February 18 Update: TD cards receive 6 months of Instacart Express for free + a $15 credit & fly Aer Lingus between Toronto and Dublin for as little as $459 r/t

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! 

 
TD has teamed up once again with Instacart to offer a special on Instacart Express memberships. If you have a TD Access Card with Visa Debit or a TD Travel Rewards Credit Card (not Aeroplan) you may be eligible to get 6 months of Instacart Express for 6 months. TD cardholders will also get $15 off their next Instacart order. This offer is available until August 22, 2022. Click here to learn more.

September 23 Update: Get three free months of Instacart Express with select TD cards & Air Canada Aeroplan Birthday Bonus

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.

TD and Instacart have extended their offer for three free months of Instacart Express. Those who have TD Access Card with Visa Debit or a TD Travel Rewards Credit Card are eligible for the offer. Also those who have TD Travel Rewards Credit Card will earn 2x points on all Instacard orders. This offer now ends on October 22, 21. Learn more here.

You can now use Instacart to circumvent Costco's non-acceptance of Amex and to earn 5x points with the Cobalt Card

Back in March we had our reader TitaniumTux let us know that Instacart was finally coding properly as an eats and drinks merchant with American Express.  At that time we wrote about how you could Use Instacart to circumvent Loblaw stores non-acceptance of Amex and to earn 5x points with the Cobalt Card. Now the same rule applies to Costco as last week they announced a new same day delivery option powered by Instacart. That means you can now earn your American Express Cobalt Card category multiplier for shopping at Costco and here's the really good news. When you do shop via Instacart YOU DON"T HAVE TO BE A COSTCO MEMBER.  Now the trade off is that the pricing via Instacart won't be the same as in store at Costco or even if you shop for the regular Costco.ca items for delivery in 2 days or longer. So in reality this option is best for the grocery items that you cannot order regularly through Costco and of course for those who are not members and don't want to pay for a membership. Even with the higher pricing via Instacart I'm sure there are savings to be had utilizing this method over shopping at other stores and then on top of that you'll earn your rewards from whicheve.r card you use to pay for the transaction.

You have two options for the delivery service in terms of ordering, you can do so via Instacart or via Costco's website:

Customers can begin shopping from Costco via Instacart today by going to https://www.instacart.ca/store/costco, opening the Instacart app on their mobile device, or visiting Costco's member-only ecommerce site at http://sameday.costco.ca. From there, customers select their city and Costco warehouse, and can begin adding items to their Instacart grocery cart. An Instacart shopper will pick and deliver the order within the customer's designated timeframe.

I went through the process of setting up the same day shopping on Costco's website and rather than completing a new profile I simply imported data from Instacart:

The only credit card I have saved on Instacart is the American Express Cobalt™ Card  as it earns 5x points with Instacart which translates to a 5% cash back return on those purchases until the end of September.  The 5x points for eats & drinks is limited to $30,000 annually. Once you are at 1,000 points you can start redeeming and those 1,000 points will net you a $10 statement credit until September 30 (it drops to 1,000 points = $7 after that or a 3.5% return)  Of course for travel it is always a minimum 5% but can get as high as 10% with Amex's Fixed Points for Travel option.

Do note that when you shop at Costco via Instacart you will not earn your Costco Executive Membership 2% return. Also of note is that some sale prices that may be available in store may not be available via Instacart. This really is the trade off - if you are willing to go shop in store you'll enjoy more savings however if you are not a member or don't want to set foot in a physical store just yet this is a great new option

Learn more about this new partnership here: https://www.instacart.ca/store/costco or  http://sameday.costco.ca.