Earning Stories: Completing a quintuple dip for purchasing gas at Shell

You'll often hear points and miles enthusiasts and those that write about the industry make reference to dipping. That is double dip, triple dip and so on. What this refers to is earning multiple points, miles or other incentives for a single purchase or action. For most transactions the double dip is most common. It is your base earn in the loyalty program (the first dip), and then earning on your credit card for that purchase (the second dip). However, add in any bonuses or other promotions and that can grow to a triple or quadruple dip or even higher. Recently a combination of standard offers and limited time promotions allowed me to complete a quintuple dip when fueling up for gas at Shell!

Achieving the quintuple dip

How did I achieve a quintuple dip? Well it took three standard offers and two limited time promotions to do so. The standard offers were the base AIR MILES earn, the base credit card earn and the discount that Shell offers to CAA members. Then, to round out the big time dip there was a bonus miles offer from Shell and an Amex Offers promotion to receive statement credits for making purchases at Shell.

Dip 1: Base AIR MILES Earn

The base earn rate for Bronze fuel at Shell is one AIR MILES Reward Miles for every 20L purchased. Seeing that I purchased right around $60 worth of gas that amounted to just over 30 litres for one base mile earned.

Dip 2: Bonus AIR MILES Earn

AIR MILES sends out monthly emails to earn bonus miles at Shell for that month and you have to click the link to opt-in. I always opt-in even though I'm not really a Shell guy but I always opt-in just in case I do stop at Shell for gas. I'm glad I did opt-in as it allowed me to earn 50 bonus AIR MILES on this purchase. (This 50 was part of total 75 bonus mile offer in place, the first 25 were earned the week before)

The base earn rate plus the monthly bonus

 

Dip 3: CAA Discount

The third dip is not points earning but rather a discount for bringing in yet another program. If you are a CAA member you can enjoy 3 cents off per litre at participating Shell stations. I have my CAA membership # set up in the Shell App so the discount is automatically applied by utilizing Shell EasyPay.

Image courtesy of the CAA

Dip 4: Points earned on the Platinum Card

My four visits to Shell during the month of June were all paid for with my Platinum Card from American Express. These visits earned the base 1 point per dollar spent that the card offers. Normally I pay for gas with my American Express Cobalt Card or American Express Gold Rewards Card since both of them offer 2 points per dollar on gas but for those four ~$60 purchases it was worth it to forego the 240 or so extra points I would have earned for the $20 in savings provided by the 5th dip!

Dip 5: Statement credits earned on the Platinum Card 

Up until June 30 there was an Amex Offers promotion where you could earn a $5 statement credit on a $60 purchase from Shell and you could earn it up to 4 times. I only received it on my Platinum Card so as you have already learned, that is why I used it for these purchases.

To ensure I maximized this offer from American Express and Shell I actually made sure to only buy around $60 of gas each time so that I could make it to Shell more often. My SUV has a 100L tank so I purchased less than half a tank on June 10 and about the same on June 11 so that I could earn the credit twice instead of only once had I filled the tank completely on the 10th:

And that is how I achieved a quintuple at Shell for the June 10 purchases. The other three purchases were all quadruple dips since they didn't earn any bonus AIR MILES Reward Miles.

The value of the Quintuple Dip in numbers:

• Dip 1 - $0.105
• Dip 2 - $5.25
• Dip 3 - $1.00
• Dip 4 - $0.60
• Dip 5 - $5.00

The total value is nearly $12 on a $60 purchase. Not bad at all! And that's taking into account the minimum value for American Express Membership Rewards points of 1 cent per point. In all honesty I will most likely redeem them for 4 to 6 cents a piece (or more) which would put my total return around $15. 

Wrapping it up

One of the reasons behind American Express having Amex Offers is to encourage cardmembers to use their cards at places they may not regularly shop at. And it works. I'm normally a Petro-Canada person out of convenience plus I do like the value I get out of Petro-Points when redeeming for car wash cards. However for most of June I switched to Shell to earn those $5 statement credits and everything else earned was icing on the cake. Now I didn't go out of my way to go to find a Shell but strategically stopped at their stations when I could. For July, it will be back to Petro-Canada and what perfect timing as they are offering triple Petro-Points for fuel purchases this month!

Earning Stories: An elite status boost and nearly 20,000 bonus points thanks to Aeroplan's credit card promos

Welcome to the latest edition of Earning Stories where we showcase real life achievements of promotions and offers that we publish here on Rewards Canada. In this edition long time Rewards Canada reader and contributor Dee shared with us his recent account updates from Aeroplan showing the fulfillment of a trio of awesome promotions that tied into his TD^® Aeroplan^® Visa Infinite Privilege* Card

Earning Stories: As hard as I try, I can't get rid of my Best Western Rewards points balance!

 
Best Western Hotels are a brand of hotels we here in the Rewards Canada family don't visit very often. Typically we only stay at one here in Alberta but also ventured to one in San Francisco many years ago and it was that latter expensive stay that helped us build up a decent amount of points in our Best Western Rewards account. The problem with that was that we were sitting a nice amount of points and not many places to really use them since we don't stay with them often. There was always the option of converting to Aeroplan points or some other airline but seeing that Best Western points don't expire it was best to leave them be until the time was required to redeem for a stay or convert to an airline. So I did just that, redeemed some points for a couple of free nights several years ago (read about that here) in Stony Plain Alberta as that seems to be the only BW we stay at. Even after that redemption I still had over 26,000 points in my account so when plans had us going up to Stony this August it was ripe for us to use some more points and bring that balance down. However best I tried that just didn't happen! Read on to find out why!

Earning Stories: 3,000 Aeroplan Miles earned on an Avis rental in Palm Springs

Welcome to the another post in the Earning Stories series right here on Rewards Canada. For years we have provided you with the details on earning points and miles (both regular earning and bonus opportunities) and these stories show the actual offers in action.

This earning story is for a rental we completed in Palm Spring back at the end of March. We rented a SUV for 5 days to get us around the Palm Springs area. I booked it using this promotion we had listed on Rewards Canada's Aeroplan Bonus Miles page:

1,500 Bonus Aeroplan Miles on qualifying Avis rentals Worldwide of 3 days or more during the week, or 2 days or more during the weekend. Book online at Avis.com with AWD # C682300.

Plus there was an additional exclusive offer that came in my email for another 1,000 miles:

The booking was simple via Avis.com and when we arrived the line ups for the car rental counters were insane at PSP but thanks to being Avis Preferred (free to join!) that line only has one person init!. We were provided with a really nice Nissan Armada Platinum, an upgrade from what we had originally booked. The rental cost us about US$295 which was a steal for the vehicle we got!

At the outset of the rental we ended up earning the 500 base Aeroplan Miles plus the 1,500 bonus miles from the offer plus the 1,000 miles from the exclusive targeted offer for 3,000 miles total.

Here is a screen shot of the miles that posted:

Overall I think this was yet another good earning action for an inexpensive rental and it's always nice to boost an account with these bonuses. This is another example of how we always stress our readers to check the Rewards Canada bonus offers section before you make any booking. If you are planning on traveling and need to book flights, hotels, car rentals you should always check first to see if you can earn more miles or points for that booking!

Tips for Car Rentals
- Watch the rates that include bonus miles - For us it is about 50/50 in terms of earning bonuses on rentals, many times rates are out there that are quite a bit cheaper and provide more value versus paying more and earning more miles. For a complete list of car rental bonus offers see this page on the main Rewards Canada site.
- Read the fine print - When a bonus offer is available be sure that your rental meets the criteria. Those are primarily minimum number of rental days and vehicle type. There are many promotions that don't get awarded on the smallest/cheapest vehicles.
- Join the Car Rental company's program - Hertz Gold Plus Rewards, National Emerald Club and others all provide great benefits such as dedicated check in counters, bypass check in counters and more.

You can find more Earning Stories listed here!

Earning Stories: Making the most of IHG Rewards Club's bonus point promotions - 172,000+ points earned in 3 months

Rewards Canada contributor Bill Wheatley provides details on how he completed the last IHG systemwide promotion Free Nights Faster. This is a great example of how bonus points offers an be really lucrative, especially if you are a road warrior across the Canadian prairies like Bill is! Now you can use this example to gear up this summer's Accelerate promotion, that is if you are targetted for it!
 
Well, another successful IHG Accelerate promotion concluded on April 30th, 2019. You may remember from a previous post my offer was quite lucrative this time round, a total of 134,400 points were available.

I am happy to report that I was able to achieve all requirements and did in fact receive all offered bonus points. My requirements are listed below.

These obligations were completed with only 8 stays (12 nights). My total points earned during this period were 172,442.

In order to help understand the value of these promotions, I will break it down into cost per points. As IHG allocates points based on USD spent, I will use USD values.

My total spend was USD $1,287.03 (CAD $1,914.72). The points earned without bonus was 38,042. This equates to 19.86 points per penny.  The value of the bonus points of 134,400 is 104.42 points per penny. The combined total is 133.98 points per penny spent. That is a huge valuation for any rewards program to be earning at a cost per point ratio of this magnitude.

One interesting thing to note is that this promotion required staying at 4 different brands in order to accomplish one of the tasks. Towards that end I stayed at both a Candlewood Suites and a Staybridge Suites brand. While both hotels are very good and quite comfortable, from a points earning point of view, they are not as lucrative.  While most Holiday Inn branded properties offer 10 points per USD spend, both Candlewood and Staybridge only offer 5 points per USD spend. Something to consider when booking your stays….

Editor's addition:
And now Bill is onto the latest IHG Rewards Club Promotion which is the return of Accelerate for 2019, here is what he received:

And here is what Jeff W, another Rewards Canada contributor received:

And here is what I got:

Yes, a big fat zero for me despite having my first IHG stay in nearly two years during the last promotional period. IHG has decided that I would not get in on Accelerate, guess I'm not loyal enough. I even called IHG to see if this was a glitch and it was not. This of course happened when I just completed another IHG stay this past weekend. Seeing the above offers and/or the lack of one, it really looks like IHG is tightening the purse strings with this version of Accelerate!

Here is the latest promotion detail:
Earn 500 to 40,000 or more Bonus IHG Rewards Club Points when you complete stays at IHG Hotels Worldwide. Bonus varies by member. Full details, online registration and booking (Registration is required)  Register by Jun 19 for stays May 1 – Aug 31, 19

Earning Stories: IHG Rewards Club - 115,634 Points by utilizing IHG's Accelerate and other bonus offers

Welcome to the another post in the Earning Stories series right here on Rewards Canada. Rewards Canada contributor Bill Wheatley shares his earning story of how he made the most of IHG Rewards Club's Accelerate promotion. This is IHG's quarterly bonus offer that is customized to each member with various tasks to achieve to earn bonus points. Bill's story takes us through the Winter version that ended on April 30th but don't worry as the next version of Accelerate launched on May 1st and you can make sure you try to maximize your earn like Bill did. 

I have been an IHG Rewards Club member for 20+ years. During this time, I have always utilized the various bonus opportunities that have been offered by IHG.  This has allowed me to achieve various levels of status with IHG. I was Platinum Elite for 2017 (after several years of Gold Elite). However, I was able to achieve Spire Elite status for 2018, the top tier offered by IHG. This requires 75 nights or 75,000 points. While my nights were less than 75, I was able to achieve this based on points.

To do this, there needs to be a clear understanding of which points are qualifying points and which are not. Any points earned through any of the promotions run throughout the year are not qualifying points.  This includes the Accelerate program, location coupons (such as the Recharge “Your Spirit in the West” 1,000 bonus point promotion), and elite status bonus points.

Qualifying points include all purchased stays, in-hotel purchases if charged to room and any purchase of nightly bonus points. As these are purchased (typically 1,000 points per night or 5,000 points per stay), they are applied as qualifying points for Elite status.  (These are IHG's Bonus Point packages - click here for details on those)

For this winter's Accelerate Bonus, I was able to achieve all but one of the goals (this being the stay 4 nights or more option). It is important to weigh out the values of each option based upon the likelihood of your ability to accomplish that particular goal and the value of the bonus points offered.

Based upon your travel plans, some of the goals may be difficult to meet. Staying at 6 different Holiday Inn Express locations can be a challenge unless you are in a major urban area. (Make sure you read the offer carefully. Staying at a Holiday Inn instead of a Holiday Inn Express won’t count towards your goal). Likewise staying 14 nights can be challenging depending again on your travel needs as well as the length of the promotion. The winter promotion was 4 months long (and required 13 nights) whereas the Spring 2018 promotion is only 3 months and requires 14 nights (based on my personal Accelerate offer). Of course, each offer is unique to each individual and will vary accordingly. I was able to achieve the requirements for the winter promotion, but don’t think I will meet the Spring promotion requirements based on my current travel schedule.

Of course, there are some very easy goals to meet. Just registering for the Accelerate Bonus will usually garner you 500 points. Usually there is a “Stay once” in addition to a “Stay in a particular month” option, both of which typically add 2,000 points each. The advantage is that both of these goals can be achieved with one stay. There is also a “Points & Cash” option which will award around 2,400 points if utilized. (Remember, you are using more points to complete this task than you will receive in return, so I would only recommend it if you are sure you can complete the requirements to obtain the bonus points for completing approximately 90% of the tasks). This option is usually in USD, so be mindful of the exchange rate too. The last option is to “Earn when you redeem”, typically this will gain you 1,000 points.  Again, what you are redeeming may outweigh the return, so keep this in mind.

This Winter’s Accelerate offer was well-suited to my travel needs. It is not often that that the offer fits in so neatly with your travel plans.  Below is a summary of my points earning for the January – April 2018 period.

Summary:
Qualifying Base Stay            15,417
Elite Bonus Points (Spire)        15,417
Bonus Point Package            12,000
Welcome Bonus (not gift basket)     5,500
Hotel Promotion Bonus (certificate)      7,000
Points & Cash                  5,000
Accelerate Bonus Points            55,300
TOTAL                            115,634

As you can see, I was able to generate a lot of bonus points utilizing various offers and the Accelerate Program. However, of the 115,634 points earned, only 27,417 of these points (in bold above) met the requirements for qualifying points. But, even though not all of these were not qualifying points, I still earned enough points in 4 months to be able to redeem for 4-5 nights depending on the specific hotel redemption rate.

As a frequent traveller, I try to target my participation in various programs to a select few so that I don’t end up with a few points in a lot of programs (more commonly referred to as “orphan points”).

Related: To diversify or not to diversify - that is the question
 
However, I do belong to over a dozen points programs as you never know where you may end up and the brand of hotel/car rental etc.  that may be available to you. To that point, I recommend that you sign up for any program that you think may be of personal benefit. In addition, always accept any special promotions that are available to you even though you may not think it may not apply.  There have been various occasions where my plans have changed, and I was able to take advantage of a promotion I didn’t think I was going to need.

Related: Reminder: Always register for promotions as soon as you learn about them


You don’t have to be a frequent traveller to take advantage of this program. Below are the various tiers available and the qualifications needed. As the points do not expire, you can accumulate as long as you want.

In summary, the IHG Accelerate program has been very beneficial to me over the years; I have been able to obtain many tens of thousands of points which I have utilized on many occasions.  Even with the redemptions I have used, I still have close to 400,000 points in my account.  This program is very worthwhile and I highly recommend it to anyone who travels.

If you haven't done so yet, you should make sure you register for the current version of the Accelerate offer:

IHG Rewards Club Accelerate: Earn 500 to 30,000 or more Bonus IHG Rewards Club Points when you complete stays at IHG Hotels Worldwide. Bonus varies by member  Full details, online registration and booking (Registration is required) May 1 - Jul 31, 18.

Already registered? Simply book your stay at IHG.com to earn your bonus points!

You can find this and many more IHG Rewards Club bonus point opportunities here!

Earning Stories: WestJet Rewards - 55 WestJet dollars earned on one flight with the More Canada More Rewards offer

As you are likely aware, back at the start of May WestJet released a promotion for the remainder of the year for flying to provinces outside your home province. The more provinces you visit the more bonus dollars you receive. If you fly to 10 province/territories you'll earn 1,000 dollars in total bonuses! As we mentioned when the promotion launched we were particularly excited about it as we worked with WestJet Rewards to develop the promotion!

One question that came up about the promotion was whether bookings made prior to May 1st would count as the terms and conditions do state new bookings only. Well we already had some bookings made prior to that date and are happy to announce they counted! On a quick round trip between Calgary and Abbotsford the first two steps of the bonus posted for me even though the flights were booked way back in January:

From above you'll see that I earned my base WestJet dollars of 30 dollars for the round trip (that's at the 5% earn rate for having WestJet Gold Status) and I received the 10 bonus for visiting one province and the 15 bonus for returning home. Super easy way to earn 25 more WestJet dollars on flights I had already booked. All told with the bonus and elite earn on the flights my return was 9%. Not bad at all.

Bottom line, if you have not registered for this promotion do so now. Perhaps you haven't as you have one flight planned and that was booked before May 2nd. Well the good news is you'll earn the bonus so go register!

Have your earning story featured!
Not only are Rewards Canada Earning Stories featured in this series, we want to feature your stories as well! Have you earned a lot of points or miles by utilizing offers posted on Rewards Canada? We would love to hear about them and potentially feature them here on Rewards Canada. Tell us your earning story by emailing us the details of what you earned, screenshots if possible of those points/miles posting and what offer on Rewards Canada you took advantage of. Email it to us info@rewardscanada.ca

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WestJet RBC World Elite Mastercard
$250 WestJet dollars Bonus + Annual $99/$299/$399 Companion Flight when you sign up for and receive the WestJet RBC World Elite Mastercard.
- Earn 1.5% back in WestJet dollars on every purchase you make with your card
- Earn 2% back in WestJet dollars when you purchase WestJet flights or WestJet Vacations packages with your card
- Companion flight vouchers are an annual benefit.
- First bag free for the primary cardholder up to 8 people traveling on the same reservation to anywhere WestJet flies!

Earning Stories: Marriott Rewards - 54,138 points for a two room stay

Welcome to the next post in the Earning Stories series right here on Rewards Canada. For years we have provided you with the details on earning points and miles (both regular earning and bonus opportunities) and these stories show the actual offers in action.

Another family vacation earning story! A trip to Southern California that was tied into the Spring Marriott Rewards MegaBonus offer.

The stay was at the Newport Beach Marriott Hotel and Spa and we booked two adjoining rooms for the family. It was booked to take advantage of having Platinum status and of course the spring version of the Marriott MegaBonus:

Just like SPG's Take Two promotion, this offer provided Double Marriott Rewards points on all stays Worldwide. The double points posted quickly along with the Platinum Elite bonus.

Screen shot of the Starpoints that posted with this stay:

and of course since it was paid for with the Marriott Rewards Premier Visa we did not pay a foreign transaction fee and earn 5x Marriott Rewards points for the stay meaning an additional 9,217 points:

This Marroitt offer actually ended back in April but is a good example of taking advantage of each of Marriott's systemwide promotions. However now Marriott have launched their next promotion "MegaBonus Infinite Points" which is live right now and you can take advantage of it for stays over this entire summer:

Earn up to 4,000 Bonus Rewards Points per stay at participating Marriott Hotels & Resorts Worldwide. Earn 2,000 bonus points on each stay starting with your 2nd stay and earn 2,000 bonus points for each brand of Marriott hotel you stay at starting with your 2nd brand. Full details, online registration and booking (Registration is required) Register & book by Aug 30 for stays May 27 - Sep 4, 2017

At the outset of the stay we ended up earning the 21,655 base Starpoints plus 31,483 points from the  bonus offer and the elite status bonus. 54,000+ Marriott Rewards points is a decent amount of points that we value at over C$550.

Did you take advantage of Marriott's Spring MegaBonus or are you looking to push the limits with the current MegaBonus Infinite Points offer? We'd love to hear how you have maximized these offers! Leave us a comment below or submit your own earning story to be featured here on Rewards Canada.

Tips for Hotel Stays
- Watch the rates that include bonus miles/points - If there is a bonus most of my stays do earn those extra points but a lot of hotel offers for bonus points also come with higher rates so be sure to check other rates like AAA, Senior Rates, etc. as those could be a better deal than the paying for the extra points. Systemwide bonuses like those provided in this post are typically not associated with higher rates. For a complete list of hotel bonus offers see this page on the main Rewards Canada site.
- Read the fine print - When a bonus offer is available be sure that your stay meets the criteria. Those criteria can include certain rates, select days of the week or multiple night stays.
- If you are staying at a hotel/hotel chain that isn't your primary program chain you may be better off posting that stay to a preferred airline rather than earning the hotel points. You'll still have to join that hotel chains program but set your earning preference to your preferred airline.

Have your earning story featured!
Not only are Rewards Canada Earning Stories featured in this series, we want to feature your stories as well! Have you earned a lot of points or miles by utilizing offers posted on Rewards Canada? We would love to hear about them and potentially feature them here on Rewards Canada. Tell us your earning story by emailing us the details of what you earned, screenshots if possible of those points/miles posting and what offer on Rewards Canada you took advantage of. Email it to us info@rewardscanada.ca

Earning Stories: Starwood Preferred Guest - 45,946 Starpoints for one stay by utilizing several promotions

Welcome to the next post in the Earning Stories series right here on Rewards Canada. For years we have provided you with the details on earning points and miles (both regular earning and bonus opportunities) and these stories show the actual offers in action.

This story revolves around a family vacation to Maui back in February where we had more than just our gang of four travelling so we actually booked a two bedroom suite for the Family Day break. Needless to say since we weren't able to take advantage of our usual booking source for up to 50% off (Maui Hawaii Vacations) we ended up paying a decent amount but as you'll see what we got in return helped subsidize the cost somewhat.

The stay was at the Westin Ka'anapali Ocean Resort Villas and was booked with the idea of taking advantage of several promotions that Starwood was or is offering to offset the higher cost of the rooms then we normally would pay.

The first is an offer they run almost every year and that provides up to 35% off, double Starpoints and 5th night free offer for stay at their hotels in Hawaii and French Polynesia:

Double Starpoints, Up to 35% Off and 5th night free for stays in Hawaii, Tahiti or Bora Bora. Full Details & Online Booking Until Dec 31, 17

When booked there were of course no other promotions available but I had a good feeling the next systemwide bonus would be available soon and it was. The promotion was SPG's Double Take:

This offer provided Double Starpoints on all stays Worldwide. I wasn't 100% sure if we would get double Starpoints from both offers but as I always state you should register for every offer out there even if you may not use it or it may not work for you but just do it just in case. Well seeing that Double Take was provided by SPG and not the hotel (or hotel region like the Hawaii offer) all bonuses posted. Not to mention the elite bonus for being Gold and taking the points as the Gold amenity:

Screen shot of the Starpoints that posted with this stay:

This main SPG offer actually ended back in April but is a good example of taking advantage of each of Starwood's systemwide promotions. However now SPG have launched their next promotion "Take Three' which is live right now and you can take advantage of it for stays over this entire summer:

Earn up to Triple Starpoints for stays of 2 or more consecutive nights at participating Starwood Hotels Worldwide. Weekday stays (Mon-Thu) earn double Starpoints while Weekend stays earn Triple Starpoints. Full details, online registration & booking (Register Online)  Register by Aug 30 for stays May 27 - Sep 4, 17

At the outset of the stay we ended up earning the 13,056 base Starpoints plus 32,890 points from the two bonus offers and the elite status bonuses. 45,000+ Starpoints is a huge amount of points. Yes this was not a cheap stay but by taking advantage of the various bonus offers a lot points were earned that could be calculated as a rebate at nearly C$1,500, of course that is  dependent on what hotel(s) those are redeemed for.

Did you take advantage of Starwood's Double Take, have you used the SPG Hawaii offer before or are you looking to push the limits with the current Take Three offer? We'd love to hear how you have maximized these offers! Leave us a comment below or submit your own earning story to be featured here on Rewards Canada.

Tips for Hotel Stays
- Watch the rates that include bonus miles/points - If there is a bonus most of my stays do earn those extra points but a lot of hotel offers for bonus points also come with higher rates so be sure to check other rates like AAA, Senior Rates, etc. as those could be a better deal than the paying for the extra points. Systemwide bonuses like those provided in this post are typically not associated with higher rates. For a complete list of hotel bonus offers see this page on the main Rewards Canada site.
- Read the fine print - When a bonus offer is available be sure that your stay meets the criteria. Those criteria can include certain rates, select days of the week or multiple night stays.
- If you are staying at a hotel/hotel chain that isn't your primary program chain you may be better off posting that stay to a preferred airline rather than earning the hotel points. You'll still have to join that hotel chains program but set your earning preference to your preferred airline.

Have your earning story featured!
Not only are Rewards Canada Earning Stories featured in this series, we want to feature your stories as well! Have you earned a lot of points or miles by utilizing offers posted on Rewards Canada? We would love to hear about them and potentially feature them here on Rewards Canada. Tell us your earning story by emailing us the details of what you earned, screenshots if possible of those points/miles posting and what offer on Rewards Canada you took advantage of. Email it to us info@rewardscanada.ca

Earning Stories: IHG Rewards Club Spring Bonus - 4,832 Points for a negotiated group rate stay

Welcome to the next post in the Earning Stories series right here on Rewards Canada. For years we have provided you with the details on earning points and miles (both regular earning and bonus opportunities) and these stories show the actual offers in action.

This story revolves around another hotel stay for our kids activities. This time for a dance competition we completed a stay at Holiday Inn Express & Suites.

The stay was at the Holiday Inn Express & Suites Lethbridge and was booked on a group rate provided by our daughter's dance studio. This stay was booked way back before Christmas as the studio only blocked off several rooms at the time and the hotel was the closest and primary one for the dance venue so many studios were booking it. When booked there were of course no promotions available yet for May but as time got closer IHG released the Winter Accelerate offer but that ended mid-April but then they released the Spring Bonus Offer for the one month period from April 16 to May 15:

Knowing that we had only this one stay booked I tried to register for the Stay 2-3K offer and I did successfully register for it and it did pay out for the stay.

This offer actually ended a few weeks ago but is a good example of taking advantage of IHG's systemwide promotions. The Spring Bonus offer was a stop-gap promo IHG ran until they launched the next Accelerate promotion which is live right now and you can take advantage of it for stays over this entire summer:

IHG Rewards Club Accelerate: Earn 500 to 30,000 or more Bonus IHG Rewards Club Points when you complete stays at IHG Hotels Worldwide. Bonus varies by member  Full details, online registration and booking (Registration is required) Until Aug 31, 17

Screen shot of the IHG Rewards Club Points that posted with this stay:

At the outset of the stay we ended up earning the 1,832 base IHG Rewards Club Points plus 3,000 points from the Spring Bonus offer. Not a huge amount of points but still the bonus nearly tripled what we would have earned if there was no bonus. Not to mention we were awarded these points on a negotiated group rate that a lot of times do not earn points so I'll take whatever we can get! The 4,832 points is almost enough points for one free night during the quarterly IHG Rewards Club PointBreaks offers that only cost 5,000 points per night.

Did you take advantage of IHG's Spring Bonus or are you looking to push the limits with the current Accelerate offer? We'd love to hear how you have maximized these offers! Leave us a comment below or submit your own earning story to be featured here on Rewards Canada.

Tips for Hotel Stays
- Watch the rates that include bonus miles/points - If there is a bonus most of my stays do earn those extra points but a lot of hotel offers for bonus points also come with higher rates so be sure to check other rates like AAA, Senior Rates, etc. as those could be a better deal than the paying for the extra points. Systemwide bonuses like those provided in this post are typically not associated with higher rates. For a complete list of hotel bonus offers see this page on the main Rewards Canada site.
- Read the fine print - When a bonus offer is available be sure that your stay meets the criteria. Those criteria can include certain rates, select days of the week or multiple night stays.
- If you are staying at a hotel/hotel chain that isn't your primary program chain you may be better off posting that stay to a preferred airline rather than earning the hotel points. You'll still have to join that hotel chains program but set your earning preference to your preferred airline.

Have your earning story featured!
Not only are Rewards Canada Earning Stories featured in this series, we want to feature your stories as well! Have you earned a lot of points or miles by utilizing offers posted on Rewards Canada? We would love to hear about them and potentially feature them here on Rewards Canada. Tell us your earning story by emailing us the details of what you earned, screenshots if possible of those points/miles posting and what offer on Rewards Canada you took advantage of. Email it to us info@rewardscanada.ca

Earning Stories: 2,500 Aeroplan Miles on an Avis SUV rental

Welcome to the another post in the Earning Stories series right here on Rewards Canada. For years we have provided you with the details on earning points and miles (both regular earning and bonus opportunities) and these stories show the actual offers in action.

This earning story is for a rental we completed in Abbotsford earlier month. We rented a compact SUV for 4 days to get us around the Abbotsford area for the Volleyball Canada National Championships. I booked it using this promotion we had listed on Rewards Canada's Aeroplan Bonus Miles page:

Earn up to 3,500 Bonus Aeroplan Miles on Avis rentals Worldwide. Book online at Avis.com
Bonus Aeroplan Miles may be earned on qualifying rentals, at participating locations as follows:

• 1000 bonus miles on weekday rentals of 3 consecutive paid days or more, and on a weekend rental of 2 consecutive paid days or more. A weekend rental must be picked up after Thursday 4pm, local time. Available at participating locations worldwide.
• 1000 bonus miles on select vehicles, including Specialty (Group X), SUV’s (Groups W, F, Z, L), Vans (Group V), Luxury (Group H), Convertibles (Group K) and Premium (Group G) vehicles. Excludes Economy (Group A), Compact (Group B), Intermediate/Midsize (Group C) and Full size (Group D, E).  Available at participating locations in North America.
• 500 bonus miles on rentals that are prepaid at the time of reservation via avis.com/ca, or via the Avis Call Centre. Available at participating locations in North America.
• 500 bonus miles on Rental Option / Coverages purchased including: GPS by Garmin, Sirius XM Satellite radio (US only), Child Safety Seats, Travel Tab Adventurer, Extended Roadside Assistance (RSN), Loss Damage Waiver (LDW), Personal Accident Insurance (PAI), Personal Effects Protection (PEP), Additional Liability Insurance (ALI – US only). Bonus will be awarded one time only, per rental agreement, regardless of the number of Rental Options / Coverages purchased. Available at participating locations in North America.
• 500 bonus miles as a Status Member. A Status member are those with Aeroplan Silver, Black or Diamond status only.

The booking was simple via Avis.com and when we arrived much to our surprise instead of the Ford Escape or equivalent that we had booked they put us in a nice BMW X3. 

At the outset of the rental we ended up earning the 500 base Aeroplan Miles plus the 2,000 bonus miles from the offer (1,000 for 2+ weekend days and 1,000 for an SUV)

Here is a screen shot of the miles that posted:

Overall I think this was yet another good earning action for an inexpensive rental and is always nice to boost an account especially in this day and age when more and more programs are going revenue based  and making miles actually harder to earn by flying so you have to make use of these partner offers.

Tips for Car Rentals
- Watch the rates that include bonus miles - For us it is about 50/50 in terms of earning bonuses on rentals, many times rates are out there that are quite a bit cheaper and provide more value versus paying more and earning more miles. For a complete list of car rental bonus offers see this page on the main Rewards Canada site.
- Read the fine print - When a bonus offer is available be sure that your rental meets the criteria. Those are primarily minimum number of rental days and vehicle type. There are many promotions that don't get awarded on the smallest/cheapest vehicles.
- Join the Car Rental company's program - Hertz Gold Plus Rewards, National Emerald Club and others all provide great benefits such as dedicated check in counters, bypass check in counters and more.

You can find more Earning Stories listed here!

Earning Stories: 2,500 Aeroplan Miles on a Hertz SUV rental in Saskatoon

Welcome to the next post in the Earning Stories series right here on Rewards Canada. For years we have provided you with the details on earning points and miles (both regular earning and bonus opportunities) and these stories show the actual offers in action.

This earning story is for a rental we completed for our family in Saskatchewan this past March. We rented a compact SUV for 4 days to get us around the central part of the province. I booked it using this promotion we had listed on Rewards Canada's Aeroplan Bonus Miles page:

Just today however we added a new promotion that has launched that offers 3,000 bonus miles for 3+ days!! Still for the $189 rental of the SUV to earn 2,500 miles on it was a great. The booking was simple via Hertz and I also provided my Hertz Gold Plus Rewards number but that doesn't amount to much in Saskatoon as there is usually only one worker present and no line ups so the benefits from Gold Plus Rewards weren't realized here.

At the outset of the rental we ended up earning the 500 base Aeroplan Miles plus the 2,000 bonus miles from the offer

Here is a screen shot of the miles that posted:

Overall I think this was yet another good earning action for a rental and more so on price when compared to our large SUV rental in Maui earlier this year as it earned the same amount of miles.

Tips for Car Rentals
- Watch the rates that include bonus miles - For us it is about 50/50 in terms of earning bonuses on rentals, many times rates are out there that are quite a bit cheaper and provide more value versus paying more and earning more miles. For a complete list of car rental bonus offers see this page on the main Rewards Canada site.
- Read the fine print - When a bonus offer is available be sure that your rental meets the criteria. Those are primarily minimum number of rental days and vehicle type. There are many promotions that don't get awarded on the smallest/cheapest vehicles.
- Join the Car Rental company's program - Hertz Gold Plus Rewards, National Emerald Club and others all provide great benefits such as dedicated check in counters, bypass check in counters and more.

You can find more Earning Stories listed here!

Earning Stories: Completing a Quadruple Dip for servicing our Toyota

Welcome to the next post in the Earning Stories series right here on Rewards Canada. For years we have provided you with the details on earning points and miles (both regular earning and bonus opportunities) and these stories show the actual offers in action.  
 
Late last year Aeroplan and Toyota announced a new partnership that went into effect in January. For the first two months of the partnership they ran a promotion to earn bonus Aeroplan miles on buying vehicles and also for servicing vehicles.  The offer for buying a vehicle has actually now been extended to March 31st with smaller bonuses but the service offer has ended.

Screenshot of the promotion that ended Feb 29

This earning story looks at earning on the service end. Rewards Canada owns a Toyota and it needed to go in for regular service in February. Perfect time to try out the new partnership! I noticed marketing of the new partnership all over the service department and when I paid for the service I provided my Aeroplan card. No inputting it into the computer. Instead the service rep had a form to  fill out putting down my name, the date, Aeroplan number and the amount of the service. Wow. Talk about old school! But maybe their systems hadn't been updated yet or they aren't planning on spending the money to do so. Why? Well despite being written down on a piece of paper, which always make me wary and wonder if the points will post (I never did ever get my UPS Store bonuses as they wrote my number down and said they would input it later - ya right!) however the miles posted quickly, within a couple days of the service in fact! So Toyota is on the ball unlike the UPS Stores. There was other good news as well. The Toyota dealership I go to also has their own rewards program and I thought by submitting my Aeroplan # I wouldn't get credit in the dealership program. Well I was wrong, I also got credit with them for the service! So this earning action was an actually a Quadruple Dip!

• 1st Dip: Dealership Program credit
• 2nd Dip: Base Aeroplan Miles credit
• 3rd Dip: Bonus Aeroplan Miles credit
• 4th Dip: Membership Rewards Points earned by paying with The Platinum Card from American Express.

Not a bad haul for a service that had to be performed no matter what!

Screenshot of the Aeroplan Miles (status earning) posting from Toyota

Earning Stories: 2,500 Aeroplan Miles on a Hertz SUV rental in Maui

Welcome to the next post in the Earning Stories series right here on Rewards Canada. For years we have provided you with the details on earning points and miles (both regular earning and bonus opportunities) and these stories show the actual offers in action.

This earning story is for a rental we completed for our family and friends in Maui this past February. We rented a 7/8 passenger SUV for 10 days to get us around the beautiful island. I booked it using this promotion we had listed on Rewards Canada's Aeroplan Bonus Miles page:

There is another similar offer on our page that offered 2,500 bonus miles on a rental of 5+ days that we added to the site after I had already booked the SUV and when I tried to re-book with this new offer no 7-8 pax SUVs were available. The rate we originally paid was as good or better than the no bonus mile rates and I was also surprised to see that Hertz was cheaper than most other car rental companies for this type of vehicle which made booking this offer a no brainer! On top of that we were supposed to put into a Ford Explorer or similar vehicle but we got upgraded for free to an Infiniti QX80 with all the bells and whistles! The booking was simple via Hertz and I also provided my Hertz Gold Plus Rewards number so that we could use the typically shorter line for members at the OGG car rental counter.

At the outset of the rental we ended up earning the 500 base Aeroplan Miles plus the 2,000 bonus miles from the offer

Here is a screen shot of the miles that posted:

Overall I think this was a good earning action for a rental we needed to have no matter what! We like to rent SUVs but I could see people getting an even better return on a promotion like this by renting a smaller vehicle that does not cost as much!

Tips for Car Rentals
- Watch the rates that include bonus miles - For us it is about 50/50 in terms of earning bonuses on rentals, many times rates are out there that are quite a bit cheaper and provide more value versus paying more and earning more miles. For a complete list of car rental bonus offers see this page on the main Rewards Canada site.
- Read the fine print - When a bonus offer is available be sure that your rental meets the criteria. Those are primarily minimum number of rental days and vehicle type. There are many promotions that don't get awarded on the smallest/cheapest vehicles.
- Join the Car Rental company's program - Hertz Gold Plus Rewards, National Emerald Club and others all provide great benefits such as dedicated check in counters, bypass check in counters and more.

You can find more Earning Stories listed here!

Earning Stories: Success with Alitalia MilleMiglia Status Match Offer

Welcome to the next post in the Earning Stories series right here on Rewards Canada. For years we have provided you with the details on earning points and miles (both regular earning and bonus opportunities) and these stories show the actual offers in action.

Unlike other earning stories, this one does not involve a flight, hotel stay or car rental. This one looks at an offer we posted here on Rewards Canada back at the beginning of July about Alitalia MilleMiglia having a open elite status match offer. Here is the offer as it appeared on our blog:

Here is the offer as pulled from our MilleMiglia page as it is still valid and if you haven't taken advantage of it yet you really should!

Receive an Elite Status Match to a non SkyTeam airline program. Full details
Getting a status match is very easy. Send an email to StatusMatchMilleMiglia@alitalia.com by December 31, 2015 with the following:

• First name and last name
• MilleMiglia code
• A legible copy of your existing valid Frequent Flyer program card
  

Your status will be effective 5 working days after you send the request email and will be maintained until March 31, 2016. To confirm that your status has been recognized, you will receive a personalized email from your new Club.

I decided to give this an offer a shot and wanted to test it with a status I have that was expiring soon. I used my Cathay Pacific Marco Polo Club Gold status that came with The Platinum Card from American Express. This benefit is actually no longer available from the card but my Gold status with Cathay Pacific is valid until the end of September. I simply scanned my Marco Polo Gold card and sent it off as instructed above with my name and MilleMiglia number. About three weeks later I received confirmation from Alitalia that my status match went through! I was now a MilleMiglia Freccia Alata Club member (essentially Gold status).

Here is the screen shot from the email confirming the status match:

I actually received my physical card in the mail yesterday! Now I have elite status with Alitalia and SkyTeam until the end of March next year even though my status with Cathay ends in a month and a half! I would say this is a success story.  I don't think I'll fly Alitalia before the end of March to take advantage of all the benefits but there is a good chance I will be on some SkyTeam flights so it will be nice to take advantage of the SkyTeam benefits allotted with SkyTeam Elite Plus status:

Not only will I look at using these benefits, by having this status with Alitalia I may be able to extend it to other status match offers that are in or will be coming to the market since my Cathay status ends soon.

We'd love to hear how you have if you have taken advantage of this status match offer as well! Leave us a comment below or submit your own earning story to be featured here on Rewards Canada.


Have your earning story featured!
Not only are Rewards Canada Earning Stories featured in this series, we want to feature your stories as well! Have you earned a lot of points or miles by utilizing offers posted on Rewards Canada? We would love to hear about them and potentially feature them here on Rewards Canada. Tell us your earning story by emailing us the details of what you earned, screenshots if possible of those points/miles posting and what offer on Rewards Canada you took advantage of. Email it to us info@rewardscanada.ca

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Earning Stories: 25,314 HHonors Points on a 7 Night Stay at the Hampton Inn & Suites by Hilton Regina East Gate

Welcome to the next post in the Earning Stories series right here on Rewards Canada. For years we have provided you with the details on earning points and miles (both regular earning and bonus opportunities) and these stories show the actual offers in action.

This story revolves around my recent family trip at the beginning of July and looks at the points earning for our week long Hampton Inn hotel stay.

The stay was at the Hampton Inn & Suites by Hilton Regina East Gate and was booked on a AAA rate. I booked based on location and also wanting to try a Hampton Inn for the first time as we normally stay at the Holiday Inn & Suites just a block away. Another factor was that the hotel is only a year old versus the Holiday Inn which is one of the older hotels in that area of hotels, not to mention the Hampton also included breakfast if we wanted to eat at the hotel. I booked it knowing that I would earn bonus points since I had registered not only for Hilton's Double Points on all stays but also their limited time offer of 5,000 bonus points on stays taken from our Hilton HHonors Bonus Points page:

Here is Double Points the offer in detail as you still have most of the summer to take advantage of it! (The 5,000 point offer expired the day after we arrived into Regina)

Double HHonors Points or Double Airline MIles for eligible stays at participating Hilton Hotels & Resorts Worldwide. Full Details, Online Registration and Booking  (Registration is required)   Until Aug 31, 15

And my screen shot of the HHonors Points that posted with this stay:

At the outset of the stay we ended up earning the 7,296 base HHonors Points plus 7,296 points from the Double Points offer and the 5,000 bonus points from the other bonus offer. Add in the Hilton Gold Elite status bonuses and the 50% bonus from the Points+Points option and all told 25,314 points posted from the stay. What can 25,314 HHonors points get? 5 nights at a Category 1 hotel, 2 nights at a Category 2 hotel, 1 night at Category 3 hotel and potentially a Category 4 hotel.

As you can see by registering and taking advantage of these two bonus offer along with the base and elite tier points we earned a decent amount of points on a stay that we were going to do no matter what! With Hilton HHonors you have two options for base earning, Points+Points or Points+Miles. I choose the former so the base points earned at 10 points per US$ + an additional 5 points per US$. Everyday people have stays like this that are not earning any bonus points or even in some cases no points at all since the people aren't part of the hotel's program! We cannot reiterate enough that not only should you join a hotel program to earn points (or airline miles) but always register for bonus point promotions even if you think that you may not use it.

We'd love to hear how you have maximized the Hilton Double Points/Miles and 5,000 Bonus Points offers! Leave us a comment below or submit your own earning story to be featured here on Rewards Canada.

Tips for Hotel Stays
- Watch the rates that include bonus miles/points - If there is a bonus most of my stays do earn those extra points but a lot of hotel offers for bonus points also come with higher rates so be sure to check other rates like AAA, Senior Rates, etc. as those could be a better deal than the paying for the extra points. Systemwide bonuses like those provided in this post are typically not associated with higher rates. For a complete list of hotel bonus offers see this page on the main Rewards Canada site.
- Read the fine print - When a bonus offer is available be sure that your stay meets the criteria. Those criteria can include certain rates, select days of the week or multiple night stays.
- If you are staying at a hotel/hotel chain that isn't your primary program chain you may be better off posting that stay to a preferred airline rather than earning the hotel points. You'll still have to join that hotel chains program but set your earning preference to your preferred airline.

Have your earning story featured!
Not only are Rewards Canada Earning Stories featured in this series, we want to feature your stories as well! Have you earned a lot of points or miles by utilizing offers posted on Rewards Canada? We would love to hear about them and potentially feature them here on Rewards Canada. Tell us your earning story by emailing us the details of what you earned, screenshots if possible of those points/miles posting and what offer on Rewards Canada you took advantage of. Email it to us info@rewardscanada.ca