An unsung benefit that provides big savings on premium travel with major airlines as well as WestJet economy class

The Platinum Card® and Business Platinum Card® from American Express are famous for the benefits they provide to their cardmembers. From having the best airline lounge access to hotel elite status to annual travel credits, the cards are a traveller's dream. However, one of the benefits that can be found on these cards that doesn't seem to get much attention is the International Airline Program. Also known as IAP, this benefit provides discounts for flying on some of the world's best airlines in premium cabins but it also provides discounts for economy class tickets on WestJet!

Receive up to a 60% bonus when you buy Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles

The Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan buy miles bonus is back and once again we see it up at the 60% level which continues to be new normal for the airline.  The bonus is tiered in that if you buy 3,000 to 19,000 miles you’ll get a 40% bonus, 20,000 to 39,000 you’ll get a 50% bonus and the 60% kicks in at the 40,000 mile level.

How to earn over 67,000 Aeroplan points and an Air Canada Bonus Buddy Pass for free*

Air Canada's Aeroplan program is one of the most rewarding and lucrative programs in Canada when it comes to travel. The great thing about the program are the numerous opportunities to earn a lot of points with their co-brand credit cards and credit cards that allow you to convert to Aeroplan. As some of these cards are available with no annual fee in the first year or others with no annual fee at all, you can score a lot of Aeroplan points for free. 

You can buy British Airways Executive Club Avios for as little as 1.3 cents with a subscription to The Economist

 
There are a few times per year when British Airways Executive Club and The Economist provide a increased bonus for subscribing to the latter. That bonus has returned and awards up to 18,000 Avios for new subscriptions. Unlike some other frequent flyer programs that team up with The Economist, BA's offer is available to Canadians. Why is this noteworthy? It's actually a way to 'buy Avios' cheaper than truly buying Avios through BA! Although you are limited to earning only up to 18,000 Avios with this offer rather than being able to purchase hundreds of thousands of Avios in one go. That being said this is a good way to top off an account for an award, to keep your account active or even for a short haul redemption as we show below.

Receive up to a 60% bonus when you buy Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles

 

The next airline to bring out a bonus for buying their miles/points is Alaska Airlines. The Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan buy miles bonus is back and it is nice to see it back at the 60% level.  The bonus is tiered in that if you buy 3,000 to 19,000 miles you’ll get a 40% bonus, 20,000 to 39,000 is 50% and the 60% kicks in at the 40,000 mile level.

Avianca LifeMiles award flight sale: Save up to 30% on select Star Alliance routes

 

Avianca LifeMiles is once again offering discounted award flights on select Star Alliance routes. These offers are available for booking until October 11, 2021. Remember that right now you can buy LifeMiles with a 150% bonus via the OMAAT offer which you can combine with this award sale as that sale runs until October 15. The best options are the business class flights between North America and Asia that are now available for 60,000 to 64,000 LifeMiles one way. This includes Vancouver to Taipei at the 64,000 mile level. There is one other Canadian option and that is Toronto-San Francisco in Business Class for 20,000 miles each way.  You can buy 128,000 miles (52,000 + 150% bonus) for US$1716 which would get you round trip flights between Vancouver and Taipei in business class. That’s a really good price to pay for those flights! The only question is.... can you find availability?

Book Review: Mileage Maniac: My Genius, Madness and a Touch Of Evil To Amass 40 Million Frequent Flyer Miles

 

Since the inception of frequent flyer programs in the early 80s there have been very few mileage and points stories that garner the attention of the world. Whether it is The Pudding Guy who has been enshrined in Adam Sandler's Punch-Drunk Love or George Clooney playing Ryan Bingham in Up in the Air who is trying to break the 10 million mile mark in the American AAdvantage program, the mainstream coverage of making the most of frequent flyer programs is pretty minimal. It seems like we get some story every few years (like The Great Canadian Mileage Run by the now fallen from grace Marc Tacchi) but one story other than the pudding guy that always seems to re-emerge is the Baht run. Made famous by Steve Belkin the Baht Run and many of his other mileage travel hacking records are often referred to as to crown jewels in finding that elusive loop hole to earning a ton of miles. Well rather than have other people write about him Steve has put pen to paper and wrote a book about all his amazing mileage earning journeys over the past few decades.

June 14 Update: Save 25% when you redeem TD Rewards points for gift cards or merchandise & Travel Hacking 101 earn up to 147,000 Aeroplan points updated

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 70,000 bonus points and no annual fee in the first year! 

TD is offering a 25% discount when you redeem TD Rewards points earned on cards like the TD First Class Travel Visa card for gift cards and merchandise. This offer runs until July 30, 2021. There is an additional offer of an extra $10 back if you redeem for Home Depot gift card by June 18. Learn more here.

Video: How to earn 97,000+ British Airways Executive Club Avios for free

Today we released another 'How To' video on our YouTube channel. This one takes a look at how you can earn over 97,000 British Airways Executive Club Avios simply by applying for five credit cards that all have offers where you don't end up paying the annual fee in the first year. That means you essentially get all those Avios for free outside of the spend requirements to receive those welcome bonuses.

Yes, you can achieve a return of 20% or higher on your credit card spending

 
When we talk about returns on credit card spending it is usually in the fashion of a percent return for each dollar you have spent on a card. Percent returns help us gauge and compare cards against each other as they are so many variables in how cards in the Canadian market earn points and how those points can be redeemed. This means you can't really compare a point earned on this card with a point earned on that card without looking at the big picture. For example, our second most popular article of 2021 to this date compares earning 5x points on the American Express Cobalt Card versus earning 5x points on the BMO Eclipse Visa Infinite Card and how they don't equal each other despite having the same earn rate. 

Great deal! Earn up to a 75% bonus when you buy Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles Miles - use it to get three business class tickets to Hawaii for US$1560

 

Here is a rarity – Turkish Airlines is offering a bonus for buying their Miles&Smiles miles until February 19. The bonus is tiered and maxes out at 75% when you buy 50,000 to 99,999 miles. The cost of the miles are US$30 per 1,000 which means buying 50,000 miles will cost you US$1,500 but you’ll end up with 87,500 miles after the bonus. That ends up being US$ 1.71 cents per mile which is a great deal considering Turkish Miles&Smiles has some real gems for reward flight options. It only costs 10,000 miles to fly one way in economy class within North America but Turkish includes Honolulu, Mexico and Bermuda. So yes you can get a round trip economy class Star Alliance ticket on Air Canada or United from Canada to Hawaii for 20,000 miles. Even better is business class for only30,000 miles round trip! So if buy yourself 52,000 miles for US$1,560 to score 91,000 Miles&Smiles you’ll have three round trip flights in business class to Hawaii! To buy those three business class tickets will cost you a lot more than US$1,560.  Four tickets would be US$2,070! And that’s only one example – the Miles&Smiles program has quite a few other great redemption options that you can check out here. The only major caveat we can see is the bonus miles on the purchased miles must be used by December 31, 2022.

LifeMiles offering up to a 200% bonus when buying miles - huge opportunity to fly Air Canada or other Star Alliance airlines on the cheap

 

UPDATE: If you access the offer via One Mile at a Time you can get the 200% right from the lowest mileage purchase level of only 1,000 miles!  This means you can buy just the amount of miles you need (such as 50,000 as in the example below) for an award ticket.

LifeMiles has long been famous for their buy miles bonuses as being some of the best in the business. Well today they have gone beyond what made them famous with their latest offer that came out today. From now until September 25 they are offering up to a 200% bonus when you buy LifeMiles. That’s right 200% or Triple Miles in total. This is the biggest and best offer they have ever run and it’s not even exclusive to select bloggers – this one is for everyone. Now the airline associated with LifeMiles is Avianca and the latter is in bankruptcy protection right now. That being said the two are separate companies and LifeMiles isn’t in bankruptcy protection but you could imagine that if Avianca went under it would adversely affect LifeMiles just like JetPrivilege (now InterMiles) was when Jet Airways folded. The good news is Avianca has received several hundred million dollars in loans so the hope is the airline will survive. The program itself also placed this line in the email announcing the sale today, which is definitely a bit suspect:

Even though we do not intent to change our award rates, for the members who purchase this promotion we will honor these award tables until at least January 2021.

So while they do not intend to change their award charts right now for them to mention this and actually state a date of January 2021 would have me worried that the loyalty program is having some back room discussions around their charts.  I mean why else would you put that line in the email? Anyways, now back to the offer, it is a tiered bonus as follows:

 

If you buy at the 200% level (101,000 to 200,000) you are buying LifeMiles at an incredible 1.1 cents each.

Offer details:
Receive up to a 200% bonus when you buy LifeMiles. Buy miles here. Until Sep 25, 20
Buy 1,000 to 50,000 miles receive a 150% bonus
Buy 51, 000 to 100,000 miles receive a 175% bonus
Buy 101,000 to 200,000 miles receive a 200% bonus

And here's how this buy miles offers can offer huge savings and provides a classic example of some great travel hacking by being able to buy a $2800 business class ticket for under $800.

Even though there isn't much international travel happening right now you can still utilize this great Latin American offer to travel within Canada. How about a quick weekend getaway from Toronto to Vancouver - and not in economy class but business class on internationally configured aircraft with lie flat seats. This is for October 8 to 11. Here is the availability from LifeMiles (click to make larger)

 And to buy the same flights on Air Canada:

Let's do the math here. The redemption is 50,000 LifeMiles plus US40.05 in taxes and fees. You are buying the miles at 1.1 cents US each. That equates to US$550 for the miles and add in the fees for a grand total of US$590.05. Convert that to Canadian and you are looking at about $780. To buy the same ticket with cash on Air Canada is $2809.72. By taking the buy miles route with this bonus from LifeMiles you are saving over $2,000 on this flight alone! It's like paying for an economy class ticket (Well the cheapest no frill price is $608 on those same flight) but being able to fly in a lie flat business class cabin in both directions!

IHG Rewards Club brings back its 100% bonus on buying points and some great examples of how it can save you some money on your summer hotel stays

We see the return of IHG Rewards Club's buy points bonus offer only a little over two weeks after it last ended. The promotion is the same as last time - a 100% bonus when you purchase 2,000 or more points at a time and once again the annual purchase limit has been raised to 250,000 points before the bonus.

Buying 250,000 points (500,000 total with bonus) costs US$2,500 which means each point will only cost you 0.5 cents.  However you don't have to buy that many to get in on that lowest price, the 0.5 US cents per points kicks in when you buy at least 26,000 points. We don’t encourage buying points just because there is a bonus but if you can foresee a potential use for them in the next 4-6 months it can definitely be worthwhile to buy them.

Offer Details
100% Bonus IHG Rewards Club Points when you buy 3,000 or more points. Buy IHG Rewards Club Points here Until Jul 31, 20



Here are some example of how buying points can save you some money on stays with IHG:

First we look at the Holiday Inn Canmore for those looking for staycation in the Banff area. You can redeem 30,000 points per night at this hotel where rates are running $297.78 per night:

Here you can see that you can buy 30,000 points for that one night stay for $172.50 USD. Take into account the exchange rate and GST you have to pay on the points and you are looking at an outlay of about C$250. That means buying the points would save you $47 on that one night stay and that's not even taking into account the taxes and fees you have to pay on the cash rate. However as mentioned above the savings get bigger when you buy more points.

For example if you buy 30,000 points (60,000 with the bonus) it will cost you $300 USD or about C$435. Now that's enough points for a 2 night stay at the Holiday Inn Canmore where your cash outlay would be $594. Now you can see you are saving $159 in total or $79.50 per night.


Now let's move over to Quebec and the Holiday Inn Express Tremblant for those road trips out of Ottawa and Montreal. You can stay here for 17,500 points per night or C$202 if you pay cash (before taxes and fees)

Here you can see that you can buy 18,000 points for that one night stay for $121.50 USD. Take into account the exchange rate and HST you have to pay on the points and you are looking at an outlay of about C$188. That means buying the points would save you only about $14 on that one night stay. However if you want to stay three nights and want to buy points for all three nights you would buy at the lowest level price of 0.5 cents US per points. Three nights is 52,500 points, which means you would have to buy 54,000 points for US$270. The Canadian equivalent is about $421 all in for a $606 stay. A total savings of $185 or about $61 per night.

There are many more examples I could go into but I recommend checking IHG first for the going rates and then comparing those rates to what you would buy points at. For example I checked the InterContinental Toronto and they wanted 27,500 points for a stay that costs C$195 per night - so in that case it wouldn't be worth it to buy the points. In the end however, it will really depend on where you want to travel to and run the numbers to see if this deal will save you some money on your staycation, road trip or even if you are brave enough - a trip to the U.S. (you can travel there by air) or one of the countries that has opened up to Canadians like Greece.

Visit IHG.com today to check hotel rates and take advantage of the buy points bonus here.





 
Find many more IHG Rewards Club bonus point offers here!

Confirmed! You can earn $50 in Best Western Gift Cards with just one stay this summer!

In my post yesterday detailing Best Western Rewards' newest promotion I proposed that it could very well be combined with their other offer that I detailed the week before. I said that based on the terms and conditions you could possibly earn the $25 Best Western Gift Card from the Tanks-A-Lot offer along with the $25 Gift Card for completing one stay at a Best Western hotel. I reached out to Best Western and have confirmation from them that this is the actual case! This means with just one Best Western stay you can earn $50 in Best Western Gift Cards. This gives you the potential to have a big return on just one Best Western stay.

To show the value I grabbed some screen shots of rates available in select cities in Canada on August 11:

All pretty decent rates but look at the one from Montreal! $89.99 (about $107 with taxes) and you can get $50 in travel cards to use for a future stay. That's almost a 50% return on that one stay. No matter where you stay or even what you pay ultimately you can make $50 on that stay.

Remember that you can also buy Best Western Travel Cards in $100 denominations with a 20% bonus right now. So if you buy a C$100 card you'll get that plus a $20 bonus card. The Prince Albert example above would come to around $120 once you take into account taxes and fees. So you pay $100 to buy a Best Western Travel card - you get $120 with the bonus, use it to pay for the stay and then you get the $50 in travel cards for future use. So that $120 stay ends up only costing you $50 if you take into account the $50 you received back.

So how do you get the $50 in travel cards?

First make sure you register for the Best Western Rewards Rush promotion - that is the one where you earn a $25 gift card after one stay. Even if you don't know your plans yet, just register now for it. It is good for stays until September 7. Then make sure to keep the Best Western Tanks-A-Lot promotion up front and centre in your mind. You don't need to register for it but you have to email Best Western after your stay is completed with a receipt showing you bought some gas or charged an electric vehicle within 10 days of your stay and they'll issue you another $25 travel card. This offer is good for stays until August 31 so if you want to make sure you complete one stay complete by the end of August to earn the $50.

You will also earn your regular Best Western Rewards Points on these stays, so if we take the Montreal example you'll earn 890 points if you are Blue member all the up to 1,335 points if you are a Diamond elite member. With an average value of about 0.5 cents that's another $4 to $6 in value. Then if you pay for your stay with a card like the mbna Best Western Mastercard® you'll earn 5 points per dollar on that stay as well, so another 535 points with the Montreal example.

Do be aware that the $25 travel cards from both promotions have an expiry date of December 31, 2020 so you will have to use them up by then for another stay.

Rewards Rush Offer details
Receive a $25 Best Western Gift Card when you complete one stay at a Best Western Hotel in the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean. Full details, online registration & booking  (Registration is required) Until Sep 7, 20
For residents of the U.S. and Canada only

Tanks-A-Lot offer details
Receive a $25 Best Western Travel Card when you complete 1 stay at a Best Western Hotel and submit a gas receipt or electric vehicle charging receipt within 10 days of your stay. Full details & online booking
For residents of the U.S. and Canada only

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Podcast Episode 69 - Huge Aeroplan promotion - Receive 50% of your miles back on award flights within Canada or between Canada and the U.S.

Episode 69 - June 23, 2020
Huge Aeroplan promotion - Receive 50% of your miles back on award flights within Canada or between Canada and the U.S.

In this episode we discuss the amazing Aeroplan redemption offer that was released on June 17. We discuss the details of the promotion, how it works, a couple of redemption examples and the amazing the value you can get out of the promotion! Listen in to see how you can get 4 to 5 cents per mile for economy class redemptions, over 8 cents per mile for business class and how you can effectively get a 49% return on one credit card's spending.

Click Here to download the podcast (mp3)

 

or Download/subscribe via:

 

Links relating to this week's topics:

• Huge Aeroplan promotion - Receive 50% of your miles back on award flights within Canada or between Canada and the U.S.

 

June 16 Update: Earn 39,000 Aeroplan Miles or 28,000 BA Avios for free, AIR MILES Shops Father's Day bonus & an issue with Choice Privileges new promotion

We updated our Travel Hacking 101 post which details how you can earn Aeroplan Miles and/or Avios for free just by signing up for fee free or annual fee waived credit cards. It has been updated with the newest offers for the TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite Card, CIBC Aerogld Visa Infinite Card and have removed the RBC Avion card as all of it's increased welcome bonus and no annual fee promotions have been removed. You can check out the Travel Hacking 101 post here.

AIR MILES is offering 20 Bonus Reward Miles when you spend $60 or more via airmilesshops.ca for Father's Day. This offer runs until June 21. Find out more here.

The Laurentian Bank Visa Explore card has been added to our credit card comparison charts. You'll find it on the All Travel Rewards Credit Cards Comparison chart and Travel Points Credit Cards comparison chart.

Long time Rewards Canada reader Kevin A. alerted us to an issue with the Choice Privileges Stay Twice Get a Free Night offer. When he tried to register for the promotion it didn't work so he reached out to Choice Hotels on Twitter and they told him it is for U.S. residents only even though the T&C's state U.S. and Canada. I tried to register for it as well but no dice for me so I have reached out directly to our contact at Choice for clarification and will pass along any details we receive. Let us know if you have had any success registering for it!

Airline Schedule Updates
This will now be a standard feature for the foreseeable future in our daily update posts as we summarize Canadian operations based on data from RoutesOnline and other sources. Remember that many of these route plans are subject to change and right now they are changing frequently!

ANA is planning to continue flying between Vancouver and Tokyo Haneda for the month of July with three flights per week. (Source: RoutesOnline)

Turkish Airlines has delayed the launch of their Vancouver to Istanbul flight further to September 3.. (Source RoutesOnline)

Remember to visit and bookmark our COVID-19 resource page where we are keeping you up to date with all the latest airline, hotel, lounges and loyalty program news, policies, closures and more.

Posts since our last update:

• WestJet announces summer flight schedule - 102% increase in flights including the return of select U.S. and Mexico routes
  WestJet announced their summer flight schedule yesterday which will see the airline more than double the number of flights…
• Podcast Episode 68 - Clash of the Credit Cards - The Ten Percenters
  Episode 68 - June 16, 2020 Clash of the Credit Cards - The Ten PercentersIn this episode we present…
• The 100% bonus for buying Hilton Honors points is back until July 15
  Wow, it’s only been 12 days since Hilton’s 100% bonus on buying points ended and they have already brought…
• June 15 Update: New Amex offer for goodfood, Fairmont Stay Close extended for Canadian mountain resorts and Flair & Swoop's summer flight schedules
  Yet another excellent Amex offer came out today - this one is for the prepared meal service goodfood and…

Deals:

LAST DAY TO BOOK! Fairmont Hotels Explore Canada offer - Get every 2nd night free for stays at 18 Fairmont Hotels until June 30, 2021

LAST DAY TO BOOK! Save 20% on all Air Canada flights within Canada when you book by June 16 - good for travel until May 15, 2021!

Instacart: Get $10 when you place your first order with Instacart! Register here.

SkipTheDishes - Sign up with this link to get $5 off your first order over $15. Find out more here

WealthSimple Trade:  Receive $5 when you deposit and trade at least $100 worth of stock with WealthSimple Trade. Find out more here (We will also receive $5 when you receive $5)
Rewards Canada receives a small commission when you use any of the above offers. You don't have to chose to use our links but we thank you in advance if you do.

Canadian Bonus Offers

Best Western Rewards
- Receive a $25 Best Western Travel Card when you complete 1 stay at a Best Western Hotel and submit a gas receipt or electric vehicle charging receipt within 10 days of your stay. More.. Until Aug 31, 20

Other Bonus Offers

Etihad Guest
- Receive up to a 60% bonus when you buy Etihad Guest miles. More... Until Jun 18, 20

Radisson Rewards
- 2,500 Bonus Radisson Rewards Points, €50 credit per stay for in-house services and complimentary breakfast for stays at Radisson Hotel Group hotels in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. More.. Until Aug 30, 20

Southwest Rapid Rewards
- Save 45% when you buy 2,000 or more Rapid Rewards points. More... Until Jun 25, 20

United MileagePlus
- Receive up to a 70% bonus when you buy MileagePlus Miles. More... Until Jul 2, 20


Follow Rewards Canada:

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40% Discount for buying Etihad Guest miles - use to plan future travel like Prague-Seoul in business class for only US$312

Etihad Guest is the latest airline loyalty program to launch a buy miles offer in attempt to boost some much needed cash flow. Until April 7 you can buy miles with a 40% discount which translates to a per mile cost of US 1.2 cents. Etihad flies from Toronto to Abu Dhabi, normally, but of course right now they aren't flying the route. Also redeeming miles on Etihad tends to be an expensive proposition, for example, to redeem for Business Class round trip between Toronto and Abu Dhabi costs just over 200,000 Guest Miles. However Etihad does have a lot of partner airlines where using their miles can make sense. One of those sweet spots is redeeming Etihad Guest miles to fly on Czech Airlines between Prague and Seoul. The redemption amount is ridiculously low - only 25,610 miles for business class one way. So just over 51,000 round trip if needed.

With this 40% discount on buying Etihad Guest miles you can get that one way trip in business class for only US$312 (+GST/HST as Points.com is a Canadian company)

This is an unbelievable deal to be able to fly in business class - yes Czech Airlines business isn't the same as Etihad's but for about $450 to fly this route is amazing. Of course you would be buying the miles speculatively right now as Czech Airlines isn't flying right now nor is Etihad and most flights their partners offer aren't in the air either. The good news is that Etihad states right on the buy miles page that any miles bought are valid for a minimum of two years so it will give you some time to plan some potentially amazing trips. This is definitely one of the better speculative offers out in the market right now.

Offer details:
40% Discount when you buy 1,000 or more Etihad Guest Miles. Buy miles here. Until Apr 7, 20