We review the CIBC Aventura® Visa Infinite* Card & the RBC ION and RBC ION+ Visa cards have been added to the site

Here's your Rewards Canada update! Your near daily dose of loyalty program, credit card and travel news, bonuses, deals and more.

The CIBC Aventura® Visa Infinite* Card is the next card to receive the Rewards Canada review treatment. "It has decent accelerated point earning categories for everyday spend and if you combine those strategically with the Aventura Airline Rewards Chart you can extract some good value out of this card. It also has a great airport lounge access benefit and other notable features that keep this card in the top 10% of all rewards cards in Canada" Click here to read the entire review

CIBC Aventura® Visa Infinite* Card - Earn up to 40,000 Aventura Points with first year annual fee rebate†

 
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.

CIBC Aventura Cards: 50% off points required when redeeming for any travel via Shopping with Points

 

CIBC has a new redemption promotion in place for holders of their CIBC Aventura Cards. This offer provides a 50% discount in the number of points required when you utilized their Shopping with Points redemption for any travel that you book on your Aventura card. That's right - you don't have to book travel via CIBC Rewards, you can go out to any travel provider - airline, hotel, car rental and so on book directly with them and then redeem your CIBC Rewards points against that charge.

CIBC Aventura® Visa Infinite* Card - Earn up to 40,000 Aventura Points with first year annual fee rebate†

 
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.

April 14 Update: Ritz-Carlton Reserve joins Marriott Bonvoy, a couple more confirmed Cobalt multipliers & 15% off home improvement gift cards via CIBC Rewards

Here's your Rewards Canada Daily update! Your near daily dose of loyalty program, credit card and travel news, bonuses, deals and more. Be sure to subscribe to the Rewards Canada News email newsletter so that you don't miss out on any loyalty program news and offers! You can subscribe to the newsletter here

 
Marriott's Ritz-Carlton brand has an small even more luxurious off-shoot known as Ritz-Carlton Reserve and as of today the five hotels in this collection will be participating in the Marriott Bonvoy program. Ritz-Carlton Reserve properties are not like most of your Ritz-Carlton properties, these are much smaller as they offer an average of 75 spacious, residential style suites and villas. 

CIBC Aventura Quest for Points - Earn up to 1,100 bonus points by collecting stickers, playing games and more

 

CIBC has launched a fun little promotion for their Aventura cardholders that runs until April 24. The Aventura Quest for Points has cardholders register to play and then collect stickers and bonus points each week by playing games. 

February 24 Update: CIBC Aventura offering $50 gas and grocery gift cards for 5,000 points, one new Amex Cobalt multiplier & 2,500 bonus points at Alberta Sandman Hotels

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! 

There are several good gift card redemption promotions right now from CIBC Rewards. Until May 4, 2022 you can redeem 5,000 Aventura points for a $50 Pioneer, Fas Gas, Ultramar or Chevron gift card or you can also redeem 5,000 Aventura points for $50 Save-On-Foods gift card. The Save-On offer is valid until February 1, 2023. Redeeming 5,000 points for $50 gift card works out to 1 cent per point in value and if you earned those points with an accelerate earn rate on one of the CIBC Aventura card it could translate to a 1.5% return. While the value and return is potentially lower than if you redeemed for travel via the Aventura Airline Reward Chart (where you can get up to 2.28 cents per point for up to 3.4% return) it's not a bad deal to consider for these cash equivalents. Click here to learn more about these offers

CIBC Aventura® Visa Infinite* Card - Earn up to 40,000 Aventura Points with first year annual fee rebate†

 
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.

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.

December 6 Update: Earn 500 bonus points at the new Hyatt Place Montréal / Downtown, save 25% when you use Aventura Points on select vacation packages & another Cobalt multiplier

 

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! 

Hyatt has updated their list of new hotels that you can earn the 'New Hotel Bonus Points' at and it now includes the Hyatt Place Montréal / Downtown. You can earn 500 bonus World of Hyatt points per night you stay here between December 14 and and March 30. Click here to learn more. 

New welcome offer for the CIBC Aventura® Visa Infinite* Card - Earn up to 40,000 Aventura Points with first year annual fee rebate†

 

CIBC has further increased the limited welcome bonus offer on their CIBC Aventura® Visa Infinite* Card†. The bonus gets a boost thanks to the awarding of a 5,000 points anniversary bonus. This brings the total amount of welcome bonus points that can be achieved on the card up to 40,000.

October 28 Update: New increased welcome bonus offers for CIBC cards, Qatar Airways Montreal seat sale & Flair Airlines adds Manitoba to Saskatchewan routes

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! 

CIBC revealed new offers on their Aventura and Dividend Cards today! We have them all listed on our CIBC page and will have further coverage coming shortly. Here's a quick run down of the new offers:

CIBC Aventura® Visa Infinite* Card & CIBC Aventura® Gold Visa* Card: Get a total of up to 40,000 Aventura Points (up to $850 in travel value†) including a first year annual fee rebate!†

CIBC Dividend® Visa Infinite* Card & CIBC Dividend Platinum® Visa* Card Get a first-year annual fee rebate for you and up to three Authorized Users† and 10% cash back for the first 4 statements on net purchases of up to $2500.†

CIBC Aventura® Visa* Card & CIBC Aventura® Visa* Card for Students Get up to 12,000 Aventura points when you make your first purchase (up to $120 in travel value†)

CIBC Dividend® Visa* Card: Get 5% cash back for the first 4 statements on net purchases of up to $2,000 (up to $100 cash back).†

CIBC Dividend® Visa* Card for Students: Welcome Offer: Get $60 cash back after you make your first purchase within the first 4 months!†

Save 15% when you redeem CIBC Aventura points for travel to sun destinations (and Alaska)

 

 With travel slowly making a return and more Canadians looking to get away for this winter after being at home for the better of two years it's nice to see a promotion like this come out.  Earlier in the month CIBC launched a discounted reward offer for their Aventura cardholders that sees the points requirement for travel to sun destinations (outside of lower continental U.S.) reduced by 15%.

August 25 Update: Awesome gas gift card redemption offer from CIBC, 5,000 bonus Be Well points for linking your RBC card & earn up to $350 with a new Scotiabank account

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.

 
Right now CIBC Aventura cardholders are able to redeem their points for select gas gift cards at up to 50% off (ie only 7,000 points for a $100 gift card). This puts the per point redemption rate for these cards at 1.42 cents each. That's an awesome redemption rate for gift cards as it is higher then the 1 cent per point you would get for their any travel redemption and is very competitive with the average redemption rate when using the Aventure airline rewards chart. This offer is available until September 15. Learn more here.  (Thanks to Raffaele F. who sent this offer to us via our Facebook page!) 

15 credit cards that provide $300 or more in true value from their welcome bonus offers

 
Thanks to some huge new bonus offers from American Express and Scotiabank plus some ongoing big time offers from TD, CIBC, and RBC for their airline co-brand cards we are now seeing a plethora of cards that bring big value from their welcome bonuses. If I can recall correctly in our 20 years of writing about credit cards and loyalty programs in Canada we have never seen this welcome bonus offers that are valued at $300 or more. Typically we may have 6 to 8 cards in that range but right now we have 15 cards whose true value of their welcome offers are $300 or higher.

Top 5 Small Business Credit Card Sign Up offers for March - These cards provide the best value out of their welcome bonuses

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 four 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 some the cards below namely those like Aeroplan and Marriott. 

CIBC's new welcome offers are here - Up to 35,000 points on the Aventura Cards and up to 10% cash back on the Dividend Cards

 

CIBC released new welcome bonus offers on several of their Aventura and Dividend Cards today. The base welcome bonus on the CIBC Aventura Visa Infinite and Gold cards has been bumped up to 20,000 Aventura Points. Those 20,000 points are awarded on your first purchase and then you can earn 1,250 bonus points per month in each month that you spend at least $1,000 on the card. This spend bonus equates to 15,000 points, add this to the 20,000 points and you have 35,000 points after your first year. They are also offering a rebate on the first year annual fee.  This reminds of the 35K offer on this card from February of last year albeit this one is better as you don't have to wait until your card anniversary to get the additional 15,000 points since you'll be getting them in 1,250 points increments over the year.

Top 5 Small Business Credit Card Sign Up offers for October - These cards provide the best value out of their welcome bonuses

 

Here are the Rewards Canada Top 5 Small Business Credit Card Sign Up offers for the month of October 2020!  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 four 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 some the cards below namely those like Aeroplan and Marriott. 

I should note there is one other business card to take a look at and that is the Business Platinum Card from American Express. If you know someone who can refer you to it you can get a pretty big bonus of 75,000 points when you spend $7,000 on the card. The card does have a $499 annual fee so it's minimum travel value is $251 but you can boost that by converting to Aeroplan which would give a minimum $401 value.

Here are our top 5 small business credit card sign up offers for October:

 CIBC Aerogold® Visa* Card for Business (Apply here)

 Minimum value: $420
This card offers welcome bonus of 20,000 Aeroplan miles when the first purchase is made at any time. An additional bonus of 15,000 Aeroplan Miles is awarded when you make $3,000 in net purchases during the first 4 monthly statement periods. Those 35,000 miles are worth no less than $420 as the first year annual fee on this card is also waived. That is a minimum however as more than likely those miles should be worth $1,000 or more! In fact if you take the per mile value from our post from late July 2019 this welcome bonus would be worth well over $2,000

BMO Rewards Business Mastercard (Apply here)

Minimum value: $357

This card is offering 50,000 points when you spend $5,000 on the card in the first three months. On top of that they are waiving the $120 annual fee in the first year which means you get the full value out of those 50,000 points which when redeemed via bmorewards.com for travel will net you just over $357.

Marriott Bonvoy™ Business American Express® Card  (Apply here)

Minimum value: $350

This card awards 50,000 Marriott Bonvoy points which are awarded after spending $1,500 on the card in three months. Those points are worth at least $500 in our minds which means after subtracting the annual fee you are coming out ahead by $350. In reality you can pull even more value out of the card (into four figures) as we outlined in our post A look at how The Marriott Bonvoy American Express Card provides huge value!  Don't forget you get an annual free night with the card as well on the card anniversary date! 

CIBC Aventura® Visa* Card for Business Plus (Apply here)

 Minimum value: $350
This card offers welcome bonus of 20,000 Aventura Points when the first purchase is made at any time. An additional bonus of 15,000 Aventura Points is awarded when you make $3,000 in net purchases during the first 4 monthly statement periods. Those 35,000 points are worth no less than $350 as the first year annual fee on this card is also waived. That is a minimum however as when you redeem the CIBC Aventura flight award chart you can get more value out of those points (up to $700) dependent on the price of the airline ticket you are redeeming for.

BMO^® AIR MILES^®† Business^® Mastercard^®* (Apply here)

Minimum value: $330
Like the other BMO Business card on this list, this card comes with a first year annual fee waiver which means the 3,000 AIR MILES welcome bonus comes at no extra cost. You'll receive 1,000 bonus miles on your first purchase and 2,000 more miles if you spend $5,000 on the card in the first three months of having the card. We value AIR MILES Reward Miles at no less than 11 cents each when you redeem for travel so that puts this welcome bonus value at a minimum of $330.

If you went for all these cards you ultimately could end up with over $1,700 in travel credits but even if you only take on one or two you are helping your travel budget significantly at no cost other than regular credit card spend. We don't really recommend getting all five in one month unless you know you can meet the minimum spend for them all at once, rather you'd want to pick one or two right now, perhaps another next month and so on.

American Express is not responsible for maintaining or monitoring the accuracy of information on this website. For full details and current product information click the Apply now link.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Top 5 Small Business Credit Card Sign Up offers for August - These cards provide the best value out of their welcome bonuses

Here are the Rewards Canada Top 5 Small Business Credit Card Sign Up offers for the month of August 2020!  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!

Here are our top 5 small business credit card sign up offers for August:

BMO Rewards Business Mastercard (Apply here)

Minimum value: $357

This card had its welcome bonus boosted last week to 50,000 points when you spend $5,000 on the card in the first three months. On top of that they are waiving the $120 annual fee in the first year which means you get the full value out of those 50,000 points which when redeemed via bmorewards.com for travel will net you just over $357. This is the highest welcome bonus value out of all small business cards in Canada.

Marriott Bonvoy™ Business American Express® Card  (Apply here)

Minimum value: $350

This card awards 50,000 Marriott Bonvoy points which are awarded after spending $1,500 on the card in three months. Those points are worth at least $500 in our minds which means after subtracting the annual fee you are coming out ahead by $350. In reality you can pull even more value out of the card (into four figures) as we outlined in our post A look at how The Marriott Bonvoy American Express Card provides huge value!  Don't forget you get an annual free night with the card as well on the card anniversary date! 

CIBC Aventura® Visa* Card for Business Plus (Apply here)

 Minimum value: $350
This card offers welcome bonus of 20,000 Aventura Points when the first purchase is made at any time. An additional bonus of 15,000 Aventura Points is awarded when you make $3,000 in net purchases during the first 4 monthly statement periods. Those 35,000 points are worth no less than $350 as the first year annual fee on this card is also waived. That is a minimum however as when you redeem the CIBC Aventura flight award chart you can get more value out of those points (up to $700) dependent on the price of the airline ticket you are redeeming for.

BMO^® AIR MILES^®† Business^® Mastercard^®* (Apply here)

Minimum value: $330
Like the other BMO Business card on this list, this card comes with a first year annual fee waiver which means the 3,000 AIR MILES welcome bonus comes at no extra cost. You'll receive 1,000 bonus miles on your first purchase and 2,000 more miles if you spend $5,000 on the card in the first three months of having the card. We value AIR MILES Reward Miles at no less than 11 cents each when you redeem for travel so that puts this welcome bonus value at a minimum of $330.

American Express Business Edge™ Card  (Apply here)

Minimum value: $201

The American Express Business Edge Card is the best overall Small Business card in Canada thanks to numerous factors. Its 30,000 Welcome Bonus points when you charge $5,000 in purchases to your Card in your first three months of Cardmembership is worth $201 ($300-$99 annual fee) may be less than other cards on this list but it has a stronger everyday earn rate on many purchases (Check out our American Express Business Edge Confirmed Multiplier Locations) and then you can also earn a 1,000 point bonus every month for the life of the card for each month you spend $3,000 or more on the card. This means in the first year alone you could earn up 42,000 points.

If you went for all these cards you ultimately could end up with over 1,500 in travel credits but even if you only take on one or two you are helping your travel budget significantly at no cost other than regular credit card spend. We don't really recommend getting all five in one month unless you know you can meet the minimum spend for them all at once, rather you'd want to pick one or two right now, perhaps another next month and so on.

American Express is not responsible for maintaining or monitoring the accuracy of information on this website. For full details and current product information click the Apply now link.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Top 5 Small Business Credit Card Sign Up offers for July - These cards provide the best value out of their welcome bonuses

Welcome to a new monthly feature here on the Rewards Canada blog - The Top 5 Small Business Credit Card Sign Up offers. This feature is pretty much the same as the Rewards Canada Top 5 Credit Card Sign Up offers that we been posting for travel rewards cards for the better part of four or more years! 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!


Here are our top 5 small business credit card sign up offers for July:

BMO Rewards Business Mastercard (Apply here)

Minimum value: $357

This card had its welcome bonus boosted last week to 50,000 points when you spend $5,000 on the card in the first three months. On top of that they are waiving the $120 annual fee in the first year which means you get the full value out of those 50,000 points which when redeemed via bmorewards.com for travel will net you just over $357. This is the highest welcome bonus value out of all small business cards in Canada.

Marriott Bonvoy™ Business American Express® Card  (Apply here)

Minimum value: $350

This card awards 50,000 Marriott Bonvoy points which are awarded after spending $1,500 on the card in three months. Those points are worth at least $500 in our minds which means after subtracting the annual fee you are coming out ahead by $350. In reality you can pull even more value out of the card (into four figures) as we outlined in our post A look at how The Marriott Bonvoy American Express Card provides huge value!  Don't forget you get an annual free night with the card as well on the card anniversary date! 

CIBC Aventura® Visa* Card for Business Plus (Apply here)

 Minimum value: $350
This card offers welcome bonus of 20,000 Aventura Points when the first purchase is made at any time. An additional bonus of 15,000 Aventura Points is awarded when you make $3,000 in net purchases during the first 4 monthly statement periods. Those 35,000 points are worth no less than $350 as the first year annual fee on this card is also waived. That is a minimum however as when you redeem the CIBC Aventura flight award chart you can get more value out of those points (up to $700) dependent on the price of the airline ticket you are redeeming for.

BMO^® AIR MILES^®† Business^® Mastercard^®* (Apply here)

Minimum value: $330
Like the other BMO Business card on this list, this card comes with a first year annual fee waiver which means the 3,000 AIR MILES welcome bonus comes at no extra cost. You'll receive 1,000 bonus miles on your first purchase and 2,000 more miles if you spend $5,000 on the card in the first three months of having the card. We value AIR MILES Reward Miles at no less than 11 cents each when you redeem for travel so that puts this welcome bonus value at a minimum of $330.

American Express Business Edge™ Card  (Apply here)

Minimum value: $201

The American Express Business Edge Card is the best overall Small Business card in Canada thanks to numerous factors. Its 30,000 Welcome Bonus points when you charge $5,000 in purchases to your Card in your first three months of Cardmembership is worth $201 ($300-$99 annual fee) may be less than other cards on this list but it has a stronger everyday earn rate on many purchases (Check out our American Express Business Edge Confirmed Multiplier Locations) and then you can also earn a 1,000 point bonus every month for the life of the card for each month you spend $3,000 or more on the card. This means in the first year alone you could earn up 42,000 points.

If you went for all these cards you ultimately could end up with over 1,500 in travel credits but even if you only take on one or two you are helping your travel budget significantly at no cost other than regular credit card spend. We don't really recommend getting all five in one month unless you know you can meet the minimum spend for them all at once, rather you'd want to pick one or two right now, perhaps another next month and so on.

American Express is not responsible for maintaining or monitoring the accuracy of information on this website. For full details and current product information click the Apply now link.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay