Here's your Rewards Canada Daily update! Your near daily dose of
loyalty program, credit card and travel news, bonuses, deals and more.
Here's your Rewards Canada Daily update! Your near daily dose of
loyalty program, credit card and travel news, bonuses, deals and more.
April 1 Update: Matches to Safar Flyer Gold are no longer available. Silver is still available however.
The fine people at Statusmatch.com have revealed another status match opportunity that they are running on behalf of an airline. This time that airline Royal Air Maroc and you could potentially be matched to have elite status in the airline's Safar Flyer program. Some of you, most likely in the Montreal area are probably familiar with Safar Flyer since Royal Air Maroc serves your fine city. For others probably not so much but don't dissuade this opportunity as Royal Air Maroc happens to be part of the oneworld Alliance which counts airlines like American, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qatar Airways as just some of the partners.
Hot on the heels of our updated review of the Alaska Airlines card yesterday the airline comes out with some great news today! They have announced a new partnership with Air Tahiti Nui as the French Polynesian carrier revealed they will be launched Seattle to Tahiti flights this fall! Yes, Seattle is not in Canada but this presents a potentially great opportunity for Mileage Plan members in Western Canada as now you'll be able to reach the South Pacific paradise with just one stop flying on Alaska Airlines out of Alberta or B.C. via Seattle.
ALL Accor Live Limitless has brought back their multi-night
multi-stay systemwide bonus points offer for the spring. This promotion
awards multi-night stays (2 or more nights each) at all of their
participating hotels Worldwide. You’ll earn 500 bonus points on your
first 2+ night stay, 2,500 on your second 2+ night stay and 3,000 on
your third such stay. The offer is good at all their hotels worldwide including Fairmont Hotels across Canada and the half dozen or so Accor Hotels here as well!
Here's your Rewards Canada Daily update! Your near daily dose of loyalty program, credit card and travel news, bonuses, deals and more.
One of our Mastercard sources was able to provide further details as follows:
Aeroplan has brought back their 7x points offer for shopping online with Apple! This works for eligible online purchases made via the Aeroplan eStore for delivery to your home or office or even those you choose to pick up in store. This is how I typically do my Apple purchases, buy online and pick up within 2-3 hours at the Apple store all the while earning tons of Aeroplan points (plus the points or miles earned on the credit card!)
Some big news out of the Rewards Canada family today - our oldest daughter who is 19 just launched her own clothing and art line called Third Circle! It went live at 12pm PT on March 28 at thirdcircleshop.com and features some truly amazing clothing and art that she designed herself. The launch culminates months of hard work she has put in to creating the designs and getting her business off the ground. The initial release is just the beginning of what she has designed with more products to be released over the coming months.
March 29 Update: The switch to dynamic pricing will take place late on March 29 so you still have a small window here to make any bookings!
Back in October Marriott announced they were moving their Bonvoy program to dynamic award pricing from the long standing award chart model and that those changes would take place in March. It was revealed in February the dynamic pricing will take effect over the course of two days on March 29 and 30 which makes today the last day to book with set award chart pricing.
Here's your Rewards Canada Daily update! Your near daily dose of
loyalty program, credit card and travel news, bonuses, deals and more.
Today we released an update to our review of the MBNA Alaska Airlines World Elite Mastercard. The card was first reviewed on Rewards Canada in 2013 and I have to apologize to our readers as I don't think did an full fledged update on it since then so some of it was out of date. Now that's all fixed and the review is fresh for 2022 and I promise to keep an eye on it and update more frequently as required. The card itself isn't well known to most Canadians but is somewhat of a hidden gem and a favourite in the points and miles community. Read our review here to find out why!
Big news in the world of credit card lounge access! I was visiting the Mastercard Canada website today and noticed a change to the lounge access section for the World and World Elite Mastercards. No longer does the website state Mastercard Airport Experiences by LoungeKey, instead it now has Mastercard Travel Pass provided by DragonPass.
The RBC Offers program has several new promotions and extended
one other over the past month. In total there are 25 offers in place
with this program.
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 butmost if not all should also available for RBC's most popular card the RBC Avion Visa Infinite Card and most other RBC cards.
More Rewards has brought back their Free Groceries Event where you can redeem your More Rewards points for you in store grocery shopping at greater value than the regular redemption rates. In fact if you have enough points to redeem at the highest level, 48,000 points for $200 off your grocery bill you'll be redeeming points at nearly the same value as travel redemptions via the program. Outside of a couple of hockey ticket redemption options in the program redeeming for travel is the best redemption option in the program in terms of value so when they run this grocery redemption option several times per year it is definitely worth checking out. This offer is available in-store only until March 30, 2022.
Here's your Rewards Canada Daily update! Your near daily dose of loyalty program, credit card and travel news, bonuses, deals and more.
Air Canada Aeroplan has once again extended their flexible change policy for Aeroplan flight rewards. The extension now sees Aeroplan waiving change fees on reward tickets until April 30, 2022 and the amount of changes you can make are unlimited. For bookings made by April 30 but changed on or after May 1, 2022 you will have the first change fee waived but any others after that will incur a fee. Applicable change fees will apply to any new bookings that are made on our after May 1. The program does seem to be adjusting these frequently so it is entirely possible they will be extended again in the near future.
The buy points bonus for Marriott Bonvoy was set to end yesterday but has been extended to April 3. The promotion provides up to a 50% bonus and is awarded on purchases from 2,000 to 100,000 points and that 100,000 is a doubling of the typical 50,000 point annual limit for buying points.
A big bonus coming out of Marriott for stays at the Sheraton Gateway Hotel in Toronto International Airport! This bonus celebrates the recent refresh and renovation of the Club Lounge at the hotel and offers 10,000 bonus Bonvoy points per night and Club Lounge access (I'm how else could they celebrate it?) for stays between April 3 and May 19. If you stay by May 4th you can stack this offer with the global Marriott promotion to earn 1,000 Bonus Bonvoy Points + Double Elite Night Credit for each night you stay. If you are needing an overnight hotel at YYZ you may want to consider this offer but read on to see if it is worth it.
Here's your Rewards Canada Daily update! Your near daily dose of
loyalty program, credit card and travel news, bonuses, deals and more.
An update for our series on New Hotel Openings in Canada to bring you. This one comes to us from Hyatt who have now published the World of Hyatt Category for the new Hyatt Centric Ville-Marie Montreal. The hotel will open later this year as a Category 3 hotel which means it will require 12,000 points for a standard award night, 9,000 for Off Peak and 15,000 for Peak. With only three hotels opening in Canada this year we now have the complete picture of the categories as one is a Category 2 hotel and the other two are Category 3 hotels. Click here to learn more about this hotel and others opening in Canada this year.
Here's your Rewards Canada Daily update! Your near daily dose of
loyalty program, credit card and travel news, bonuses, deals and more.
Today we are mostly playing catch up on some items from last week!
Back in February Qatar Airways announced they will be adopting Avios in place of Qmiles as the loyalty currency in their Privilege Club program. That time has come and as of March 22 the switch has been made. Qatar Airways Privilege Club members now earn and burn Avios and any Qmiles in accounts up to this date have been converted 1:1 to Avios.
An exciting announcement from Air Canada today as they revealed they will acquiring 26 Airbus A321XLR planes with deliveries starting in 2024. The planes will serve a mixture of North American and Transatlantic routes with greater comfort and range than other narrowbody planes that Air Canada is currently flying.
Here's your Rewards Canada Daily update! Your near daily dose of loyalty program, credit card and travel news, bonuses, deals and more.
A pretty big update up to our American Express Cobalt™ Card Confirmed Multiplier Locations feature. The following were added to the section on Canadian merchants:
Five days after it came to a close we see the return of Hilton’s bonus for buying points! Once again you can earn a 100% bonus when you buy points and just like the last version the bonus kicks in when you buy a minimum of 5,000 points. Also the promotion this time does see the doubling of the annual cap on buying points so you can buy up to 160,000 points. That 160,000 cap does not include the bonus points so if you max out this offer and buy 160,000 points you’ll receive 320,000 into your account.
I recently had the pleasure of flying from Vancouver to Toronto with Air Canada as my work had me heading out for the first time in two years. For this flight I used four of my eUpgrade credits to upgrade from Premium Economy to Business Class. The eUpgrades I have are part of the yearly benefits for being an Air Canada Aeroplan elite member.
It's time for another Rewards Canada Clash! Here is the clash so many of you have been asking for! A battle of the true 5x points earners and two of the overall best cards in Canada! We have the Best Overall Credit Card Canada and Top Hybrid Rewards Card the American Express Cobalt™ Card going up against the Top Travel Points Card with an annual fee and 6th place overall card, the Scotiabank Gold American Express Card
Here's your Rewards Canada Daily update! Your 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!
Congratulations to René S. of Toronto, Ontario and Donna L. of North York for winning the two 5,000 Aeroplan Point prizes from our Aeroplan eStore contest last week! Thank you to everyone who took the time to enter!
Here are the Rewards Canada Top 5 Small Business Credit Card Sign Up offers for this month! This is not a 'best' credit card list like our Top Travel Rewards Credit Card rankings but instead a look at cards for small businesses that have very good acquisition (welcome/sign up) offers. As always when choosing a card you should always take other factors into account other than the just sign up bonus, but when some of these cards are first year free, they can and do pay off even when you grab them strictly for the sign up rewards. This month we see three first year free cards on the list! And remember this list is based on minimum value towards travel which we calculate as the minimum value of the welcome bonus less the annual fee. It is entirely possible to receive more value out of the welcome bonuses on all of these cards since they earn Aeroplan points or Marriott Bonvoy points - both of which can provide some huge outsized value rewards!
Choice Hotels next promotion is here and it is the same offer we used to always see from them! They word the promotion differently in terms of get a free night or get a $50 gift card. In the end the two promos are the same, they will award you enough bonus points after you complete 2 separate stays to have 8,000 points after those stays. This time it is the stay twice and earn a free night offer. The promotion will award you with 5,000 to 8,000 bonus points and with award night starting as low as 8,000 points you would have enough points to redeem for a free night.
WestJet sent out four press releases this morning announcing a significant increase in their flight schedules for this summer. The airline is adding one new route and restoring service on more including many of their transatlantic routes. Here are the details of the WestJet's expansion as travel continues to recover.
Back in December Air Canada's Aeroplan added two new airline partners, Oman Air and Air Mauritius. The latter started off as a redemption partner only but as of today Aeroplan members can now also earn Aeroplan points when flying on the national airline of Mauriitius. The airline flies to some major international hubs that Air Canada flies to such as London and Paris thus making connections to Mauritius that much easier and its great that you are now able to earn points in addition to redeeming them.
Here is your monthly update of all the global hotel bonus points promotions that are available. One of the easiest ways to rack up lots of hotel points is to take advantage of these global/systemwide/regional bonuses that come from many of the big chain programs and also from the lesser known programs.
Here's your Rewards Canada Daily update! Your near daily dose of loyalty program, credit card and travel news, bonuses, deals and more.
Not only are Edmontons Best Hotels offering the great gift card and rewards offer we brought to you back in February (read all about that offer here) but now they have an awesome contest that you can enter. Click here to enter the contest!
Here is what you could win:
Here's your Rewards Canada Daily update! Your 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!
American Express announced earlier this week they will be opening a new Centurion Lounge at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. The lounge which is set to open in 2023 will be the largest lounge yet in the Centurion network at approximately 26,000 square feet. Canadian Platinum Card and Centurion Cardmembers can access all Centurion Lounge including this one when it opens and in fact access is better from Canadian cards in terms of guest allowance over the U.S. based Platinum cards. Click here to learn more about this new lounge
Plaza Premium has introduced a new lounge access pass for their lounges in the Americas which includes those here in Canada. Via View from the Wing we learned this new pass can be purchased for US$59 and includes two lounge visits of three hours each in length. This is perfect for those who don't have lounge access via their credit card and also don't need Plaza Premium's global 2 lounge visit or higher pass.
This pass will provide you with access to Plaza Premium Lounges (going West to East here) in Vancouver (4 lounges), Edmonton (1 lounge), Winnipeg (1 lounge), Toronto (6 lounges) and Montreal (1 lounge). These include the new T3 lounge in YYZ, the pre-security concept lounge at YYZ and YUL's Air France Lounge.
Recommended reading: Rewards Canada's Guide to Business Class Lounge Access
Outside of Canada the pass is accepted at any Plaza Premium Lounge, Avianca Lounge, Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse operated by Plaza Premium Group and MERA Business Lounge in the United States, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, El Salvador and Colombia (excluding Argentina)
Click here to see the entire list of lounges for this pass.
The pass costs US$59 for two visits, which is $16 less than the global lounge two visit pass. However if you use promo code SPRING10 you can save an additional 10% on the pass price making it only US$53.10. That works out to US$26.55 per visit or about C$34 per visit. To book a 3 hour visit to any of these lounges on their own runs in the neighbourhood of C$60-$70 so you can see how this can be a worthwhile deal.
Even if you have a credit card with access you may want to look at this pass with the discount code for additional guest or family members as most lounge access programs charge US$32 per guest.
If you are a member of Plaza Premium's Smart Traveller program (it's free so you really should join) you will earn 150 Arrture points for each purchase of one of these passes.
The pass is valid for 12 months so do only buy it if you know you'll use up both visits in that time and it is also transferable/sharable.
Images via Plaza Premium
Here's your Rewards Canada Daily update! Your 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!
We completed an update to another one of our popular features on the Rewards Canada website. That feature is What you actually have to spend to get some of the best credit card welcome bonus offers. This piece looks at exactly that - how much you have to spend to get a bonus. With so many bonuses out in the market and many of them requiring Spend X to get Y the chart here will show which cards will take $0 in spending to get a bonus all the way up to those that require $40,000 to get the advertised welcome bonus. Click here to check out the updated feature.
A friendly reminder of Fairmont Hotels Take Your Time promotion that is currently running for stays in the Americas. The promotion provides up to a 30% discount for stays at Fairmont Hotels in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and Barbados. On top of this if you are an ALL Accor Live Limitless member you can earn triple ALL Rewards points on these stays.
Here
are Rewards Canada's Top 5 Cash Back Credit Card Sign Up offers for
the month of March 2022. This is not a 'best' credit card
list like our Top Cash Back Credit Card rankings but instead a look at cards that have very good acquisition (welcome/sign up) offers. As always when choosing a card
you should always take other factors into account other than the
just sign
up bonus, but when some of these cards are first year free, they
can and
do pay off even when you grab them strictly for the sign up rewards.
WestJet and RBC have further extended the combined offer of 450 WestJet dollars + $0 companion fare on the WestJet RBC World Elite Mastercard. The 450 bonus WestJet dollars are awarded when you spend $5,000 in the first three months and the $0 companion fare voucher is typically added a few weeks after you pay the annual fee on the card. The offer has been extended for new applications until May 2, 2022. WestJet has taken a different approach here than Aeroplan who have removed their Buddy Pass offers on their cards in keeping this $0 voucher offer going. It's a great opportunity for some big savings if you know you will booking travel for two or more people.
A friendly reminder of Accor Hotels Take Your Time promotion that is currently running for stays in the Americas. 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. On top of this if you are an ALL Accor Live Limitless member you can earn triple ALL Rewards points on these stays.
Here's your Rewards Canada Daily update! Your 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 Canada's Aeroplan has launched a new site wide bonus where Aeroplan members can earn 5x points for every $1 spent at more than 200 retailers. The 5X site wide event runs from March 7 to 13 and includes such stores lululemon Apple, Sephora, Amazon and more. Not only can you earn 5X points for all your online shopping you also have a chance to win 5,000 Aeroplan points as we have partnered with Aeroplan to celebrate this promotion with a contest!
Solo travellers rejoice! After nearly a year and half there is a bonus on the best airline card in the Canadian market and second best overall travel rewards card that doesn't involve a companion! Just like the Amex cards last week, TD's Aeroplan co-brand cards have moved to strictly a points only bonus instead of points + bonus buddy pass. Yes, there was a period where you could convert Buddy Passes to points so at that time I'm sure lots of individuals, solo, single travellers grabbed the card then but if you didn't now's the time you can do so. I really shouldn't say this new offer is just for solo travellers - this offer is just as great for couples, families or whomever, it's just that the old Buddy Pass offer was more conducive for non-solo travellers.
This is simply a quick summary post of the new TD credit card offers that were just revealed for all you night owls out there. We will follow this up with some more detailed blog posts on each offer but for those of you who can't wait until then here is what is up for grabs:
The first step in Costco Canada transitioning to CIBC from Capital One was completed on March 4. All Capital One Mastercard for Costco members were officially transferred over to the new CIBC Costco Mastercard. The new partnership between CIBC
and Costco Canada was first announced in September 2021 and for the time being the new card is not open to new applicants but it should become available later this month. Members will continue to use their Capital One issued cards until CIBC sends out new cards to them.