Aug 8 Update: One day left for a CIBC response to Aeroplan/TD, 4x MileagePlus miles with Avis, next Volia Hotel Rewards systemwide bonus

Another day of adding lots of new bonus offers!

News, Tips & Tricks
I am starting to get a few phone calls from the media and other inquiries regarding the potential split of CIBC and Aeroplan as the deadline for CIBC to respond to the Aeroplan and TD agreement is tomorrow. While I don't have a crystal ball as to what is going to happen I am going to wager a guess that the split will happen. CIBC is investing heavily in a new credit card product to come out later this year or early next year and would have to put up even more cash to match the Aeroplan/TD agreement. That is a lot of capital to outlay even though CIBC could afford it but why would they want to further dilute their credit card portfolio by keeping Aeroplan and adding a new card to the mix? That is unless the new card being planned replaced the current Aventura cards. Ultimately we will have to wait until tomorrow or even early next week to see what transpires unless one of our Aimia/Aeroplan contacts/readers wants to share the details sooner. For more on the potential Aeroplan/TD partnership see our post from June 27


Bonus Offers
Cathay Pacific Asia Miles
- Earn up to 17,500 Asia Miles when you book hotel accommodation with Ctrip. More... Until Oct 14, 13
- Double Asia Miles for stays at participating Millennium & Copthorne Hotels Worldwide for three consecutive nights or more .More...Until Sep 30, 13

China Southern Sky Pearl Club
- Earn up to Triple SkyPearl Kilometers for stays at participating Hilton Hotels Worldwide. More... Until Sep 30, 13

Etihad Guest
- 10,000 Bonus Guest Miles when you book and fly on a Diamond First or Pearl Business class ticket anywhere Etihad Airways flies. More... Book by Sep 30 for travel until Dec 31, 13 Valid for Krungsri Credit Cardholders in Thailand only

Hilton HHonors
- 5,000 Bonus HHonors Points for stays on the "50th Anniversary 5,000 Bonus Points" rate at the Conrad Tokyo.  More... Until Mar 31, 14
- 5,000 Bonus HHonors Points for stays on the "50th Anniversary 5,000 Bonus Points" rate at the Hilton Tokyo Bay Hotel. More... Until Mar 31, 14
- 5,000 Bonus HHonors Points for stays on the "50th Anniversary 5,000 Bonus Points" rate at the Hilton Osaka Hotel. More... Until Mar 31, 14
- Double HHonors Points for stays on "The HHonors Weekend, " rate at the Waldorf Astoria Ras Al Khaimah. More... Until Oct 30, 14
- Double HHonors Points for stays at the Hampton Inn Panama City-Panama City Mall.  More...Until Nov 21, 14
- Double HHonors Points for stays at the Homewood Suites by Hilton Virginia Beach/Norfolk Airport.  More... Until Dec 31, 13
- Double Honors Points for stays at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Richmond - Midlothian.  More... Until Dec 31, 13
- Earn up to 1,000 Bonus HHonors Points at a participating on-property restaurant at the Hilton Chicago Indian Lakes Resort. More... Until Mar 6, 14

Hyatt Gold Passport
- 2,000 Bonus Gold Passport points when you book a two-night stay in a Club Deluxe room via hyatt.com at the Grand Hyatt Macau. More... Until Sep 30, 13
- Double Gold Passport points per stay at the Hyatt Regency Birmingham-The Wynfrey Hotel. More... Until Sep 6, 13
- Double Gold Passport points for stays on the Bed & Breakfast Package at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress. More... Book by Sep 30 for stays until Dec 30, 13
- Double Gold Passport points for stays at the Hyatt Place Coconut Point. More... Until Aug 31, 13

Japan Airlines Mileage Bank
- Dusit Hotels Double Mileage Bank Miles for stays at the Dusit Thani Maldives. More... Until Dec 30, 13

MEA Middle East Airlines Cedar Miles
- Earn up to Quadruple Cedar Miles on Hertz rentals Worldwide. More... Book by Aug 31 for rentals until Sep 30, 13

Qatar Airways Privilege Club
- Triple QMiles for stays of 2 or more nights at the Flame Towers, Fairmont Baku.More... Until Dec 30, 13
- Triple QMiles when booking any room category at selected Langham properties worldwide. More... Until Oct 31, 13
- Double QMiles for stays at participating Taj Hotels in India. More... Until Sep 30, 13

United Mileage Plus
- Quadruple MileagePlus Miles and save up to 35% on a qualifying rental of one or more consecutive days at participating Avis airport locations in the U.S., Canada, Africa, Asia, Australia, the Caribbean, Europe, Latin America, Mexico, the Middle East and New Zealand. More... Until Sep 30, 13
- 500 Bonus MileagePlus Miles when you spend $75 online via MileagePlus Shopping. More... Until Aug 18, 13

Voila Hotel Rewards
- Earn up to 50% VHR Points for stays at any VOILÀ network hotels Worldwide. Earn a 25% bonus on the points typically earned during your first stay, and a 50% bonus on any additional stay up to a maximum of 250,000 bonus points. More... Until Oct 31, 13

Coast Hotels: 50% off award nights, upgrades and parking

Coast Hotels is the small Western Canadian based hotel chain with properties in four Canadian provinces and territories and four western U.S. states. Their loyalty program, Coast Rewards, is running a nice summer award sale that is offering 50% of award nights (Comfort/Superior rooms), room upgrades and/or free parking. The offer is available for stays until Sep 18 and judging by the info in the email you have to call them for the redemption to be able to get the 50% off as there is no mention of it on their website nor does it show up when you try to redeem online. You can learn more about Coast Hotels here.

Get a free lounge pass when you book flights via KLM mobile

KLM is offering a set amount of free lounge passes to the KLM Crowne Lounge in Amsterdam when you book your KLM flight via KLM mobile. All you have to do is visit KLM Mobile on your phone or mobile device and book a flight by August 13th to get a free lounge pass. At time of posting there were only 142 passes left to give away so your best bet is to book sooner than later to snag one of these passes. Full details can be found here

Aug 7 Update: 4x Aeroplan Miles for Hertz rentals, updated Elite Status offers page, Marriott MegaBonus & more

A busy Wednesday here at RC and FFB! Check out what was added to the websites today:

News, Tips & Tricks
Today was all about Loyalty Promotions. From the latest Marriott Rewards MegaBonus to American's latest buy AAdvantage miles offer to Aeroplan's 4x miles on Hertz rentals we played major catch in this department and still have 50+ offers yet to be added. The major offers had their own posts on Rewards Canada today but some others that are worthwhile include a new Double Miles offer from IHG Hotels and a United MileagePlus bonus when buying Marriott Gift Cards.

We also updated our "Elite Status Offers" page with a few new status match and sign up offers.  Be sure to check this page often as it is updated regularly with any and all new Elite offers.

Travel Deals
Hertz is offering $5 off per day, up to $25, on Weekend or Weekly Rentals of Economy – Full-Size vehicles or Small SUV at participating Hertz airport and off airport locations in the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico and Mexico, excluding NY Metro, Hawaii, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket locations. Simply add PC# 190164 to your rentals through 9/30/13 at Hertz.com

Bonus Offers
Air Canada Aeroplan
- Earn up to Triple Aeroplan Miles when you book a hotel through aircanada.com. More... Book by Sep 15 for stays until Oct 30, 13
- Quadruple Aeroplan Miles and save up to 35% when you rent a car with Hertz in Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico and the U.S. More... Until Nov 30, 13

Air France KLM Flying Blue
- Double Flying Blue Miles for stays at the at Gallery Hotel Art or Continentale Hotel Florence. More... Until Sep 2, 13

airberlin topbonus
- Double topbonus Miles for every stay at any one of the 40 Dorint Hotels & Resorts. More... Until Oct 13, 13

American AAdvantage
- Earn 2,000 Bonus AAdvantage Miles and save up to 25% when you purchase AAdvantage miles online. More... Until Aug 30, 13

ANA All Nippon Mileage Club
- Earn up to 1,000 Bonus Mileage Club Miles for stays at select Tokyu Hotels in Japan. More... Until Sep 13, 13
- Double Mileage Club Miles on purchases made at Chic Outlet Shopping® villages in Europe. More... Until Sep 30, 13

IHG Rewards Club
- Earn Double Airlines Miles when you stay at any participating hotel in Australasia, Southeast & Southwest Asia, Japan & Korea, and the Middle East & Africa. More... Until Sep 30, 13

Marriott Rewards
- Marriott MegaBonus: Earn Free Nights or Bonus Rewards Points for stays at any participating Marriott Hotel Worldwide. More... Register by Nov 15 for stays between Sep 15, 2013 and Jan 15, 2014

Ukraine International Panorama Club (on FrequentFlyerBonuses.com only)
- Double Panorama Club Miles on UIA flights between Simferopol and Yerevan. More... Until Sep 1, 13
- Upgrade to Business Class on UIA flights between Kiev and Moscow or Odessa and Istanbul for just 3,000 miles. More... Until Sep 30, 13
- Upgrade to Business Class on UIA flights between Kiev and Samara for just 3,000 miles. More... Until Sep 15, 131, 13
- 25% Panorama Club Miles Discount for award ticket flights between Simferopol and Yerevan; Donetsk or Odessa and Baku or Yerevan More... Unti Sep 30, 13
- Double Panorama Club Miles for stays at the Radisson Blu Resort, Bukovel. More... Until Sep 30, 13

United MileagePlus
- Double MileagePlus Miles when booking a Club room or above room category at any Langham property. Worldwide. More... Until Aug 31, 13
- Earn up to 4,500 MileagePlus Miles for stays at the Langham Place, Fifth Avenue New York. More... Until Sep 2, 13
- Earn up to 4,500 MileagePlus Miles for stays at the Langham Chicago. More... Until Sep 30, 13
- Earn up to 2,500 Bonus MileagePlus Miles when you purchase Marriott Gift Cards. More... Until Sep 7, 13

American: Earn 2,000 Bonus AAdvantage Miles and save up to 25% when you purchase AAdvantage miles

Every month it seems like American AAdvantage is releasing a different buy miles offer. This time it is a small bonus but the miles come at a discounted price. If you purchase the maximum amount of 60,000 Miles you will end up paying 2.06 cents pre tax (2.2 incl tax) per mile which isn't too bad for an AAdvantage mile purchase but when you consider you can buy US Airways Dividend Miles for around 1.75 cents and likely be able to convert those to AAdvantage in the near future it doesn't look that good.

Earn 2,000 Bonus AAdvantage Miles and save up to 25% when you purchase AAdvantage miles online. Full details
1. Get up to a 25% discount off the purchase price, through August 30
2. In addition, earn 2,000 bonus miles when you buy 20,000 or more miles, through August 15
Purchase 5,000 - 9,000 Miles and get a 5% discount
Purchase 10,000 - 19,000 Miles and get a 10% discount
Purchase 20,000 - 39,000 Miles and get a 15% discount
Purchase 40,000 - 59,000 Miles and get a 20% discount
Purchase 60,000 Miles and get a 25% discount

500 Free Points in the new Preferred Hotel Group iPrefer program

John over at LoyaltyLobby has done a great job of covering the upcoming changes to the iPrefer program from the Preferred Hotel Group and thanks to him we found out about this offer. As the program changes come closer to launch, iPrefer is offering a 500 point bonus for joining the program in the next week plus a chance to win 100,000 points in the new program. For those of you who are not familiar with iPrefer, the program has only offered select amenities for Preferred Hotel Group stays like complimentary Internet, room upgrades and more. Now the program is moving to a points based system where those points will be able to be redeemed for cash-value room certificates or hotel amenities.

Sign up here by August 12th to get the free points and to enter the contest.

Marriott MegaBonus returns for the Fall: Earn Free Nights or Bonus Points on your Marriott stays

Although Marriott's last promotion was called 'Unexpected Bonus' it was no different than past MegaBonus promotions from Marriott and now the hotel chain returns to the MegaBonus nomenclature for the fall. As is the case with this promotion there are several different offers out there and you won't know which one you qualify for until you register. Here is the offer as it will appear on FFBs Marriott page late today with the variety of bonuses that we are aware of (Thanks to Flyertalk!)

Marriott MegaBonus: Earn Free Nights or Bonus Rewards Points for stays at any participating Marriott Hotel Worldwide. Full Details, Online Registration and Booking Register by Nov 15 for stays between Sep 15, 2013 and Jan 15, 2014
Some of the Offer Variations:
- Earn one free night certificate for a category 1 to 5 hotel after every two stays. Maximum of 2 free nights.
- Earn 35,000 points after 20 nights and another 15,000 bonus points after 25 nights - up to 50,000 points
- Earn 25,000 points after 15 nights and another 15,000 bonus points after 20 nights —up to 40,000 bonus points
- Earn 25,000 points after 12 nights and another 15,000 points after 18 nights —up to 40,000 bonus points

British Airways improves online flight award search tool

British Airways released an updated online flight award search tool overnight and while most of the changes were insignificant, one of them is a great new addition. Now the Executive Club Award flight search engine will show availability of all classes of service versus the previous version which only showed space in the specific class you searched for. This is very useful for those who are flexible in which cabin they want to fly in and overall since the BA award search tool is one of the best for oneworld it can be used to look at availability for other programs such as AAdvantage, Asia Miles, Mileage Bank and virtually any other oneworld airline.

I gave it a quick spin looking up availability between Toronto and London in February 2014 and this is what the result was:

As you can see it shows what classes are available and the number of seats left as well for not only British Airways but also their partners, AA in this. Of course you can give it a spin or book your award online at britishairways.com

What are your thoughts on this improvement? Will it make your Avios or other oneworld redemptions easier?

Aug 6 Update: TD Cash Back MasterCard added to Rewards Canada, Award Wallet welcomes back AA, and bonuses of course!

I hope that you all had a great Heritage Day weekend! Here is what the first business day of the week brings:

News, Tips & Tricks
The TD Cash Back MasterCard has been added to Rewards Canada's Cash Back Credit Card comparison chart. To see how it stands up against the competition see the chart here.

Award Wallet, an online mileage tracking service has come to an agreement with American Airlines and effective immediately Award Wallet members will once again be able to track their AAdvantage mileage balances via Award Wallet. (Source AA Press Release)

The latest set of Emirates' Miles Accelerator offers have been added to Rewards Canada's Skywards pages, unfortunately no bonus this month out of YYZ but if you are connecting via Dubai to another Emirates' destination be sure to check the list to make sure you earn the bonus on the connecting flight if it carries an offer. See the link below.

And if you missed it, about 10 minutes ago I posted about the new American Express Travel online booking bonus. Read all about it here.

Bonus Offers
airBaltic BalticMiles (on FrequentFlyerBonuses.com only)
- 5x BalticMiles Points when you shop at Chic Outlet Shopping® Villages in Europe. More... Until Aug 31, 13

China Eastern Eastern Miles
- Earn up to 100% Bonus Eastern Miles Points & Elite Qualifying points on China Eastern flights between Shanghai and Sydney. More... Until Oct 31, 13

Emirates Skywards
- Earn up to 17,500 Bonus Skywards Miles with Emirates' August Miles Accelerator offers. Miles Acelerator enables you to earn more Skywards Miles when you fly with Emirates, irrespective of the fare you pay or where you buy your ticket. More... Until Aug 31, 13

IHG Rewards Club
- 2,000 Bonus Rewards Club Points for any 2 night stay at any IHG hotels in Dubai. More... Until Sep 30, 13

Millennium & Copthorne Loyalty Club
- Double Loyalty Points for stays at the Studio M Singapore. More...Until Dec 31, 13
- Triple Loyalty Points for stays at the any one of 5 Millennium & Copthorne Hotels in Singapore. More... Until Aug 31, 13
- Triple Loyalty Points for stays at the Orchard Hotel Singapore. More... Until Sep 30, 13
- Double Loyalty Points for stays at the Grand Millennium Sukhumvit Bangkok. More... Until Aug 31, 13

Qantas Frequent Flyer
- Double Frequent Flyer Points when you rent any car for 4 consecutive days with Budget in Australia. More... Until Aug 31, 13

Shangri-La Hotels Golden Circle
- Earn up to Triple GC Award Points for stays at the Shangri-La Hotel, Shenyang. More... Aug 15 - Dec 31, 13
- Earn up to Triple GC Award Points for stays at the Shangri-La Hotel, Qufu. More... Until Dec 31, 13

Starwood Preferred Guest
- SPG Take Two: Double Starpoints + up to 10,000 Bonus Starpoints on all eligible stays at participating Starwood Hotels Worldwide. More... Sep 1 - Dec 15, 13

Virgin America Elevate (on FrequentFlyerBonuses.com only)
- Triple Elevate Points for Virgin America flights between San Francisco and Portland. More... Until Oct 31, 13

2,500 Bonus Membership Rewards Points for bookings with Amex Travel Online

In the midst of tons of email this morning was this nice offer from the team at American Express Canada for their Cardmembers. My offers states the American Express Gold Rewards Card since I hold that card but it is open to other Membership Rewards cards as well:

You can earn a bonus of 2,500 Membership Rewards points when you charge $250 (after tax and other fees) on eligible^± hotel and car rental bookings to your American Express^® Gold Rewards Card from August 1^st to September 30^th  2013¹.

In addition to the special bonus offer of 2,500 points, you can now earn 1 additional point for every dollar charged to your Gold Rewards Card on eligible hotels and car rentals when you book online with American Express Travel at americanexpress.ca/travel.

This is nice bonus to take advantage of if you hold any eligible Membership Rewards cards (if not you can apply for it here) but what I find just as intriguing is the offer of 1 additional point for every dollar charged to the card for eligible hotels and car rentals. The Gold Rewards card already earns 2 points per dollar on travel so essentially you will earn 3 points per dollar spent on these bookings. With a $250 booking you should earn 3,250 points which is worth $32.50 with Amex TripFlex feature or more if converted to Aeroplan/Avios and used on the right redemption (and converted when there is a conversion bonus!)

One thing you want to be careful of when booking hotels is that some Hotel Frequent Guest programs do not credit points or elite qualifications on booking made via third party sites like Expedia and Travelocity. Now, American Express Travel is considered a full fledged travel agency that differs from Expedia and Travelocity and bookings made from full fledgedtravel agencies can earn points but I am not sure if Amex's online service counts as I have never booked with them. Feel free to comment below if you have any experience in this regard!

Eligible Cards include: The American Express® Card, American Express® Gold Rewards Card, Platinum Card®, Centurion® Card, Choice Card from American ExpressTM, ChoicePlus Card from American ExpressTM, Business Platinum CardTM from American Express, American Express® Business Gold Rewards Card, American Express® Corporate Card, American Express® Corporate Gold Card, American Express® Corporate Platinum Card, and the Platinum Credit Card.