American Express' big summer campaign came to a close earlier this week and the fall acquisition offers are now available. The fall campaign has a mix of standard welcome bonus offers and some elevated offers though not as high as what we saw over the summer. With that being said, all of the current welcome bonuses are still some of the more valuable offers in the market.
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If you have an RBC bank account that qualifies for Avion Premium and gets the 100 points to $1 redemption rate and you add in an ION card, what redemption rate for travel do you get? The 100 to $1 or the 172 to $1?
After the big summer bonuses ended earlier this week American Express has shifted gears with their next acquisition campaign and are looking to existing cardmembers to do some pumping for them. You may ask how are the planning to do that? Simple reward the existing cardmembers with more points. American Express is offering existing Cardmembers Double Points for each approved referral between September 21st and October 26th, 2022
RBC Royal Bank launched two new credit cards this past week, the RBC ION Visa and RBC ION+ Visa cards. These two cards will replace the Rewards+ and Signature Visa cards and feature changes to earn rates, redemption rates and benefits. The naming of these cards falls inline with RBC's move of rebranding their RBC Rewards program to Avion Rewards.
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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
The best ever bonus of up to 55,000 Avion Rewards points for the RBC Avion Visa Infinite card has been extended to October 31st! The bonus is one of the easiest to achieve in the market right now. With many other issuers keeping increased offers on their cards it only makes sense for RBC to continue to do so with their Avion products as well.
Here's your Rewards Canada update! Your near daily dose of loyalty program, credit card and travel news, bonuses, deals and more.
Air Canada sent an email out yesterday to elite members offering double Priority Rewards for the second half of 2022:
Finally, recognizing that most have already requalified for Status, we’re launching a special offer to reward Elite members for their travels through the end of this year. We’ll double every Priority Reward you earn between July 1st and December 31st, 20222. As a reminder, Priority Rewards give you 50% off every eligible Aeroplan flight reward on Air Canada and any of our airline partners
Here's your Rewards Canada update! Your near daily dose of
loyalty program, credit card and travel news, bonuses, deals and more.
Cathay Pacific has brought back a bonus for converting credit card points to their Asia Miles. The bonus is 10% if you convert to a total of less than 30,000 miles. If you convert for 30,000 or miles you'll receive a 15% bonus. For those of us in Canada you can receive this bonus on transfers from American Express Membership Rewards, HSBC Rewards and RBC Avion Rewards. The promotion runs until November 12 and requires registration. Click here for more details & to register for this offer.
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.
Over the past few years we've seen partnerships emerge between banks and popular Canadian retailers or loyalty programs One such partnership is from CIBC and JOURNIE Rewards. CIBC has teamed up with this popular gas loyalty program to offer extra benefits to those who connect their CIBC debit card and eligible CIBC credit card with the JOURNIE Rewards loyalty program to save up to 10 cents per litre at participating stations.
Here's your Rewards Canada update! Your near daily dose of loyalty program, credit card and travel news, bonuses, deals and more.
You'll want to check your email or your American Express account to see if you have been selected for a limited time increased Use Points for Purchases redemption rate. Depending on which card you have you might get a 20% or 50% increase in value. For example targeted Platinum Cardmembers are getting an offer for $15 per 1,000 points redeemed and Cobalt Cardmembers are receiving $12 for 1,000 points. Both cards standard Use Points for Purchases redemption rate is 1,000 points for a $10 credit. If you are targeted for this offer you'll want to seriously consider redeeming right now if you happen to be someone who doesn't convert points to Amex's travel partners nor use Amex's Fixed Points for Travel option where you can extract more value than the 1.2 or 1.5 cents per point with this promotion. (BTW I was not targeted on any of my cards and found this offer posted on Reddit)
The best ever bonus seen on the RBC Avion Visa Infinite card is set to end in only one week. Available until September 16, the bonus of up to 55,000 RBC Rewards points is one of the easiest to achieve in the market right now. There is the possibility RBC may extend the offer but typically they would have advised us by now (although that hasn't always been the case) and the likelihood of an even better offer coming to the card is slim to none. Thus if you have been considering this card you may want to apply for it in the next seven days.
Here's your Rewards Canada update! Your near daily dose of loyalty program, credit card and travel news, bonuses, deals and more.
A few weeks ago we let you know that Merdian Credit Union stopped accepting applications for their cards. The credit union stated they were going to change providers and update their cards for the fall. Meridian has new revealed some of the details of their new cards which should be available in October. The biggest change is that they will now be issuing the cards themselves rather than with Collabria (as many credit unions do).
It also looks like they are taking page from some other banks' playbooks with their marketing/rewards tactics as they state "There will be a small change in the points earn rate structure, with no real impact for the Meridian Visa Cash Back Card and the Meridian Visa Infinite* Travel Rewards Card." and yet there is an impact. Here are the earn rates for the two cards they have revealed the details for:
Here are Rewards Canada's Top Travel Credit Card Sign Up offers for the month of September 2022! This is not a 'best' credit card list like our Top Travel Rewards 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.
Here's your Rewards Canada update! Your near daily dose of
loyalty program, credit card and travel news, bonuses, deals and more.
We completed another Ultimate Portfolio update and this is one timely with everyone going back to University and College for it is The Ultimate Student Credit Card portfolio! This wallet is for those Canadian students looking to get into the credit card game and have a card or cards that can help this cash strapped segment of the market! This update wasn't as substantial as some of the last few Ultimate portfolios as the three cards we've had in the portfolio since 2017 remain the same. A couple of them happen to have new bonus offers and upcoming earn rate changes that we have made note of. Check out the updated portfolio here!
TD has released their fall offers for their Aeroplan co-brand cards. For the most part these are the same offers we have seen in place for the majority of 2022. The only change is an increase in the spend and time requirement on the TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite Privilege Visa card. The other two cards, the Visa Infinite and Visa Platinum cards continue on with their exact same offers.
One of the first travel rewards cards to offer any flight any time potential, the RBC Avion Visa Infinite Card has been a mainstay in the travel credit card market for well over a decade. The card, which we first reviewed in 2011 is by far one of the most popular in Canada. Over the years we had some band-aid updates to that review so we thought it's time to do a complete refresh for 2022!
Just as Scene+ is expanding its presence in Canada with the addition of grocery partners we see the original Scotia SCENE+ Visa Card get a limited time increased welcome bonus! The no annual fee card sees its offer for new customers jump from 5,000 to 7,500 Scene+ Points.
We continue our monthly feature where we recommend a card to consider applying for right away during the course of the current month. How do we pick which card should be highlighted? We'll look at numerous factors however in most cases it will primarily be due to the limited time offer on the highlighted card ending this month or shortly thereafter. In some cases, it may be different factors or a combination of factors. This month it's the former however, where it is simply an offer that is set to end shortly after the end of this month.