Rewards Canada: Your premier points, miles & credit cards resource: January 2022

Monday, January 31, 2022

January 31 Update: Credit cards that help you avoid those dreaded airline fees, More Rewards adds a new pharmacy partner & new exclusive Visa Infinite Privilege offers

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.

Over the weekend another popular feature on the Rewards Canada website received an update. That feature is Credit cards that help you avoid those dreaded airline fees. In this piece we look at cards that can save on baggage fees, seat selection fees and other charges associated with flying these days. Check it out here.

CIBC has an increased limited welcome bonus offer on their CIBC Aventura® Visa Infinite* Card† via select partners like Rewards Canada that is actually higher than what you'll find on their site. Thanks to the awarding of a 5,000 points anniversary bonus the total amount of welcome bonus points that can be achieved on the card up to 40,000 with this offer.

Today we see the return of Best Rewards’ 3,000 bonus points on all stays booked online bonus. This is a targeted offer (you should get the email the sent to you on the 31st) but if not you can always try to register for it via our link below. These offers although targeted seem to work for almost anyone so it doesn't hurt to try to register for it. The bonus is 3,000 points per stay booked between January 31st and February 4 for stays completed by May 9, 2022.

Air Canada Aeroplan is running a Valentine's Day event where you can earn up to 7x points for shopping online at select retailers via Aeroplan's eStore. This offer runs until February 14 with retailers like The Body Shop at 6x points, Little Burgundy at 4x points and Sephora offering 7x points.

Back in December TD came out with new and extended welcome offers on their credit cards including one of the best ever for their TD Cash Back Visa Infinite* Card. That offer when launched offered up to $210 in cash back for any one who applied for the card by May 29, 2022. And even though that bonus offer was better than most in the market by $10 the prevalence of those competitors offering a published 10% on $2,000 has overshadowed this bonus. When you have 10% on $2,000 (or $2,500 on one card) versus 6% on $2,000 plus 6% on the next $1,500 some consumers don't see that second part so they are only comparing 10% and 6% on $2,000 spend and thus those 10% offers are winning out. So what does TD do? Well as of today they are now also offering 10% back on the first $2,000 of spending BUT they are also keeping the 6% on the next $1,500 in select categories. If you can max that out in the first three months as required then you will earn $290 in cash back. That's $40 to $90 more than most of the competition.

CIBC AC Conversion Visa - Load up to 10 currencies and earn 1% cash back until April 30

The limited time 1% cash back earning on CIBC's AC Conversion Visa has been extended to the end of April 2022. This card is a prepaid Visa credit card option offered by CIBC and Air Canada that has been around now for quite a few years and is somewhat unique in that you can load multiple currencies onto to card at once to use when traveling to various parts of the world.

AIR MILES Shops - Earn 3x miles site wide for your online shopping until February 9

AIR MILES Shops is celebrating Valentine's Day by offering 3x miles site wide on AIR MILES Shops purchases made by February 9, 2022.

The next long running Rewards Canada feature to get its yearly update and also be moved to the new format on our site is article on Credit cards that help you avoid those dreaded airline fees.

CIBC Dividend® Visa Infinite* Card - 10% cash back on all purchases up to $2,500 and a first year annual fee rebate

The highest welcome bonus for non-American Express Cash Back cards in our market has typically been 10% cash back on up to $2,000 of spending ($200 cash back). That changed when CIBC bumped up the spend limit for their offer to $2,500 over the first four statement periods. This means that 10% welcome bonus can earn you up to $250 cash back!

Here's another Aeroplan bonus points offer that is only available to those who hold Aeroplan co-brand credit cards. This offer is from Air Canada Vacations and awards 15,000 bonus points per member for ACV flight plus cruise bookings. That's a great bonus seeing it is awarded to each member who is on the booking! The offer is available for booking until February 28, 2022 with a nice long travel window of having to complete the flight and cruise by December 31, 2023.

It's time for another Rewards Canada Clash! This time in our Clash of the Credit Cards we see BMO's relative newcomer take on HSBC's flagship card! Those cards are the BMO eclipse Visa Infinite* Card and the HSBC World Elite® Mastercard®

A last call notice for RBC's entry level RBC Rewards+ Visa card as its current limited welcome offer will be ending on January 31. New applications as of February 1st will see a lower bonus offer. The current limited time welcome bonus is up to 5,000 RBC Rewards Points which works out to $50 in value and carries no annual fee.

January 27 Update: Check out the latest AIR MILES Card Linked offers and PC Optimum Points Days is here!

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!

The next batch of AIR MILES Card linked offers were released this week. These are the offers where you can link any Canadian Mastercard to earn these AIR MILES offers with - not just their co-brand cards. Some of the offers are the same as before like Subway and H&M but there are new offers from VIA Rail, Frank & Oak and several other retailers. This set of offers are valid until March 2, 2022. Click here to learn more about card linked offers.

In this "A look at the value' post we welcome back Rewards Canada contributor Dee who delves into the value that can be received from the Annual Worldwide Companion Pass benefit on select Aeroplan co-brand credit cards. This pass is an annual benefit available on four Ultra Premium Air Canada Aeroplan cards and is awarded when the cardholder reaches $25,000 in net purchases prior to the card anniversary date.

Aeroplan's first buy points bonus of the year is here and it's a pretty good one. For the next week you'll be able to buy or gift points with up to a 100% bonus. This tiered offer sees bonuses ranging from 50% to 80% dependent on how many points you buy. This offer runs until February 2, 2022 and allows members to buy up to 350,000 points per transaction up to the annual limit of 1 million points. If you buy 5,000 to 19,000 points you'll earn a 60% bonus, 20,000 to 55,000 points will earn a 75% bonus, 60,000 to 90,000 you'll get a 90% bonus and 100,000+ will earn the 100%.

New $20 welcome bonus when you open a Koho Prepaid Visa Card Account

KOHO has launched a Lunar Year Promotion that sees them offer a short term welcome bonus for new users who sign up with KOHO for one of their prepaid Visa cards. When you sign up with the below promo code you'll receive a one time C$20 bonus when you make your first purchase using your KOHO card within 30 days of signing up.

January 26 Update: Many more confirmed Cobalt multiplier locations, a new Lounge Reviews page on Rewards Canada & Kimpton Hotels Winter sale

Another big update to our American Express Cobalt™ Card Confirmed Multiplier Locations thanks to contributor FM. He provided details on over a dozen locations in the Vancouver area that earn 5x and 1x points. Check out the feature here

The next airline to bring out a bonus for buying their miles/points is Alaska Airlines. The Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan buy miles bonus is back and it is nice to see it back at the 60% level. The bonus is tiered in that if you buy 3,000 to 19,000 miles you’ll get a 40% bonus, 20,000 to 39,000 is 50% and the 60% kicks in at the 40,000 mile level.

Welcome to Part Two of our series on new hotel openings in Canada for 2022! In this part we take a look at Marriott Hotels who are taking a bit of a breather compared to the past several years with new hotel openings. Having added well over 40 new hotels between 2019 and 2021, Marriott is planning on only opening ~~six~~ nine new hotels in Alberta, Nova Scotia, Ontario & Quebec. So let's take a look at what they have in store for this year.

SEPTEMBER 2 UPDATE: One more hotel will be opening up this year bringing the total number of new hotels to nine. The hotel is in Laval and have been added to the list below.

JULY 1 UPDATE: Two more hotels will be opening up this year bringing the total number of new hotels to eight. The two hotels are in Montreal and have been added to the list below.

RBC Offers adds two more promotions that provide discounts for Herschel and H&R Block

The RBC Offers program has added two new promotions and extended another over this past week to bring the complete list to 26 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 most if not all should also available for RBC's most popular card the RBC Avion Visa Infinite Card and most other RBC cards.

Thanks to Davidd418 for alerting us to this pretty awesome seat sale from Flair Airlines. Their Free Base Fare in February sale is just that - the base fare is free, you simply pay the taxes and fees (and any add ons like baggage). The sale is good for any Flair destinations and the flights must be booked by January 27 (or while seats last) for travel in February. As David pointed out to us there are some flights that are available for as little as $14 round trip.

January 25 Update: 1,500 More Rewards points at Panago Pizza, 20 to 35K points for InterContinental Ambassador memberships, & the new HSBC Travel Rewards Mastercard DOES NOT have the airline conversion option

More Rewards is offering 1,500 points when you order $30 or more from Panago Pizza until February 28. Those 1,500 points work out to just over $6 when redeemed for travel. Click here to learn more.

Marriott officially unveiled their next global systemwide promotion today and it’s a pretty good one. The offer provides 1,000 bonus Bonvoy points and double elite night credit per night stayed at Marriott Hotels across Canada and Worldwide. The promotional stay period is February 8 to May 4 but you can register for the offer and book your stays now. You must register prior to your stays to be able to earn the bonus and registration is only open until April 20. I like that you can get the bonus on a single night (compared to Hyatt’s offer where you need to complete two nights) and that there is an elite earning component (Both Hyatt and Hilton’s offers are non-elite qualifying).

HSBC is expanding their credit card portfolio for the everyday Canadian with the launch of the HSBC Travel Rewards Mastercard®. We say everyday Canadian as up until a few years ago most of their credit card offerings were limited to HSBC customers or those with high net worth. That changed when they launched the awesome travel rewards HSBC World Elite Mastercard and then followed it up with the low interest rewards card the HSBC +Rewards Mastercard. As of this week they have now added a third card that is open to anyone applying for it and it also marks the bank's entrance into the no fee rewards card space.

25% off Emirates flights between Toronto & Dubai when booking for 2 or more people

If you are planning any travel to Dubai over the next few months check out this offer from Emirates. The airline launched a companion offer today that provides a 25% discount when you are booking for 2 to 9 people on the same reservation. The discount works on both Economy and Business Class fares and is applied to all adult base fares. This offer must be booked by Feb 6 for travel until Apr 30, 2022

The best airline card in the Canadian market and second best overall travel rewards card in the market is still offering a very valuable welcome bonus that is great for those looking to travel soon or those waiting things out and looking to travel sometime in the near future. Right now when you apply for the TD® Aeroplan® Visa Infinite* Card by March 6, 2022 you can receive up to 25,000 Aeroplan points, a bonus buddy pass and the first year annual fee rebated! This offer is not available for residents of Quebec. For Quebec residents, please click here.

Earlier in January we updated the Rewards Canada's Guide to Business Class Lounge Access for 2022 and one of the new additions to the piece were the details on LoungePair. LoungePair is the new startup that allows you to name your own price on single entry business class lounge access at hundreds of lounges around the world including 15+ in Canada. With LoungePair added to the guide we're happy to let you know that we have now partnered with them!

Hyatt has released another buy points bonus! This time they have gone back to an actual bonus instead of a discount. That bonus is 30% which means you are buying points for US$ 1.85 cents each. There is potential value in buying these points for select Hyatt stays around the globe as you can easily get more value than that per point on the right redemptions.

Car Rental redemptions have returned to AIR MILES and they retain great value!

When the revamped AIR MILES launched in fall of 2021 one redemption that disappeared, temporarily that is, was car rentals. We are happy to tell you that is option is back, based on a tweet from AIR MILES the car rental option returned on January 19, 2022. The car rental option has been added to the AIR MILES Travel Hub which is the same portal you can use to book hotels. In the past incarnation Car rentals had typically been one of the best and most valuable redemption options in the program and we'll test it out to see if it still is.

Triple ALL Rewards Points at Accor & Fairmont Hotels in Canada, the U.S., Mexico and Panama

Accor Hotels’ Triple Points offer for stays at their locations in North America and select Latin American countries has returned. Simply register for this offer to have it ready for any bookings and stays you complete with the chain’s hotel brands. You can easily tie this in with the current Take Your Time discount promotion that offers up to 30% stays.

New Hilton Hotel Openings in Canada for 2022 - an amazing 21 hotels planned including the Canopy by Hilton Toronto Yorkville & Vogue Hotel Montreal

A new year means the return of our series on new hotel openings in Canada! This year we kick it off with Hilton Hotels who are looking at a huge expansion in our great country. At the time of posting this Hilton are planning on opening a whopping 21 new hotels in four provinces. So let's take a look at what Hilton has in store for 2022.

January 21 Update: How to maximize the elite status benefits from The Platinum Card from American Express & get your 2nd night free for stays in Quebec City

Another major feature on the main Rewards Canada site received a makeover and update this week. That feature is How to maximize the elite status benefits from The Platinum Card from American Express. This is our piece showing how you can take the elite status benefits that you get with the card and extend those elite statuses to even more hotel, car rental and even cruise loyalty programs. The number of statuses has actually gone down one since our last update as currently Wyndham Rewards has put their status match offer on pause. Click here to check out this feature.

Just like their parent company Accor, Fairmont Hotels has brought back their Take Your Time promotion after a short hiatus while they ran their New Year New View promotion. The promotion provides up to a 30% discount for stays at Fairmont Hotels in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and Barbados

Less than two weeks left for the best ever welcome bonuses on Tangerine Mastercards - 15% cash back for the first 2 months

We have confirmation that Tangerine's biggest cash back bonuses ever - percentage wise that is will be ending as planned on January 31, 2022. No more extensions as we have seen over the past few months. Both the Tangerine Money-Back Credit Card and the Tangerine World Mastercard will award a 15% cash back welcome earn rate in the first two months for any new approved applications made by January 31, 2022. The 15% is capped on $1,000 of purchases for a total cash back reward of $150. After that 15% cap is hit or after 2 months the regular earn rate of up to 2% cash back kicks in.

January 20 Update: Additional confirmed Cobalt multipliers and PC Optimum offering 30,000 bonus points for $100 Shoppers Drug Mart spend

We have a couple more American Express Cobalt Multipliers for you that our readers have confirmed. Thomas let us know that Lulu Hypermarkets in Oman earn 5x points and C with a T let us know about Sa Boothroyd out of B.C. also codes as 5x points. Check out the list of multipliers here.

Earn up to 90,000 bonus points for stays Radisson Hotels in Canada, the U.S., Latin America, or the Caribbean.

Radisson Rewards Americas has a new bonus points offer out that is very rewarding if you have a lot of nights planned for the remainder of winter and early into Spring. The offer awards 30,000 bonus points for every 3 nights you complete and those night do not have to be consecutive. They’ll let you rinse and repeat a couple more times to be able to earn a maximum of 90,000 points if you stay 9 nights by the end of the promotion which is April 30. Don’t forget that stays until that date also automatically earn 2x stay/night credits as well.

Accor Hotels has brought back their Take Your Time promotion after a short hiatus while they ran their New Year New View promotion. The Take Your Time promotion provides up to a 30% discount for stays at Accor Hotels in Canada, more specifically Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver. The sale also works for stays in the U.S., Mexico and Barbados

Earn up to 100% bonus Aeroplan Points on Air Canada sun destination flights

Air Canada revealed a new flight bonus offer today for Aeroplan members. The bonus offers up to 100% bonus Aeroplan points on flights between Canada and select sun destinations in the Caribbean, Mexico and U.S. Select economy fares will earn 50% bonus points per round-trip or two one way segments and 100% bonus points per round-trip or two one way segments flown in Premium Economy or Business Class. As is standard with Aeroplan flight promotions, flights booked prior to the launch of this promotion on January 19 are not eligible to earn the bonus.

Offer details:
Earn up to 100% Bonus Aeroplan Points when you fly on Air Canada, Air Canada Rouge or Air Canada Express between Canada and select sun destinations* in the Caribbean, Mexico, or the United States. Register and book between Jan 19 and Mar 1 for travel between Jan 19 and Aug 31, 22. Click here to register for this offer (Registration is required)

When booking these flights make sure you are maximizing the points earned on the purchase by using a credit card like the American Express® Aeroplan®* Reserve Card which earns 3 Aeroplan points per dollar spent on Air Canada purchases.

* Eligible destinations:
Bridgetown, Cancun,Cayo Coco, Cozumel, Fort De France, Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, George Town, Holguin, Honolulu/Oahu, Huatulco, Kahului/Maui, Kingston, Kona/Hawaii, Las Vegas, Liberia, Mexico City, Miami, Montego Bay, Nassau, New Orleans, Orlando, Palm Springs, Phoenix, Pointe-À-Pitre, Port of Spain, Providenciales, Puerto Vallarta, Punta Cana, San Diego, San Jose, San Jose Del Cabo, San Juan, Santa Ana/Orange County, Santa Clara, St. Lucia-Vieux Fort, St. Thomas, Tampa, Varadero, West Palm Beach, Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo.

Marriott Hotel + Air packages have been officially discontinued

As we reported last week, Marriott Bonvoy has now officially ended their Hotel+Air package redemption option. The Marriott website has been updated to confirm this however there has not been any notice sent out to members. Those members who have reservations in place through one of these packages will be able to keep them however no changes can be made to them after March 2. Those members who have certificates from the packages in their accounts but haven't made reservations you will have until February 28 to make such reservations. Any certificates remaining after that date will be converted back to Marriott points or if you change your reservation they will refund all points to you and you'll have to re-book.

January 19 Update: New Prepaid Credit Cards page on Rewards Canada and the Marriott Bonvoy Business card retains its up to 85,000 bonus points bonus

Added yet another new page to the main Rewards Canada site. Over the past couple of years we have been providing more coverage of the Prepaid Credit Card market so it only makes sense to have a summary page of the card offers.The page is in its infancy with several offers listed but don't worry I'll be adding more cards to the page over the next few weeks including Stack, CIBC AC Prepaid Conversion etc. Click here to check out the page

The long awaited story of Calgary based charter carrier EnerJet launching an Ultra Low Cost Carrier (ULCC) has come to fruition. As we reported back in November, Lynx Air as the new airline is named announced they were going to launch in 2022 with three Boeing 737 Max aircraft. As of today everything looks official as you can now book flights with Lynx Air for travel between five cities in Canada. Those cities are Calgary (their home base), Kelowna, Toronto, Vancouver and Winnipeg.

Earlier today we brought you the new global IHG Rewards bonus points offer and in that post mentioned the hotel chain has more news that was released today. That news is about changes coming to the IHG Rewards program in March and today they only revealed the first of the program's updates and that is to the elite status portion program. The changes in elite status include renaming the Spire tier to Diamond, adding an additional tier, changing the qualification requirements and adjusting the bonus points earned by elite members.

IHG Rewards provided several pieces of news today – the first is a new systemwide global points bonus offer and the second are changes to the actual program. In this post we’ll cover the post offer and follow up with another with the program changes. This new global points bonus offer is a simple one, double points on all IHG Hotel stays completed between February 1 and March 31. You can register for the offer as today and must be registered prior to completing stays. There is no limit to the number of bonus points that you can earn.

PC Optimum now the official loyalty program for Esso as Esso Extra is retired

Yesterday marked the end of an era as a long running gas station loyalty program in Canada, Esso Extra was officially retired. The gas retailer has now implemented PC Optimum as its official loyalty program. First announced in June 2021 the switch to offering only loyalty program came as a bit of a surprise at that time but as Esso offered customers a choice of earning Esso Extra points or PC Optimum points on purchases the data must have shown more people choosing the latter. Now as of this week, that's your only choice for earning extra loyalty rewards at Esso stations!

January 18 Update: More confirmed Cobalt Card 5x points locations, Tims Rewards offering 2x points this week & Starbucks Rewards postpones Star expiration

We're happy to let you know that we've added even more merchants to our American Express Cobalt™ Card Confirmed Multiplier Locations feature. Thanks to Rewards Canada reader C with a T for letting us know of the following locations that all earn 5x points on the Cobalt Card which weren't on our list before:

On January 17th Air France announced the launch of a new route from Quebec City to Paris. This marks the airline's fourth Canadian city that they provide service from. The airline has long served Montreal and Toronto and more recently Vancouver, well kind of recent, it's been nearly 7 years since they started flying to YVR. The new Quebec City to Paris Charles de Gaulle flight will start on May 17, 2022 and operate three times weekly.

It's that time of year again! Time for our annual travel rewards and cash back credit card rankings. In this the 14th edition of the travel rewards rankings and 6th edition of cash back rankings we take a look at the best cards to rack up points, miles, and cash back, receiving benefits and more. On the travel side we provide details on the top overall cards, the best travel points cards, no fee cards, hybrid cards, airline cards and once again Ultra Premium credit cards. For cash back we look at the top 5 cards overall. Listen in to find to find out all the details behind Canada's most trusted rankings! Check out the Top Travel Cards here and the Top Cash Back Cards here

CIBC Aventura offering a 50% discount when you redeem points for any travel you book yourself

Similar to a promotion that has BMO Rewards has been offering since December, CIBC is providing a discount for their Aventura cardholders when redeeming points against travel they book themselves. This is different than booking flights via CIBC Rewards and utilizing the Aventura Reward Chart or redeeming points against any travel booked with them. This is where you go out and buy travel with any provider like Air Canada, WestJet, Expedia etc. and then when the charge shows up on your account you redeem points against that charge.

January 17 Update: Best Western Rewards Pay with Points expanded, Rewards Canada Clash Standings & Paytm shutting down

Catching up on some news that came out earlier this month. If you recall Best Western Rewards introduced a Pay with Points feature to the program in 2021 that was available only at select hotels in Canada and the U.S.. On January 5th Best Western announced an expansion to the Pay with Points feature to most of their hotels across North America. The feature allows you to redeem 5,000 points for $25 off your stay and goes up in increments of 1,000 points for an additional $5 off. Click here to learn more about Best Western's Pay with Points feature.

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

Monday, January 31, 2022

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