30 Update: Air North to offer Whitehorse-Yellowknife-Toronto flights, Skip the Dishes now coding as dining for the Platinum Card and more!

Here's your Rewards Canada Daily update! Your daily dose (or near daily dose) of loyalty program, credit card and travel news, bonuses, deals and more. This update is brought to you by the HSBC World Elite Mastercard which is currently offering a welcome bonus of up to 100,000 bonus points worth $500, has no foreign transaction fees and no annual fee in the first year!

Air North, the Yukon's airline has announced a new service between Whitehorse and Toronto with a stop in Yellowknife on the way. The service will be flown twice per week for the 2022 summer season between May and September. (Source Air North)

This week has already seen a few new Amex Offers come out (which we'll cover in our daily update later today) as is typically seen on Mondays but it's Tuesday and we have even more offers emerge. This one is for purchasing travel via American Express Travel and it appears to have two variations. One for the Platinum Card and another for the Gold Rewards and Cobalt Cards:

3x points for stays at Accor Hotels Worldwide + 1,000 bonus points for new members (book by Dec 2)

Accor Hotels and Qatar Airways Privilege Club teamed up for this Black Friday offer that is available for bookings until Dec 2, 2021 and open to everyone. ALL members will earn 3x points on stays of 2 or more nights worldwide until November 24, 2022. Each member can earn the bonus up to three times. If you are not a member yet you can join the program with this offer using the promo code QATARBF and you’ll earn 1000 Reward Points after your first eligible stay with the offer.

Today we see the return of Best Rewards’ 3,000 bonus points on all stays bonus. This is a targeted offer (you should get the email the sent to you on the 29th) but if not you can always try to register for it via our link below. The bonus is 3,000 points per stay booked between November 29 and December 3 for stays completed by February 6, 2022.

Flying Blue's buy miles bonus has returned not too long after we last saw it. The offer provides up to a 100% bonus when you buy Flying Blue miles and this time that 100% level starts at 24,000 miles. If you are short some miles for a redemption or want to speculatively buy for if and when we see a 50% off business class promo reward you'll want to check out this offer.

WestJet's Cyber Monday sale sees them offering 25% off basic and econo fares to everywhere they fly including Europe. Simply use promo code CYBRESC for bookings made today only for travel until June 22, 2022. Black out dates are as follows: December 16, 2021 to January 5, 2022; February 17-22 and 25-27, 2022; March 11-13, 18-20 and 25-27, 2022; April 14 to 19, 2022 and May 19 to 24, 2022

Last week we gave you a heads up about this offer and it is live now! Preferred Hotel Group has this awesome offer that is only bookable on today, Cyber Monday November 29th. They will award 30,000 bonus I Prefer points for stays of 2 or more nights that are booked with this offer. Those 30,000 points are enough to redeem for 1 night at their 30,000 point level hotels but they even have some 15,000 point hotels so you could earn two free nights for your stay of two nights. It is a tougher bonus for Canadians to achieve if you aren't traveling outside of Canada as none of their Canadian properties are part of the bonus offer. However if you are traveling to places like Mexico this may be something to check out. We have to give a big thank you to our long time reader Davidd418 who provides some details on some of the hotels you could check out in Mexico. Read on to find out!

IHG has been teasing about their biggest member event including Black Friday deals for Europe and Asia Pacific but for the Americas the wait was on till Cyber Monday. Cyber Monday is here and the deals have been revealed from 5x points on all stays, 25% off points & cash stays and up to 15% off stays for the Americas while the other two deals continue on as well.

Air Canada's Cyber Monday deal came out in the wee hours of the morning and offered a 30% off promo code for those early risers who were able to catch it! There were only 1,000 of those 30% off bookings available and they are long gone but at the time of posting this the next highest discount of 25% was still available. For how long though we don't know as it is only good for 2,000 bookings.

Shoppers Drug Mart PC Optimum Biggest Bonus Redemption Event - up to an extra $150 in value for your points

For the Black Friday Cyber Monday weekend and actually a few days past that Shoppers Drug Mart is offering their biggest bonus redemption event of the year. PC Optimum members will receive up to an extra $150 in value for their points when they redeem them for online or in-store Shoppers Drug Mart purchases.

For this Black Friday weekend Best Western is selling their points with a 75% bonus. The hotel chain is not famous for running bonuses on buying points (we’ve seen local versions before in Spain and other regions) and I can’t recall the last time they did it program wide like this. You can buy 1,750 points for US$10 all the way up to 35,000 points for $200. This means you are buying points for 0.57 cents each US$. That’s right around the average redemption value for the points so there is a possibility to pull value out them should you choose to buy some.

Fairmont Hotel's ever so famous Black Friday (and on other occasions as well) gift card sale is now here! Between 2pm and 5pm ET you will receive a 20% bonus when you buy electronic gift cards. They can be purchased in USD, CAD, GBP or EUR and you need to buy at least a $25 gift card to receive the bonus. The maximum you can buy is $2,000 per gift card however Fairmont will allow the bonus to be awarded for up to $5,000 in total used to purchase gift cards. So you can buy three gift cards totaling $5,000 and receive a total of $1,000 in bonus gift cards.

Click here for more details and to buy gift cards

November 26 Update: Marriott cards will earn 5x points with The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection & Black Friday deals galore!

A few weeks back we brought you the details of the new Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection joining Marriott Bonvoy (read about that here). At that time it was announced that Marriott co-branded cards will earn accelerated points for the cruise purchases but details weren't revealed as to whether that was just for U.S. cards or if Canadian Cards were included. Also not revealed at the time was what the accelerated earn rate may be. We posed the question to Amex Canada and received the following good news response:

Save up to 15% with LOT Polish Airlines Black Friday sale from Canada (Looks to be a good deal for flights to Delhi)

We have been posting quite a few of Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers here on the Rewards Canada blog, on our 2021 Black Friday / Cyber Monday / Holiday deals page and many more over on our global site Frequent Flyer Bonuses. Most of the offers we just post what the deal is as there are not enough hours in the day to explore each one to see how good they really are. There was one I thought I would give a try as it is from an airline we don't give too much coverage here and that airline is LOT Polish Airlines. The airline is offering up to 15% off their flights out of Toronto.

Priority Pass has come out with their annual Black Friday sale for their business class lounge access memberships. This year is very similar to past years however they seem to have released several different offers. One offer provides up to a 40% discount which is like past years but this year they add in one free lounge visit as well which is a savings of US32. All in all this is a pretty good deal if you don't already get access via your credit card. The other offer which is the one targeted to the U.K. provides up to a 50% discount but no free lounge visit.

November 25 Update: 5,000 bonus points for stays at Delta Mont Sainte-Anne, awesome Preferred Hotels Cyber Monday offer & half price SCENE movie tickets

There is a bonus offer available for stays at the Delta Hotels, Mont Sainte-Anne, Resort & Convention Center. This bonus awards 5,000 Bonus Bonvoy Points for stays of 2 or more nights until Feb 2, 22 when you book by Nov 30. If the Marriott Cyber Week sale wasn't happening right now this would be a really good offer! Well, technically it is a good offer - the Cyber Sale is only good for stays until January 17 and prices out cheaper than this offer. However if you may be heading here between January 17 and February 2 check out the bonus points offer as it prices out the same as the best flexible rate. Click here for more details and to book this offer

The AIR MILES Shops Black Friday offer is an amazing 20x miles sitewide. For most purchases made via the portal this means you'll earn 1 mile per dollar spent. That's a far cry from the 1 for $20 that's normally seen. This offer is available until November 29 and it can be tied into the current Bonus Boom Boost offer as well. AIR MILES has also let us know they will continue with a 15x offer from November 30 to December 5.

Details were revealed today on the new CIBC Costco Mastercard that will be launching in March of 2022. The new partnership between CIBC and Costco Canada was first announced in September 2021 ending months of speculation as to which bank would takeover the warehouse giant's credit card portfolio from Capital One. At that time very little detail was provided as to what the new card would offer but now as of today we know.

Radisson Hotels Americas Deal Days: Save up to 30% in Canada, the US, Latin America & Caribbean

Radisson Hotels Americas’ Cyber Week special is called Deal Days: Super Sale and it provides up to 30% off stays at participating Radisson, Country Inn & Suites by Radisson, Park Plaza, Park Inn by Radisson, Radisson RED, Radisson Blu, and Radisson Individuals locations across the United States, Canada, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Book by Nov 30, 21 for stays until Dec 31, 22.

November 24 Update: Aeroplan furthers extends the pause on points expiry to September 2022 & a new 1,000 bonus points offer for Best Western stays

Air Canada Aeroplan announced a further extension on the pause of the expiry of Aeroplan points. The last extension had the points expiry being reinstated as of January 31, 2022 but that has now be moved significantly later to September 30, 2022.

"...meaning that between now and September 29, 2022, any Aeroplan points which would have expired will not. Effective September 30, 2022, our normal expiration policy will once again apply meaning points will expire if an eligible transaction has not been completed within the previous 18 months prior to this date."

The online cash back rewards site Rakuten (formerly ebates.ca) will be offering up to a 10% cash back rebate or higher as their main Black Friday and Cyber Monday offer. They have already launched some Black Friday offers providing up 3x cash back right now which with some retailers already puts them at the 10% or higher mark. So be sure to check what a Rakuten is offering right now to compare and if they aren't near that 10% mark it may be best to wait to make your online purchases until Friday.

Marriott Cyber Sale – Save up to 25% at over 5,000 hotels Worldwide including 222 in Canada

Marriott's 2021 Cyber Sale started today and is similar to the one in 2020 with the exception that this time it is global instead of just for the Americas.. The offer is a Marriott Bonvoy Escapes seven-day sale for stays at more than 5,000 hotels Worldwide. Marriott Bonvoy members will save 25% and non-members will save 20% on stay.

On top of the new buy points bonus Radisson Rewards revealed today they have also launched a non free night award night redemption special. Between today and December 8 you can receive a 15% points rebate when you redeem your Radisson Rewards points for airline miles or gift cards. Registration is required for the offer so make sure you do that before redeeming. Now redeeming Radisson Rewards points for airline miles or gift cards provides a lot less value than redeeming for free nights however maybe you only need a small amount of airline miles to get a flight reward where it would make sense converting with this special.

Radisson Rewards has brought back a 100% bonus for buying their points for Black Friday Cyber Monday. This flash sale works when you buy from 3,000 points right up to a maximum of 80,000 points before the bonus, which means you can earn up to 160,000 points with this offer.

While RBC did extend the 35,000 bonus point offers on their consumer Avion cards to April of next year they have decided to end the offer on the Business version on November 30. That means there's only one week left to grab the RBC Avion Visa Infinite Business card with its 35,000 point welcome bonus. As of December 1 that bonus will drop to 25,000 points.

November 23 Update: Scotia credit card updates, Hotels. com Black Friday Double Stamps plus 30% off & an earn and burn loyalty lesson

Yesterday was supposed to mark the launch of the new Scene+ program however technical difficulties behind the scene delayed that. However it also was the day for updates across the board from Scotia for their credit cards. All of the Scotia Rewards points earning cards are now worded as earning Scene+ points and for entire Scotia portfolio we only see one card with a new increased welcome bonus and that's the Scotia SCENE Visa Card. That card is now offering 5,000 bonus points as its welcome bonus. Their two most popular points cards, the Scotia Gold American Express Card and Scotiabank Passport Visa Infinite card both saw their point offers lowered while the Momentum cash back cards all had their current offers extended. Click here to see all of the Scotia card offers on our site.

For the first time in about two years a limited time offer on the RBC Rewards+ Visa came out today. When you apply for and are approved for the card you can now earn up to 5,000 RBC Rewards Welcome Points.

Earn 2x points for stays at Choice Hotels from Nov 29 to Dec 31

We’ve been without a systemwide promo from Choice Hotels for a couple of weeks now – in part due to their Members Madness promo last week but now they have revealed a good offer for stays for the rest of the year (well stays from November 29 and on). The offer awards double points on all qualifying stays which is good for those longer or more expensive stays since you aren’t capped with a flat rate bonus.

Accor Hotels in the Americas have revealed their offer for Black Friday! This offer provides up to a 40% discount for stays at Accor Hotels in North and Central America including a new hotel in Vancouver that is joining Accor this December*. Plus you have the opportunity to earn extra ALL Rewards points on those stays.

Avianca LifeMiles is famous for their buy miles sales, especially so during the Black Friday / Cyber Monday period! They have returned with an offer providing up to a 165% bonus (This is what all members can get per the email from them this morning) however One Mile at a Time has once again secured a better deal that provides up to a 170% bonus. Note that last year LifeMiles offered a 200% bonus so this one doesn't match that! Buying miles at the 170% level works out to US$ 1.22 cents per miles.

Fairmont Hotels have revealed their offer for Black Friday! This offer provides up to a 40% discount for stays at Fairmont Hotels in North and Central America plus you have the opportunity to earn extra ALL Rewards points on those stays.

November 22 Update: RBC Offer for The Source, 50% rebate when you redeem for select gift cards with More Rewards & Air Transat and WestJet to code-share!

Missed one RBC offer in our post on Friday from The Source. We got the offer on the WestJet RBC World Elite Mastercard but it should be available for most RBC cards:

Get a $10 statement credit when you spend $125 or more at The Source. Shop at The Source a second time and spend $75 or more to get a $10 statement credit, for a total of $20 in statement credits, when you pay with your Eligible RBC card!

These offers have been added to our official Guide to RBC Royal Bank 'RBC Offers'

Its Monday so that typically means time for some new Amex Offers and sure enough there were two new promotions added. The first which I'm sure many will be happy about is an Amazon Offer and the second is for Parachute which is a home goods merchant. I received the Amazon offer on my Gold Rewards Card while the Parachute offer came on the Platinum Card. The Parachute offer does show up on Amex's general shopping page which means it will be open to most if not all Amex cards including those from Scotia.

Due to launch today, the new Scene+ program which is the combined entity of Cineplex's SCENE and Scotiabank's Scotia Rewards is now delayed. Thanks to @joshnet on Twitter for alerting us to the change in plans and now the program will launch on or before December 31, 2021.

Earn 3,650 bonus Qmiles on all Qatar Airways flights out of Montreal (book by Nov 23)

Qatar Airways is celebrating being one year away from the start of the FIFA World Cup 2022 with a three day flight booking bonus. For each flight booked with Qatar Airways between now and November 23 for travel until October 31, 2022 you will earn 3,650 bonus Qmiles. This bonus includes Qatar Airways' flights to and from Montreal.

Click here for more details and to book this offer.

Buy World of Hyatt points with a 30% discount (1.68 cents per point!)

Hyatt has come out with their last buy points deal for 2021 and price wise it is one of the best we’ve seen yet. When you buy 5,000 or more points in one transaction they will give a 30% discount on the price. This is different than the typical 30 to 40% bonus we have become accustomed to with Hyatt. With the discount the price works out to 1.68 cents (US) per points. This is lower than the 1.714 cents per point (US$) we see when they run their highest 40% bonus. We typically value World of Hyatt points at 2 cents C$ each so this quite a good price to buy them at. Depending on how you redeem them it could be worthwhile to purchase them for rewards at high end hotels like Park Hyatt’s around the globe or even buying less if you just need a few thousand points to top off for an award.

Fully vaccinated Canadians will no longer require a PCR test for trips of 72 hours or less

Some good news this week from the Canadian government for those people who make trips outside of Canada. As of November 30 fully vaccinated Canadians will no longer require to have a pre-entry COVID-19 molecular test when travelling by land or air. This is the part of the current regulations where you need to have or provide a negative test result prior to returning to Canada. Now those short weekend cross border shopping trips will become more appealing. Do note you still have to present a negative if you are flying to the U.S. for any period of time.

Cathay Pacific Black Friday Sale! Fly to Asia from Canada for as little $779

Here's an offer people will definitely want to check out as Cathay Pacific is terribly well known for having really good seat sales and this one does look good! Their Black Friday 2021 sale sees them offering round trip economy class fares between Canada and Asia for as little as $779 all in. Premium Economy is available from $1,564 and Business Class from $4,203.

The sale is available until November 29 and is good for travel from January 1 to May 24 and August 15 to October 29, 2022. The fares for Economy Class appear to book into Super Saver which will not earn Asia Miles or elite status credits.

Click here for more details & to book this offer.

Here's a snapshot of just some of the fares and destinations they are offering:

Marriott's new Canadian ski resort hotel, The Josie Hotel, Autograph Collection schusses in as a Category 7 property

A few weeks ago we brought you the emerging details of a new ski resort hotel joining up with Marriott. That hotel is The Josie Hotel in Rossland, B.C.. Right at the foot of Red Mountain Resort this award winning ski in ski out boutique hotel is set to become an Autograph Collection hotel. The Marriott website states the property is joining in December however the earliest bookable night through Marriott right now is February 3, 2022. What the website does tell us now which it didn't just over two weeks ago is what category the hotel falls into in the Marriott Bonvoy program.

The AIR MILES Shops pre-Black Friday offer of 15x miles sitewide is now live on their portal. This is a big boost over last year's pre-Black Friday offer of 10x miles. This offer is available until November 24 and it can be tied into the current Bonus Boom Boost offer as well.

Here are the latest RBC Offers including statement credits for Lowes, Rona and UNIQLO

The RBC Offers program has added and extended half a dozen new promotions this week to bring the complete list to 31 offers.

Be sure to login to your RBC account right away to load these offers (if required) or get the promo codes if required. Personally I received these offers on the WestJet RBC World Elite Mastercard but I know most if not all should also available for RBC's most popular card the RBC Avion Visa Infinite Card and most other RBC cards.

November 18 Update: Lynx Air to become Canada's latest Ultra Low Cost Carrier and Wyndham Rewards offering 3x points for online shopping

The on again off again ultra low cost carrier from Calgary's EnerJet looks to be finally taking off! News was released that the oilfield charter carrier will launch their new ULCC airline Lynx Air in 2022. They will start with three Boeing 737 Max aircraft based in Calgary and have a orders in place for up 46 planes in total. Basing in Calgary is a good option seeing that Flair and Swoop have chosen other cities as their hubs and the yet to launch Canada Jetlines will be based in Vancouver. Now this does raise the question can Canada support all these airlines? We have the two big players in Air Canada and WestJet, then you have Porter who are in the midst of a big expansion that will see them flying nationwide and then all the low cost carriers Flair, Swoop, Lynx and Canada Jetlines. I'd like to be wrong but to me that seems over saturated for our market and feel we will see one or two of those go the way of Canada3000, JetsGo and Greyhound Air. Learn more about Lynx Air here.

Not only did AIR MILES launch their new AIR MILES Flights booking platform today (read our coverage in Part 1 and Part 2) they also launched Bonus Boom Boost today! This is an expanded take on their usual Bonus Boom promotions as the stakes are higher - that is bigger bonuses, a longer period to earn those bonuses and a chance to win up to 1 Million Reward Miles!

While some airlines may only offer a discount for Black Friday Air Canada is a little different. They like to do it up and go all out with their Black Friday offers. We have discounts and bonuses for flying with Air Canada, bonuses for online shopping, discounts on vacations, car rentals and much more. We've listed them all below or you check them out on Air Canada's site.

Welcome to Part 2 of our coverage of the new AIR MILES Flights program. In Part 1 we highlighted once again what the new AIR MILES flights provides from dynamic pricing to booking in any fare class and more. As promised we said we would dissect the new dynamic rewards to see what value each AIR MILES Rewards Mile will have when compared to the old flights program.

The much anticipated launch of AIR MILES new flight booking platform has finally happened! The new booking platform was first announced back in early October as part of a wider swath of changes to the programs however is the Flight portion where the biggest changes are happening! We covered most of what would be expected from the new AIR MILES Flights before but now have further details and insight into them.

WestJet confirms Calgary to London Heathrow flights will start in spring 2022

Back in March of this year news came out that WestJet had secured slots to serve London's Heathrow airport but at that time no news came out at all about the actual route starting. That all changes today as WestJet just announced service will start in spring of 2022 between Calgary and LHR! The service will be provided in addition to the existing Calgary, Halifax, Toronto and Vancouver to London Gatwick flights.

Another great Amex Offer made its way out this morning. This one is for flights with United Airlines and provides a $120 statement credit if you spend $400 or more. I received it on the Platinum Card from American Express but it does show up on Amex's general shopping page which means it will be open to most if not all Amex cards.

TRENDING Scene+ is not just for movies anymore - it's become a versatile powerhouse for all types of rewards

TRENDINGScene+ is not just for movies anymore - it's become a versatile powerhouse for all types of rewards

Tuesday, November 30, 2021

Monday, November 29, 2021

Friday, November 26, 2021

Thursday, November 25, 2021

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

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Monday, November 22, 2021

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Friday, November 19, 2021

Thursday, November 18, 2021

Wednesday, November 17, 2021

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Scene+ is not just for movies anymore - it's become a versatile powerhouse for all types of rewards