Scotiabank Launches New ScotiaGold Passport Visa Travel Booking Website

For all of you ScotiaGold Passport Visa holders, you have a new website that you can do your reward bookings with and they'll even give 250 bonus points just for visiting the new site. The site allows cardholders to book travel with their reward points, cash or a combination of both.

Source: Scotiabank Press Release

Here is a press release that came out today from American Express that is tied into the new SPG Credit Card here in Canada, the survey portion provides some interesting insight into the ways Canadians want to travel:

Luxury Matters? One in Four Canadians Would Rather Not Travel at all than Stay at a Budget Hotel

Starwood Preferred Guest(R) Credit Card from American Express Broadens Your Wealth through Rewards

TORONTO, June 17 /CNW/ - When Canadians get the travel itch, most would like to spend their vacation time in a breathtaking resort in an exotic location. However, few are willing to break the bank to do so. In fact, almost everyone agrees that it's important to stay within budget when planning a vacation. This dichotomy between a taste for luxury tempered with the reality of sticking to a budget is a common theme coming out of a survey conducted on behalf of American Express Canada and Starwood Hotels & Resorts by Angus Reid Public Opinion. Affordable luxury was at the top of Canadians' travel objectives, with 88 per cent saying they look for ways to make their trips luxurious, yet affordable.

The survey finds that the majority of Canadians (82%) feel that the hotel they stay in is important and impacts the enjoyment of their trip, with 39 per cent agreeing that excellent service makes a trip most luxurious. Still, a full 96 per cent of Canadian respondents state that budget is a major concern when it comes to planning trips.

One of the easiest ways Canadians can experience more luxury for less is by utilizing rewards programs like the new Starwood Preferred Guest(R) Credit Card from American Express that provide extra perks and make luxury more attainable. This new Card offers Cardmembers a chance to earn points towards use on hotel stays and airline travel with their everyday purchases.

Two of Canada's top trendsetters, Ashleigh Dempster and Amanda Blakley, co-founders of The Society, consider loyalty programs, like the Starwood Preferred Guest(R) Credit Card from American Express, as a smart way to broaden your wealth. These cultural curators provide advice to their community on how to get the most rewarding travel experiences without breaking the bank.

"It's clear from the research, and from our experience, that Canadians have a strong affinity for luxury. They love the idea of being pampered, and that includes when they travel," said Dempster. "What the Starwood Preferred Guest(R) Credit Card from American Express offers is the ability to earn points on everyday purchases you are already making. These points can then be redeemed through the Starwood Preferred Guest Program for fabulous experiences at some of the world's most luxurious properties."

"And whether you use your points to redeem for an upgraded room, an extra night, a spa treatment or a fantastic dining experience, there's something decadent about receiving luxurious treatment from rewards earned on purchases you make everyday like groceries or your morning coffee," said Blakley.

The survey also found that 83 per cent of people said they would use their points on luxury travel if they were easy to collect and redeem. Additionally, 84 per cent said that if they could travel on points they would do so more often.

"We see a clear indication in this market that Canadians love the idea of rewards programs, but many find that they are too difficult to navigate. With the Starwood Preferred Guest(R) Credit Card from American Express, we've combined great rewards with ease of use to make the collection and redemption of points as quick and simple as possible," said Jennifer Hawkins, Vice President of New Product Development for American Express Canada.

The survey also revealed that when provided with several choices for their dream holiday destination, more Canadians indicated they would like to go somewhere rich with history, like Italy or Greece (42%), over somewhere tropical like Hawaii or the Maldives (32%) or a city with a lot of action like New York or Las Vegas (7%). But nearly one-fifth (19%) indicated that the place is less important than the experience, and said their dream destination is "anywhere, as long as I'm traveling in style."

"More than a quarter of Canadians surveyed said that they would prefer not to travel at all than to stay at a budget hotel," said David Flueck, Vice President, SPG Global Program and Operations at Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide. "As the world's largest operator of luxury hotels including the renowned St. Regis and Luxury Collection hotel brands, it's easier than ever for Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card from American Express Cardmembers to collect points for a luxury getaway. We know how appealing this prospect is to Canadians due to the overwhelmingly positive response following the launch of this Card."

From a regional perspective, the survey revealed that:

        -  Respondents from Quebec are most likely to consider quality of
         food to be what makes a trip most luxurious (46%). Only 26 per
         cent of Ontarians and 19 per cent of Albertans agree.
      -  Albertans go on weekend getaways more than the rest of the
         country, with 39 per cent opting to do so several times a year.
         Atlantic Canadians are least likely to go on a weekend getaway,
         with 77 per cent stating they never or rarely go on one. Ontarians
         fare just above average with 32 per cent of respondents admitting
         to going on weekend getaways several times a year.
      -  More than 1/3 of Quebec residents (37%) would prefer not to travel
         at all than stay at a budget hotel. This is contrast with
         Albertans (18%) and British Columbians (19%) who are less likely
         to limit their travel for this reason.

For more information about the Starwood Preferred Guest(R) Credit Card from American Express, visit www.americanexpress.ca/spg

About American Express

American Express in Canada operates as Amex Bank of Canada and Amex Canada Inc. Both are wholly owned subsidiaries of the New York based American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc., the largest operating unit of the American Express Company. Amex Bank of Canada is the issuer of American Express Cards in Canada. Amex Canada Inc. operates the Corporate Travel, Travel Services Network and Travellers Cheques divisions in Canada. American Express opened its first offices in Toronto and Hamilton in 1853 and now employs 3,700 Canadians coast-to-coast.

About Starwood Preferred Guest

The SPG program's breakthrough policy of No Blackout Dates at the world's most sought after collection of hotels, reinvented the hospitality loyalty program when it launched in 1999. By creating a program centered on its members, SPG has developed the most passionate and knowledgeable membership base in the hotel loyalty space. Through its use of new technologies and innovative channels such as SPG.com, SPG.com/stayconnected, SPG.com/flights, thelobby.com and others, SPG continues to innovate and lead the industry. By offering No Blackouts on standard rooms at 940 properties, No Blackouts on hundreds of airlines, and once in a lifetime experiences available through SPG Moments, the program has proven to be a big draw for the world's most frequent travellers, and a significant competitive advantage for Starwood. For more information about Starwood Preferred Guest please visit SPG.com or call (877) - STARWOOD.

About Starwood Hotels & Resorts

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. is one of the leading hotel and leisure companies in the world with 982 properties in more than 100 countries and 145,000 employees at its owned and managed properties. Starwood Hotels is a fully integrated owner, operator and franchisor of hotels, resorts and residences with the following internationally renowned brands: St. Regis(R), The Luxury Collection(R), W(R), Westin(R), Le Méridien(R), Sheraton(R), Four Points(R) by Sheraton, and the recently launched Aloft(R), and Element(SM). Starwood Hotels also owns Starwood Vacation Ownership, Inc., one of the premier developers and operators of high quality vacation interval ownership resorts. For more information, please visit http://www.starwoodhotels.com.

US Airways offers bonus Dividend Miles on new Halifax route

US Airways starting flying to Halifax from Philadelphia on June 1 and to promote the new route to its frequent flyers, the airline is offering 1,000 bonus Dividend Miles each time you fly the route round trip whether it be to Philadelphia or connecting beyond. The offer is valid for flights that are booked by August 1 and flown by September 1, 2010. You must register for the offer to be eligible, which you can do so with the link below:

http://shopping.usairways.com/promotion/dividendmiles/registration.aspx?PromoCode=YH10

For more US Airways Dividend Miles bonus offers be sure to check out Dividend Miles Bonus Mile Opportunities page

China Eastern to increase service to Vancouver

According to Airline Route Updates, China Eastern will be increasing their service between Vancouver and Shanghai by 3 flights a week, making it a daily service. The increase is slated to start on Oct 31 for the Winter 2010/11 season.

Delta eliminates award redemption fees

From Colloquy:

"Delta Air Lines is eliminating award ticket redemption fees for SkyMiles frequent flyer members. Effective immediately, members will no longer pay fees of up to $150 for award tickets redeemed within 20 days of departure.

Before this change, the fee to book an award ticket for travel within three days was $150 per ticket; for travel within four to seven days the fee was $100; and for travel within eight to 20 days the fee was $75. Award tickets booked 21 days or more before departure continue to have no redemption fee."

Air Canada cancels service between Toronto and Westchester County

According to Airline Route Updates, Air Canada is cancelling service between Toronto and Westchester County, NY as of July 5. The flight was operated 3x per day by Air Georgian.

Mexicana Night Sale for Toronto Departures

Take Advantage of Special Fares from Toronto at Mexicana.com. Over 30 Round trip flights for only $293 CAD. Ends June 4th!

Aeroplan discounts Classic Flight Rewards to the U.S.

Aeroplan is offering a discount of 2,500 miles of the regular mileage cost of Classic Flight rewards on select flights from Canada to the U.S, within the U.S. and U.S. to Canada. To take advantage of the discount you must book by June 13 for travel anytime in the next 355 days in any class of cabin. The following chart shows the routes available from Canada. For full details please visit Aeroplan.com

From Canada	To U.S.
Alberta	Arizona, California, District of Columbia, Nevada or Oregon
British Columbia	California, District of Columbia, Illinois or Texas
Manitoba	California, Florida, Nevada or New York
Nova Scotia	Illinois, Massachusetts or New York
Ontario	Arizona, Colorado, District of Columbia, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas or Utah
Quebec	District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York or Texas

Capital One Aspire Travel™ World MasterCard® Review

THIS CARD IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE

This is the review in full as it appears on the main Rewards Canada site.

The next card to be released in Canada with the World branding from MasterCard is the Capital One Aspire Travel™ World MasterCard®. With a scheduled street date of June 8, 2010, Capital One is once again going to jump ahead of the pack in regards to reward cards just as they did with the Miles Plus Platinum MasterCard in 2008. This newest offering from Capital One is targetted towards the higher end market and is designed to compete with the Visa Infinite cards that have been attracting a lot of attention in the last two years. This card may make other credit card issuers rethink what they are offering due to its large sign up bonus, renewal bonus, high redemption ratio and a first for travel cards in Canada, price protection insurance.

Overview
Looking to storm onto the Canadian market with a new and larger set of bonuses, the Capital One Aspire Travel™ World MasterCard® provides an above average insurance and benefit package that comes at a cost equal to or lower then other high end credit cards in Canada. The card features a good earning ratio and provides the ability to book reward travel when, where and with whomever you like. Add to that, features like no fees for adding authorized users, and this card is ready to set a new standard in the Canadian Travel credit card market. For those who do not need all the features and benefits of this card, Capital One® also offers the Capital One® Aspire Travel™ Platinum MasterCard®, which is a no fee travel card and has the same interest rate as the World MasterCard.

Costs
The Capital One Aspire Travel™ World MasterCard® comes with an industry standard $120 primary card annual fee. The card offers a whopping 35,000 point welcome bonus which is equivalent to up to a $350 travel credit. Adding an authorized user is free which puts this card ahead of almost all of the Infinite/Platinum/Gold travel credit card offerings from other banks. The interest rate on the card is Prime + 16.8% placing it right in the middle of the pack of competitors.

Earning
The Capital One Aspire Travel™ World MasterCard® earns 2 miles for every dollar spent on the card for purchases. This earning ratio puts the card ahead of all other credit cards except Capital One's own Miles Plus MasterCard which also earns 2 miles per dollar. The card features a nice 10,000 mile bonus for each year you renew the card. Effectively, this card gives you up to $450 back in your first year of card membership. Only a few other cards in the Canadian market offer renewal bonuses and they come in at 2,500 to 3,000 miles depending on the card placing this card well ahead of that..

Redeeming
See application for details


Features and Benefits
As stated above the Capital One Aspire Travel™ World MasterCard® comes with an insurance package that competes with all the other high end cards. The card features your standard travel accident, baggage and car rental insurance that are found on almost all fee based rewards cards but it also includes some that are only found on a few select cards. These include, Trip cancellation which is only offered as a standard feature on four other travel rewards cards and Travel Medical insurance which only comes standard on about 50% of the cards in the market.

What is good about this card
This card has many great attributes, the sign up bonus of 35,000 miles, the yearly renewal bonus of 10,000 miles, the earning ratio of 2 Miles per dollar, no fee to add an authorized user and the whole host of insurance including trip cancellation.

What is not so good about this card
I can only think of two potential downfalls to this card, both of which may not even come into play for many people. The first is that this card offers no business class lounge access or at least a free membership into the Priority Pass lounge access program like some of the other high end cards. The second is that the 2% return is eroded on lower bookings based on how redeeming the miles is structured. See application for details.

Conclusion
The Capital One Aspire Travel™ World MasterCard® is ready to set the standard in Canada for travel point credit cards. With its big bonuses, relatively low costs, good earning ratio, benefit package and ability to book travel anywhere, we would have to rate this card as above average in the high end credit card market. In fact this card easily falls into the top 5 of all credit cards in Canada for travel rewards. If Capital One markets this card properly to l Canadians, I think you will see a good amount of them reconsidering what card they carry in their wallet and making a switch to this one.

We would like to hear your thoughts on the new Aspire Travel™ World MasterCard® by commenting below!

Related Links:
Capital One Aspire Travel™ World MasterCard®on Capitalone.ca


“The interest rates, fees, rewards details, benefits and other details of the Capital One product(s) described in the article may have changed since the time of publication. Please consult the product information pages on the Capital One website for accurate product details. In the event of any conflict between the product details in this article and the Capital One website, the details on the Capital One website shall prevail.”

Earn Triple Asia Miles for Delta Hotel stays

A repeat of last year's promo, if you are planning on staying at the Delta Hotels in Canada you can earn Triple Miles in Cathay Pacific's Asia Mile program. The offer runs until June 30, 2010.
Full details