American Express revamps The Platinum Card and makes it about the 'Wealth of Experience'

Recently American Express Canada released the details of their revamp to The Platinum Card from American Express. These changes are due to take effect on June 29 with information packets already arriving to current Platinum Card holders. What follows are the new details of this card which I must say live up to their marketing slogan "a wealth of experience". Don't be fooled by the $699 annual fee (the highest of any publicly available card in Canada, the Amex Centurion is more but that is invite only!) as this card packs a punch in the benefits that come with it. Obviously we are a travel rewards site and this card is targeted specifically to many of our readers as the majority of the new or enhanced benefits are travel related. I will leave it at that as I know most people only skim blogs, so with that said check out what this card now offers:

Lounge Access:
Priority Pass Prestige Membership which offers access to over 600 lounges Worldwide. If you are not familiar with Priority Pass, it is a third party lounge access program that has different membership levels. The top level or Prestige provides free access to any of the lounges in their network. The lower levels have entry fees for the lounges. For The Platinum Card by American Express Cardholders the cardholder and guest can access the lounges free of charge. Typically the Prestige version of the Priority Pass programs costs $399 per year

Over and above the Priority Pass Platinum access, the card provides the following:
- Canadian Platinum Lounge benefit: Free of charge access for the cardmember + Spouse and 2 children or one guest participating lounges in Canada
- The Card provides Cathay Pacific The Marco Polo Club membership which provides free of charge access to Cathay Pacific Marco Polo lounges and/or OneWorld alliance lounges for the cardmember and one travelling companion who are travelling on Cathay Pacific, Dragonair or any oneworld carrier..
- Access to American Airlines Admirals Club for no charge for the cardmember + Spouse and 2 children or two travelling companions who are holding an AA flight boarding pass
- Access to US Airways Clubs for no charge for the cardmember + Spouse and 2 children or two travelling companions regardless of the airline you are travelling on
- Access to Delta Sky Clubs for no charge for the cardmember + Spouse and 2 children or two travelling companions who are holding an Delta flight boarding pass
- Access to American Express lounges for the cardholder + 1 travelling companion

$200 Annual Travel Credit
The Platinum Card comes with an annual $200 Travel Credit that can be used towards any single travel booking of $200 or more charged to the card through the Platinum Card Travel Service.

Toronto Pearson Benefits
The Platinum Card offers several benefits for travellers flying from or through Toronto Pearson:

Complimentary Valet Service at Terminal 1 and Terminal 3. The $25 Valet service fee is waived when you present your Platinum Card upon car pick up.

15% Discount on parking when you use the Platinum Card to pay for the parking at the Express Park in Terminal 1 and Daily Park in Terminals 1 and 3.

Finally, the card provides access to the the Pearson Priority Lane when clearing security at Terminals 1 and 3.

Elite Statuses and Complimentary Memberships
Platinum Card holders will now be awarded the following Elite Statuses and memberships:
Starwood Hotels: Starwood Gold Preferred Guest
Carlson Hotels: Club Carlson Gold Elite Status
Accor Hotels: Le Club accorhotels Platinum
Fairmont Hotels: Accelerated earning of Fairmont Presidents Club Platinum (requires 5 stays to achieve)
Cathay Pacific: The Marco Polo Club Gold
Hertz: Hertz #1 Club Gold
Avis: Avis Preferred

Fine Hotels and Resorts
This is just like the program for the U.S. Platinum Card and provides special offers at participating hotels including discounted rates, free nights, upgrades, complimentary meals or massages and more.

Rewards and Insurance Benefits
Of course the card still comes with Concierge service, American Express Front of the Line service and the same insurance benefits as before such as Trip Cancellation, Out of Province Medical, Flight Delay/Interruption and more. On the earning side it still offers 1.25 Membership Rewards points for every $1 spent on the card.

What it apparent here is that this card is for those people who travel a lot and are looking to enhance those travels. Many of the people who get this card as I have been told by American Express are not getting it for the rewards but for the experiences it brings when travelling while the 1.25 MR points are simply a bonus to those experiences. Overall some people may balk at the thought of paying so much for a credit card while the seasoned travel may find this card an exceptional value for the benefits it brings to the plate

For more information on the Platinum Card please visit AmericanExpress.ca

Capital One enhances the Delta SkyMiles® World MasterCard® (now earns 2 SkyMiles/$)

You may recall a teaser tweet I sent out last week about some good changes to the Delta SkyMiles® World MasterCard® from Capital One. Well Cap One has given us the go ahead to release the details as existing cardholders should be receiving the information this week. To put it bluntly, this is the first Airline Card or as some may call it a Frequent Flyer Credit Card to offer 2 Miles per dollar on all spending. You may say that other cards offer 2 Miles per dollar but you have to compare apples to apples and when it comes to Frequent Flyer programs you have to compare this only to cards like the CIBC Aerogold Visa's, RBC BA and Cathay Pacific Cards, WestJet MasterCards and a few others. The card that comes the closest is actually a hybrid card, the American Express Gold Rewards card which offers 2 points per dollar on Gas, Grocery, Drug Store and Travel Purchases which translates to 2 Aeroplan Miles or British Airway Avios Points. Not only does this card earn 2 SkyMiles per dollar on all spending, it also earns 3 Delta miles for every $1 you spend on Delta purchases making this card even better for those SkyMiles members who do or don't have this card.

The card retains a 25,000 SkyMiles sign up bonus but the annual renewal bonus of 2,500 miles is increased to 10,000 miles if the cardholder spends $25,000 on the card annually. Other than that the card remains the same with its extremely strong suite of insurance and warranty benefits.

Related Post:  Delta SkyMiles® World MasterCard® from Capital One Review

The beauty in this is that SkyMiles don't have to be redeemed on Delta flights only, they can be used on Delta's partners from the SkyTeam alliance, many of which serve Canada directly. SkyTeam is in fact the second largest alliance in Canada after the Star Alliance in terms of the number of cities served. Delta's SkyTeam partners include Aeroflot (Toronto), Air France (Montreal/Toronto), Alitalia (Toronto), KLM (Calgary, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver) Korean Air (Toronto, Vancouver), and China Airlines, China Eastern, China Southern (Vancouver). You can also redeem on non SkyTeam airlines that serve Canada such as Alaska Airlines (Alberta, BC) and Jet Airways (Toronto). Finally, Delta recently teamed up with WestJet and they codeshare on select routes in Canada and from Canada to the U.S. and at some point you should be able to redeem your SkyMiles for a Delta Coded WestJet flight. For the time being you can only earn SkyMiles on the select Delta coded WestJet flights.

The downside however of a frequent flyer program are the restrictions and lack of availability that usually come along with the program and Delta SkyMiles is no stranger in this department. In fact, many frequent flyers, bloggers and even some studies tend to place SkyMiles towards the bottom in terms of ticket availability at the lowest redemption rate. Now, everyone has different experiences with frequent flyer programs and while one person may say SkyMiles is at the bottom another will place it right at the top. As I have I stated before, the key to a frequent flyer program is to allow for some flexibility in routing, dates and times of award tickets. If you go in totally inflexible chances are you will be disappointed.

Overall I think these changes are nothing but good as Capital One has not pulled anything away from this card and are only upping the ante with the increased mileage earning and renewal bonus. The big question that will arise from this is whether other card issuers will take note and up their offerings if people start moving to this card.

With the updated Delta SkyMiles® World MasterCard® from Capital One® Canada the customer will get:

• Earn Delta miles on everything you buy
• A welcome bonus of up to 25,000 Delta miles
• Earn 3 Delta miles for every $1 you spend on Delta purchases
• 2 miles for every $1 on all other net purchases
• Plus, get 10,000 annual bonus Delta miles when you spend at least $25,000 each year
• Valuable World MasterCard benefits:
• Travel Emergency Medical Insurance
• Trip Cancellation Insurance

Please Note: A requirement of this card is a minimum personal income of $60,000 or household income of $100,000. 

There is a $120 annual membership fee with this product and an annual interest rate of 19.8%.

To apply for the Delta SkyMiles® World MasterCard® please visit Capital One

“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.”
---

Sign up bonus for BMO Gold Air Miles MasterCard increased to 1,000

The Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card is not the only card to see an increased sign up bonus release this month. BMO has increased the sign up bonus for the BMO Gold Air Miles MasterCard to 1,000 Air Miles Reward Miles. This limited time offer for new sign ups runs until Aug 31, 12 with the bonus miles being awarded after your first purchase. Apply Online. 

BMO Gold AIR MILES MasterCard

• Earn fast: 1 AIR MILES reward mile for every $15 you spend on the card³
• Exclusive 25% flight discount: Use 25% fewer reward miles when you redeem for any AIR MILES flight worldwide, with no blackout periods⁴
• Travel Protection: Includes coverage for car rental collision damage and unexpected return home⁵
• 19.5% interest rate⁶
• $99 annual fee⁶

Sign up bonus for Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card increased to 15K

For a limited time you will now be able to earn 15,000 Bonus Starpoints when you apply for and receive the Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card from American Express.  The regular sign up bonus for this card is 10,000 Starpoints.

- You will earn the 15,000 Bonus Starpoints after you charge $1,000 in purchases to your Card in your first three months of Cardmembership - enough for up to 6 free nights.
- Earn 1 Starpoint for every $1 in purchases charged to the Card
- Enjoy a Free Weekend Night Award when you reach $40,000 in purchases each year
- Experience Starwood Gold Preferred Guest status when you reach $30,000 in purchases each year
- $120 annual fee (annual interest rate 19.99%)
Apply online

Redemption Stories The Good, The Bad and The Ugly: Air Miles Summary

For our second edition of Redemption Stories: The Good The Bad and The Ugly I asked for our readers to tell us their stories of redeeming Air Miles Reward Miles. Well much to my surprise the responses were very minimal compared to the first edition on Aeroplan. This could mean one of two things, either most people are happy with Air Miles (usually we only hear complaints and not praise) or it is indicative of the type of visitors Rewards Canada receives, that is, we get more frequent travellers who utilize frequent flyer programs like Aeroplan than we do frequent shoppers who utilize programs like Air Miles.

RELATED STORY:  Redemption Stories The Good, The Bad and The Ugly: Aeroplan Summary

Three quarters of the whopping four responses were good stories while one from Twitter was just plain ugly! There were no bad responses.

I would love to hear more comments and stories from Air Milesmembers, feel free to do so at the bottom of this post and finally I want to thank everyone who contributed their stories, without you this post would not be possible! Be sure to watch for the next Redemption Stories request later this month.



THE GOOD
via the Rewards Canada Blog

I have had two good experiences for redeeming Air Miles Rewards Miles for flights. The first was for a last minute flight to attend a funeral. As usual flights were quite expensive to buy only 2 days out but I logged onto Air Miles and was able to find flights to redeem miles for, the rate was slightly higher than the base redemption level but not exorbitant. This redemption saved me a good deal of money. The second redemption I had to call in as I was short about 300 miles for 4 tickets and you can only buy Air Miles to top off for a redemption via the phone. I didn’t have to wait too long for an agent and she was great, the additional Air Miles Reward miles purchase went without a hitch as did the actually flight booking. My only concern was that since I could not book online I would incur a higher booking fee and the agent said that she would refund the difference as she understood that the only reason I called in the booking was because I needed to top of my account otherwise I would have booked online (hey Air Miles maybe you should look into the option to allow people to buy miles online during the booking process!)

---

via email

We have booked 5 return flights to Edmonton from Victoria or vice versus for our family in the last 60 days.

On line system works fine although we have to keep putting the same personal data in repeatedly.

I tried to book a couple of these flight with Aeroplan and they did not have anything available. This seems weird to me as I then went to Air Miles and I got two return flights via Air Canada for the exact same dates.

Observation: It would appear that Aeroplan is not buying enough seats for their members. Or perhaps there are more Aeroplan members flying to Edmonton than for AirMiles members

---

via email

I just used Airmiles to book a trip for the time period I had been trying to book for months (with Aeroplan). I had the pick of any flights I wanted. The opposite experience to Aeroplan. My only problem now is the glut of Aeroplan points I have. The ratios for gift cards, etc. are not nearly as good for classic flights. What a bummer.

---

THE BAD

There were no bad responses!

---

THE UGLY

via Twitter

Actually, I've NEVER redeemed..because I hear the process is dreadful.

---

1,500 Bonus Aeroplan Miles for Best Western Travel Card Purchases

Here is an offer that we see come along a few times a year and it is back for the month of June. At first this offer may not look like anything special but by taking advantage of it you can actually complete a rare to come by 'triple dip'. You've heard me on the Rewards Canada website and on TV, radio and in print talking about double dipping (using a mileage earning credit card and swiping your loyalty program card the same time) all the time but almost never mention triple dipping anymore as it generally unheard of anymore.

How is this a triple dip?
Dip #1: Purchase the Best Western Travel Rewards card with an Aeroplan earning (or any other reward credit card since a triple dip does not have to be in one program)
Dip #2: Earn the 1,500 Bonus Aeroplan Miles for purchasing the Travel Card
Dip #3: Book and Stay on a mileage or point qualifying rate at any Best Western to earn miles/points for that stay.

Here is the offer as pulled from my Aeroplan Bonus Miles page

Earn 1,500 Bonus Aeroplan Miles for every $100 Best Western Travel Card purchased. Full details Until Jun 30, 12

Related Post: Additional Free Night Voucher with the Best Western MasterCard
--

Great Business Class Deals from Canada to Europe and Asia

Three SkyTeam airlines recently launched sales for Business Class tickets from Canada to Europe. My parents actually got on a previous KLM offer like one of these, Calgary-Prague for $2,500 all in. This time the prices are slightly higher but that is because we are also closer to the summer travel season. All of the prices below include all taxes and fees.

Air France Offers (all must be booked by June 5 for travel June 19 - Sept 10)
ROME starting from $ 2499 R/T Book now
VENICE starting from $ 2499 R/T Book now
BELGRADE starting from $ 2499 R/T Book now
BARCELONA starting from $ 2499 R/T Book now
ZAGREB starting from $ 2499 R/T Book now
DELHI starting from $ 3299 R/T Book now
BEIRUT starting from $ 2999 R/T Book now
MUMBAI starting from $ 3359 R/T Book now .

KLM Offers (all must be booked by June 5 for travel June 19 - Sept 10)
Montreal-Barcelona $ 2 499 Book now
Montreal-Cairo $ 3 299 Book now
Toronto-Amsterdam $ 2 499 Book now
Toronto-Delhi $ 3 299 Book now
Vancouver-Amsterdam $ 2 999 Book now
Vanvoucer-Tel Aviv $ 3 499 Book now
Calgary-Geneva $ 2 999 Book now
Calgary-Munich $ 2 999 Book now

Alitalia Offers (all must be booked by June 5 for travel June 19 - Sept 10)

TORONTO - ROME	Starting from $ 2,499 Book Now
TORONTO - NAPLES	Starting from $ 2,499 Book Now
TORONTO - VENICE	Starting from $ 2,499 Book Now
TORONTO - PALERMO	Starting from $ 2,599 Book Now
TORONTO - CATANIA	Starting from $ 2,599 Book Now
TORONTO - CAGLIARI	Starting from $ 2,599 Book Now

--

WestJet offers bonuses on new U.S. routes

Typically when an airline launches a new route their Frequent Flyer program will offer a bonus offer for those routes to stimulate demand and this is exactly the case with WestJet's new routes to Chicago and New York La Guardia. Check out these offers as pulled from our WestJet Bonus Dollars page

Triple WestJet dollars for flights between Toronto, Montreal or Ottawa and New York-LaGuardia. Full details Jun 4 - Sep 3, 12

Double WestJet dollars when flying between select Western Canadian cities and Chicago. Members will be sent an invitation to register for this promotion by email. Register by Jul 15 for flights Jun 3 - Sep 3, 12

Options outside of Aeroplan and Air Miles. Part 2: Credit Card Programs

The majority of Canada's loyalty program market share is held by two programs, Aeroplan and Air Miles. While both programs have strong roots in travel they have grown into what the industry calls coalition loyalty programs, which in layman's terms means many earning partners and a varied rewards catalog. Its hard not to be a member of at least one of these two programs since you would miss out on some potential rewards because of their vast coverage within Canada. With that being said, I receive numerous emails from my readers on how they are fed up with Aeroplan or Air Miles or both and they want to know what other options they have, particularly for travel rewards. This piece will look at the other options Canadians have for travel reward loyalty programs and while you can take any of these routes as your primary program I would recommend keeping Aeroplan and/or Air Miles as a secondary program. One thing you will notice is that to make one of these other programs your primary one, it will require the use of a credit card to maximize your reward potential. For travel reward programs, credit card use is the easiest way to rack up points and miles outside of actual travel. I've broken out the choices into four parts and will focus on the pros and cons of making one of these choices as your primary program.

Part 1: Frequent Flyer Programs
Part 2: Credit Card Programs

Part 3: Hotel Programs



CREDIT CARD PROGRAMS

If you have followed Rewards Canada for at least sometime you’ll know that I like to split travel credit cards into 5 categories. Part 2 of my feature on your other options outside of Aeroplan and Air Miles focuses on three of those credit card categories: Travel Points (with annual fee), Travel Points (no fee) and Hybrid credit cards. The other two categories of credit cards, airline and hotel are covered in Part 1 and Part 3 respectively.

Flexibility, Flexibility, Flexibility, that is the key to Travel Point and Hybrid credit cards. Despite varying degrees of flexibility (see Infographic below) the premise behind these cards is to give you the flexibility to book any flight at anytime with any airline and not be bound by the sometimes very restricting rules of a Frequent Flyer Program.

Some of the credit cards go even further by allowing point redemptions for hotels, car rentals, vacation packages, train tickets and more. What essentially happens here is that you book travel either on your own and redeem points for that travel or redeem your points for a booking made via the credit card issuer’s travel agency. How you book depends on the credit card, cards like the Capital One Aspire MasterCards, TD Infinite & Platinum Visas, American Express Gold Rewards & Blue Sky Cards and the Diners Club Club Rewards MasterCard all allow you to book your travel yourself via any method (online, travel agency etc) with any travel provider and then redeem the points against the charge on your statement. While the remainder of the cards have you book via the card’s reward center or their dedicated travel agency. So as long as there is availability for the travel you want there shouldn’t be any issues in booking it. This is where these cards stand out over Frequent Flyer programs as FFPs tend to have a limited amount of seats at the lowest redemption levels and may not have the exact dates you want unless you redeem at the ‘higher’ any seat anytime redemption levels. With the travel point/hybrid cards you are technically ‘buying’ a revenue airline ticket, hotel stay etc so the beauty of these bookings is that in most cases you can earn frequent flyer miles on the flights and/or frequent guest points on the hotel stays whereas reward tickets from Frequent Flyer programs do not.

The majority of the travel points and hybrid cards offer a rate of return between 1 – 2.33% on your credit card spending which is very comparable to credit cards that earn frequent flyer miles when redeeming for economy class tickets. Where the travel points and hybrid cards lose value is in redeeming for First or Business Class tickets as the rate of return remains at the 1 - 2.33% while frequent flyer program credit cards can achieve rate of returns upwards of 10% or more. 



If your travel rewards goal is to travel in First or Business Class you will be better off with an airline (frequent flyer) credit card or hybrid card but if your travel rewards goal requires any of the following: flexibility, economy class flights, multiple airline options, hotels, car rentals and virtually any other travel then a travel points or hybrid credit card is more than like the better option for you.



Some of the more popular Travel Points and Hybrid credit cards in Canada are:
American Express Gold Rewards Card
BMO World Elite MasterCard
Capital One Aspire Travel™ World MasterCard®
CIBC Aventura World MasterCard

CIBC Aventura Visa Infinite
CUETS Platinum Class MasterCard

Desjardins Odyssey Gold
Diners Club Club Rewards MasterCard
RBC Visa Infinite Avion
RBC Visa Platinum Avion

TD First Class Visa
 Infinite
TD Platinum Travel Visa

There are nearly 40 more cards that fall into this category from other banks and credit unions in Canada.

Additional Free Night Voucher with the Best Western MasterCard

This offer is no longer available