Earn up to 4,000 bonus points for your Marriott stays this fall and one new American Express Cobalt Card confirmed 5x points location

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

Marriott’s Fall systemwide promotion is now live. The promotion offers 2,000 bonus points per stay starting with your second stay. This offer can be earned at all participating Marriott hotels in Canada and worldwide for stays until December 15, 2022. Registration for the offer closes on December 1. Click here to register for and to book this offer. (Registration is required)

RBC provides clarification on Avion Rewards via bank accounts/ION Cards, Brim drops their World Mastercard & a new way to access the Priority Security Lane at Toronto Pearson Airport

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

We have received a reply from RBC on how their Avion Rewards redemptions are handled when you have bank account and an ION card (but not an Avion credit card) Here is the question we asked in our RBC Rewards has now officially become Avion Rewards post:

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? 

New Amex Offers for Lenovo and Parachute plus PC Optimum Points Days return this week

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

Two new Amex Offers were revealed today from Lenovo and Parachute. for For a once I actually didn't receive these on my Platinum Card rather this time I received them on my Cobalt Card. The offers are as follows:

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

Air North introduces new Aurora Flight Pass and earn 3x points for dining at Hyatt Hotels with no stay required

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

If you are planning on travel to or from the Yukon check out Air North's Aurora Flight Passes. These passes include four one-way flight segments for as little as $1027 all in for use between Whitehorse and Vancouver (in either direction) and can be used by two people. Essentially one pass will net you a round trip flight for two or two round trips for a single traveler. You can also use the passes for other cities Air North flies to but you have to pay an extra fee of $61.25 (tax incl) per segment. These passes are on sale until October 4 however if you buy passes by September 20 you'll earn a bonus segment for free. Click here to learn more about these passes.

Air Canada Elites will receive double Priority Rewards for the remainder of the year & a new targeted American Express Use Points for Purchases offer

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

Receive up to a 15% bonus when you convert credit card points to Cathay Pacific Asia Miles & save 20% at 94 Marriott Hotels in Canada

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.

Marriott's Week of Wonders set to return this October & earn 20x PC Optimum points at Shoppers Drug Mart

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

Marriott Bonvoy's Week of Wonders will return in three weeks. This annual week long event feature discounted stay, bonus point offers. For example, in 2021 there was a 55% bonus for buying points, 33% discount on award nights, $300 credits on luxury stays and more. Click here to learn more. (You can check out last year's offers here)

Three new Amex Offers from ebay, Estee Lauder & Mr. Mikes plus a new 60% bonus for buying Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles

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

 

A trio of new Amex Offers came out today. There are offers for ebay, Estee Lauder and Mr. Mikes. These were all received on my Platinum Card:

Limited time targeted increased Amex Use Points for Purchases redemption rate and Visa Infinite cardholders benefits & perks at TIFF

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)

Details of the changes to Meridian credit cards and earn 2x status miles when you fly on Royal Air Maroc out of Montreal

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:

The Ultimate Student Credit Card portfolio, a new Amex Offer for Travelpro & select Air Canada elites receive access to Virgin Australia lounges

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!

Credit cards that help you avoid those dreaded airline fees & Rewards Canada's Guide to Business Class Lounge Access both see updates

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

We've updated the popular feature Credit cards that help you avoid those dreaded airline fees to reflect the changes to the National Bank of Canada World Elite Mastercard that kicked in last week. The card's travel reimbursement benefits is now $150 instead of $250 however you don't have the category limitations in place anymore that made it tough for some cardholders to use up the entire $250. Check out the feature here.

One additional Marriott Hotel to open in the Montreal area and Canada's second Radisson Blu Hotel to open in Vancouver

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

There is one more new Marriott Hotel set to open this year now. The Residence Inn Laval has popped up on Marriott's website and right now they are stating an opening date of December 2022. If you recall from our post on New Marriott Hotel Openings in Canada for 2022 the year started off with just 6 new hotels planned for this year. This is now the ninth hotel on the list however it does not appear that the Moxy Banff or Moxy Halifax will make their opening this year now so we may me end up with seven new hotels for this year. This new hotel in Laval is situated right near the Cosmodome museum and was formerly a Quality Suites Hotel. Click here to learn more about this new hotel.

Book your travel with Rewards Canada, two new Amex Offers and the 30,000 mile flight reward offers to Europe extended to August

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

We are often asked by our readers how they can support Rewards Canada as a thank you for the website and services we provide as they are totally free to use. We charge no subscription fees for any and all information and no consulting fees when helping our readers! One way to support is by booking travel and completing actions via our partners and we have a lot of them! Today we completed an update to our 'Book Travel / Support' page to our new site format so it will be easier to view across all screens. All of the links take you straight the provider which means you'll earn your points, miles, elite status benefits since you would be booking direct with them! Click here to check it out

New Amex Offer for Effy Desk, save 20% at 92 Marriott Hotels in Canada & Hotels dot com also offering a 20% off sale

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

One new Amex Offers offer came out today I received this one on the Platinum Card and it is for Effy Desk:

Spend at least $700 in qualifying purchases using your registered Card at www.effydesk.ca/ by 30/10/2022 and earn a one-time $150 statement credit. Terms apply.

We review the BMO Ascend World Elite Mastercard and earn 20x PC Optimum points on beauty products at Shoppers Drug Mart

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

We have updated our review of the BMO Ascend^TM World Elite®* Mastercard®* formerly known as the BMO Rewards World Elite Mastercard. The card and the rewards program have undergone a slew of changes over the years so this review catches up on all that has happened from the name change, to earn rates, redemption and more. Click here to see what we think of BMO's flagship travel rewards card

Canada Jetlines will launch with Toronto to Calgary flights instead of Moncton & Winnipeg and British Airways adding Vancouver to London Gatwick flights (with lots of award availability!)

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

This is getting a little confusing. Canada Jetlines was to launch flights from Toronto to Moncton and Winnipeg earlier this month. That was pushed back to next week due to a delay in the airline receiving their license to operate. But now with today's press release from the airline, they will officially launch on September 22 with flights between Toronto and Calgary. Moncton and Winnipeg are totally gone - you can't even book these anymore. They make no mention of Moncton and Winnipeg being dropped, so I wonder about those people who booked travel on these flights if Jetlines is protecting them on other airlines or just providing refunds. I'll be honest, all these changes over the course of this past month and dropping routes before they are even started doesn't bode well for this start up. I wish them the best and hope they can get their act together here as they'll need it to gain the confidence of Canadian travellers. (Source Canada Jetlines)

2x points for VIA Rail economy class travel, today only earn 37,500 bonus Be Well points & save 20% on Air Canada flights to/from Alberta and B.C.

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

VIA Rail is offering double Preference points for all trips booked in Economy Class. This is valid for bookings made between August 25 and September 15 for travel between September 5 and October 30, 22. Click here for more details & to register for the offer (Registration is required)

Starbucks Rewards Double Star Days now require activation & save 20% on WestJet flights to/from Alberta and B.C.

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

If you are a Starbucks Rewards member they have made a slight change to their Double Stars Day. Previously members would earn double stars for simply making purchases on a Double Stars Day however now they require members to activate the offer beforehand. This is basically the same process we see with so many loyalty promotions in that you have to register for them beforehand. Loyalty programs put these registrations in place as it saves them from awarding extra points (and thus extra costs) to any members who don't activate or register don't earn the bonus.