Rewards Canada: Your premier points, miles & credit cards resource

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Aug 27 Update: Air France KLM Fall/Winter Seat Sale, Best Western Bonus for South America stays, Hertz Gold Plus Rewards Bonus

Quiet day today!

News, Tips & Tricks
No news to bring you today but our tip of the day is if you are planning to rent a car in the near future always make sure you visit our Car Rentals Bonus Offer page first to see if you can earn more miles or points on that rental!

Travel Deals
Both Air France and KLM have launched great seat sales for to Europe and beyond from all their gateways in Canada. Tickets need to be booked by Sep 17 for travel between Oct 16 and Dec 10, 2013 or Dec 25 and May 6, 14. Fares start as low as $849 all in. Book online at at airfrance.ca or KLM.com

Bonus Offers
Best Western Rewards
- Double Rewards Points when you complete 3 separate qualified stays at any Best Western hotel in South America. More... Until Dec 31, 13

Carlson Hotels Club Carlson
- Buy 2 nights get 1 free for 3-night stays when you check-in on a Thursday and check-out on a Sunday at any participating Radisson Blu Hotels & Resorts, Park Plaza Hotels & Resorts and Park Inn by Radisson Hotels in Europe, the Middle-East and Africa. More... Until Oct 27, 13

China Airlines Dynasty Flyer
- Double Dynasty Flyer Miles when you rent for 3 days or longer in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain Mainland, UK, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. More... Book between Aug 31 and Sep 30 for rentals until Mar 31, 14

Emirates Skywards
- Quadruple Skywards Miles and a complimentary room upgrade when you stay at any Jumeirah Hotels and Resorts property in Europe. More... Sep 1 - Nov 30 , 13

Hertz Gold Plus Rewards
- Triple Gold Plus Rewards Points at participating Hertz locations in the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico, U.S.V.I., United Kingdom, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand only. More... Sep 1 - 30, 13 Valid for residents of the U.S. and Canada only

Iberia Plus
- Double Avios when you fly Iberia between Madrid and Accra, Malabo, Nouakchott, Paris, Zurich, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, San Jose de Costa Rica, Sao Paulo or Lagos. More... Register Sep 1 - 15 for travel Sep 1 - Oct 31, 13

JetBlue TrueBlue (on FrequentFlyerBonuses.com only)
- Double TrueBlue Points when you fly a nonstop roundtrip Emirates flight from New York (JFK) to Milan. More... Book by Sep 10 for travel Oct 1, 13 - Mar 31, 14

PointsHound: Double Miles/Points on all bookings until August 31

As we mentioned on the FrequentFlyerBonuses.com Twitter feed yesterday you could expect PointsHound.com to launch a double miles/points campaign sometime today for all bookings made via their website until August 31. Well that promotion is now live so if you like to use PointsHound for some or all of your hotel bookings now is the time to do so! The promotion doesn't state when you have to complete the stay by so I asked PointsHound to let us know if there is such an end date.

If you have not joined PointsHound yet you can earn a 250 mile bonus on your first booking made after signing up via our referral link. Just so you know, I will also earn a 250 miles bonus on that first booking of yours for referring you. I thank everyone in advance who joins via my referral link!

Monday, August 26, 2013

August 26 Update: Via Rail Preference Reward Sale, Le Club accorhotels Platinum Status Offer, IHG's The Big Win Promotion

Welcome to another short week on Rewards Canada (updates Mon-Thu only)

News, Tips & Tricks
In case you missed some of our 'late night' posts from last night: IHG has released their next systemwide promo called The Big Win and the other was news from Capital One that the Delta SkyMiles World MasterCard will now offer priority boarding on Delta and Delta Connection flights.

In other Capital One news, you may have noticed a few months ago we removed the Capital One Aspire Cash World MasterCard from our Cash Back comparison chart and also pulled our post on Making the Most of Canada's best Cash Back credit cards. That is because we had received advance notice that Capital one was going to discontinue this card and we can sadly say that it is official now.

Via Rail Preference has launched a reward ticket sale, see the bonus offers section below for details!

Air Canada will be expanding their Toronto-Sydney Nova Scotia service from summer seasonal to year roud service as of Dec 18. This good news for AC flyers in Sydney NS! (Source Airline Route Updates)

Every month there is a new Le Club accorhotels Platinum status offer that good ol' John at LoyaltyLobby posts about and this latest one also gets his credit. The link is here and remember when you sign up for this offer you have to use an email address that is not being used for a current or past Le Club accorhotels account. Also once you sign up with this link do not call customer service and ask them to join any other account you may have with them as this will get your account closed. If you have points in another account use them up and then focus on your new Platinum account. That Platinum status can also be used to get a status match with Best Western Rewards.

Reader Question:
One of our Twitter followers posted this question in regards to IHG's The Big Win promotion
"How would I register a stay I have already booked?"

Since the T&Cs don't mention anything about when a stay needs to be booked any and all stays during the promotion period should count regardless of when it was booked. The only potential miss I see is if you got something similar to: "Book with us: Book 2 separate stays through an IHG® hotel website or mobile device to get our best price guarantee and receive 2,000 Points" that I got. If that is the case check to see if you can cancel and rebook your stay online (always check the new rate before you cancel however to ensure you don't end up paying more)

Bonus Offers
British Airways Executive Club
- Triple Avios, a complimentary room upgrade and a bottle of champagne (or alternative non-alcoholic drink) for stays at participating Waldorf Astoria properties Worldwide. More... Until Sep 30, 13

China Southern Sky Pearl Club
- Earn up to 75% Bonus SkyPearl Kilometers when you fly on China Southern between Dalian and Toyama. More... Sep 25 - Oct 31, 13

Hawaiian Airlines HawaiianMiles (on FrequentFlyerBonuses.com only)
- Triple HawaiianMiles when you at any Joie de Vivre and Resort. More... Until Dec 31, 13
- Double HawaiianMiles for stays at the Outrigger Reef on the Beach Waikiki. More... Until Dec 21, 13

IHG Rewards Club
- The Big Win: Earn at least 50,000 IHG® Rewards Club bonus points or at least 10,000 miles throughout the promotional period when you stay at any IHG hotel Worldwide. More... Sep 1 - Dec 31, 13
- 5,000 points per award night - Priority Club Point Breaks Redeem only 5,000 points for stays at select hotels Worldwide. Offer and participating hotels are subject to change at any time, valid for stays thru Oct 31, 13. More...

Japan Airlines Mileage Bank
- Triple Mileage Bank Miles when you stay at selected Jumeirah Hotels & Resorts in Shanghai, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, London and Rome. More... Until Dec 20, 13

Qatar Airways Privilege Club
- Earn up to 14,000 Bonus QMiles for Qatar Airways flights between Doha and Chengdu. More... Sep 3 - Nov 30, 13
- Double QMiles when you rent a car from Hertz for 3 days or longer Worldwide. More... Until Oct 31, 13

Via Rail Preference
- 20% Preference Points Discount when you book and travel an Eastern or Western reward trip on the Ocean, the Montréal - Gaspé, or the Canadian. More... Until Nov 30, 13

Remember to follow Rewards Canada on Facebook and Twitter or subscribe to our Newsletter and RSS feed

Latest Priority Club PointBreaks Offers released (good to 10/31)

One of the best redemptions in the hotel loyalty program world is IHG's Priority Club PointBreaks and the latest set of offers are now out for stays until October 31st.

Why are Priority Club Point Breaks such a great deal? Because they offer reward nights at participating IHG hotels Worldwide for only 5,000 Priority Club points. For those of you not to familiar with Priority Club, normal redemption rates for Priority Club reward nights run from as low as 10,000 points for some Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express locations to 50,000 points for ultra-luxurious InterContinental locations and even these locations can participate in Point Breaks. So as you can see you can receive a discount of 50 to 88% off the regular redemption rates. You may be thinking that the high end hotels won't participate but they do depending on the time of year! Please note that like most loyalty promotions these offers are capacity controlled so I advise to book sooner than later to ensure you get the Point Breaks rate.

Here is the list of hotels participating this time:

Europe

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Delta SkyMiles® World MasterCard® to offer priority boarding on Delta flights

Like we mentioned last week, a lot of credit cards will be adding new features or changing with the end of summer. First we had the news from the BMO World Elite last week and now we are pleased to bring you this news.

As of tomorrow (August 26th) all current and future Capital One® Delta SkyMiles® World MasterCard® customers will benefit from Priority Boarding on all Delta and Delta Connection flights. Priority boarding (or Zone 1 boarding) means cardholders and their travel companions may avoid the long general boarding queue, and boarding earlier means a good chance there will be overhead room for your carry-on baggage.

This is great news for non-elite SkyMiles members who carry this card as many of Delta's flights to Canada tend to be on smaller regional jets and not Delta's mainline jets. We all know that overhead bin space is at a premium on CRJ's and such so while it is not a huge game changing benefit as a whole in the Canadian credit card market it definitely will make this card more attractive to Delta flyers.

“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.”

IHG Rewards Club - The Big Win: Earn 50,000+ Bonus Points

While I was traveling on Friday IHG emailed me the details on their new promotion and while there was only supposed to be a sneak peek of the promotion until it officially launched tomorrow it appears they have let people register early and the promotion itself is customized for every member with only the first bonus on the first nights stay being the same for everyone. That bonus is 1,000 points or 500 airline miles. After that is where the customization kicks in for each member. Here is the offer as it will appear on our very large IHG Rewards Club Bonus points page tomorrow:

Earn at least 50,000 IHG® Rewards Club bonus points or at least 10,000 miles throughout the promotional period when you stay at any IHG hotel, including the InterContinental® Hotels & Resorts, Crowne Plaza® Hotels & Resorts, Hotel Indigo® Hotels, Holiday Inn® Hotels, Holiday Inn Resort® Hotels, Holiday Inn Club Vacations®, Holiday Inn Express® Hotels, Staybridge Suites® Hotels or Candlewood Suites® Hotels brands Worldwide. Members will be awarded with 1,000 bonus points or 500 miles for their first night’s stay. Members will begin to earn when they register and stay between Sept. 1 and Dec. 31, 2013. After the first stay, members will receive customized offers to earn at least 50,000 bonus points or 10,000 bonus miles for stays during the promotional period. To find out what your customized offer visit ihgrewardsclub.com/win

Here is the offer I received:
Try One and Done: 1,000 Points
Stay More and Earn More: Stay a total of 4 nights and receive 4,000 Points
Explore our brands: Stay at 3 different IHG brands and receive 10,000 Points
Book with us: Book 2 separate stays through an IHG® hotel website or mobile device to get our best price guarantee and receive 2,000 Points
Win in a Weekend: Stay 2 Saturday nights and receive 8,000 Points
Win Big: Complete all of your offers and receive 25,000 Points

My offers are pretty low as I hit only the 50,000 point mark whereas others are reporting offers that get them bonuses into the 70,000 point range. However this offer is easily achievable with as little as three stays with one of those stays being 2 nights long. I may just try for this offer even though most of my stays have been directed towards Starwood and Hyatt as of late since those 50,000 points would net me a stay at Category 9 hotel or even the possibility of 10 free nights using IHG's PointBreaks offer of reward nights for 5,000 points.

What offer did you receive? Feel free to share it with the FFB readership below and let us know if you are going to try for some or all of your offer.

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Aug 22 Update: Reader question on Air Miles/WestJet fees and Hyatt's next systemwide promo

This is the last update for this week as we are off tomorrow. Regular updates will return on Monday!

News, Tips & Tricks
Looks like the BMO World Elite changes we mentioned yesterday are being noticed! We received a few emails of people who are happy about the changes. I just wish BMO would have responded to our requests for upcoming changes to cards back in June as the card would have definitely ranked differently in the 'Travel Points Credit Card with annual fee" category for our 2013 Canada's Top Travel Rewards Credit Card. Chances are and I am saying this without looking at the full metrics of the change that the card would have ranked second or third. The main thing keeping this card back is the fact that you have to book with BMO Rewards, which means you have to have the points upfront, even if it isn't the full amount where the other cards at the top of the category allow you to book via any method and give you time after that booking to redeem your points which means you can earn more points to make that one travel charge cheaper or that you can redeem for something you may book while you are on vacation like a train ticket. So unless no other cards change (which isn't going to happen given that CIBC will have some new cards) you'll see the BMO World Elite move up in the 2014 rankings!

And as we mentioned this is not the only card to see changes coming this September, another one of Canada's best Travel Rewards cards (we can't mention the name yet) will get even better as of September 3rd! Stay tuned.

Reader Question:
One of our readers posed this question to us via email and asked for us to comment:

"The Taxes and other fees charged by Airmiles on Westjet flights greatly exceed those charged by Westjet for the same flight. This seems wrong. Will you please comment?"

The reason why the taxes and fees charged by Air Miles on WestJet fights are higher than WestJet is due to two reasons. One is Air Miles charges a service fee for their bookings that fall into those fees but the primary reason is that you are paying a fuel surcharge with the Air Miles redemption. Many years ago both Air Canada and WestJet starting charging fuel surcharges on their flights and they showed up as a separate line item but this raised tons of complaints because the cost of a flight ended up being way higher than the advertised base fare. In response, Air Canada and WestJet did built those fuel surcharge into the base fare, so when you book the flight directly you don't see this. However WestJet breaks out the fuel surcharge when charging Air Miles for the ticket and Air Miles passes along that surcharge to person redeeming. So what in fact is happening is you are only redeeming Air Miles for the absolute base fare of flight and have to pay the same taxes and fees seen from WestJet but also the fuel surcharge which you don't see on their bookings. The same happens when you redeem Aeroplan miles for Air Canada flights or many of their partner flights. I hope this explains why there is the difference in taxes and fees for the exact same flight!

Bonus Offers
ANA All Nippon Mileage Club
- Earn up to 100% Bonus Mileage Club miles when you fly on non-stop flights marketed and operated by United Airlines or All Nippon Airways (ANA) between Seattle and Tokyo, Narita. More... Until Nov 30, 13

China Eastern Eastern Miles
- 2,000 Eastern Miles Points for stays at participating Langham properties in China. More... Sep 1 - Dec 31, 13
- Double Eastern Miles Points for stays of 2 or more nights at any Shangri-La hotel, resort, Traders hotel or Kerry hotel Worldwide. More... Sep 1 - Nov 30, 13

Hyatt Gold Passport
- Earn up to 50,000 Bonus Gold Passport Points for eligible stays at any participating Park Hyatt®, Andaz®, Grand Hyatt®, Hyatt®, Hyatt Regency®, Hyatt Place®, Hyatt House®, or Hyatt Residence Club™ hotel and resort worldwide, or any participating M life resort. More... Register between Sep 9 - Oct 31, 13 for stays between Sep 9 - Nov 30, 13

Le Club accorhotels
- Double Le Club Accorhotels for stays at the Novotel Yogyakarta More... Until Oct 31, 13

Shangri-La Hotels Golden Circle
- Triple GC Award Points for stays of four or more nights in a signature suite at the Shangri-La Hotel Paris. More... Sep 1 - Nov 30, 13

Hyatt: Earn up to 50,000 Bonus Gold Passport Points for stays Sep 9 - Nov 30, 13

Hyatt's Gold Passport program was one of the few hotel programs that did not run a systemwide promotion over the summer months although some members were targeted with select offers. Well the wait is over for all Gold Passport members as they have announced their next systemwide promotion called "Discover New Possibilities". To earn any bonus points you have to stay at least 5 nights with Hyatt during that time period. Registration for the promotion does not open until September 9. For those of you who don't have too many nights planned this fall you may be better off taking advantage of SPG's Double Take or Marriott's MegaBonus. Here is the offer as it will appear on RC's Hyatt page later today:

Earn up to 50,000 Bonus Gold Passport Points for eligible stays at any participating Park Hyatt®, Andaz®, Grand Hyatt®, Hyatt®, Hyatt Regency®, Hyatt Place®, Hyatt House®, or Hyatt Residence Club™ hotel and resort worldwide, or any participating M life resort.
Bonuses are as follows:
Stay           Earn                                       Total Bonus Points Earned
5 Nights    5,000 bonus points                   = 5,000
10 Nights    additional 10,000 bonus points    = 15,000
15 Nights    additional 15,000 bonus points    = 30,000
20 Nights    additional 20,000 bonus points    = 50,000
Members must register to take part in the promotion. Register Online (Registration is required) Register between Sep 9 - Oct 31, 13 for stays between Sep 9 - Nov 30, 13

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Aug 21 Update: 2x Asia Miles for premium fares between Canada & Hong Kong, Air Canada Altitude devalued, Alaska Airlines flight bonus

Most of today's information and news has come to you already in separate posts but here is a summary:

News, Tips & Tricks
Air Canada Altitude has been devalued again. See all the details in our post here. Also stay tuned for a post from an Air Canada Elite member to hear his thoughts on the changes.

BMO is updating their World Elite MasterCard, find our more here.

And not too many new bonus offers for Canadians (we had more on FFB but three are not available to us) including the Cathay Pacific flight offer mentioned earlier today and a pretty decent offer from Alaska Airlines if you fly them frequently via Seattle or Portland to cities like Los Angeles, Dallas and more. Also worth mentioning is the third bonus offer listed below for Etihad flights as I want to note that you don't have to be a big corporation to join BusinessConnect and take advantage of the bonus miles. You can even be a Sole Propietorship (or pretend to be one and use your SIN as your business number.... but you did not hear that here!) to join and then link your Etihad Guest account to your BusinessConnect account to make sure you can earn up to Triple Miles on Etihad flights in September.

Bonus Offers
Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan
- Earn up to 10,000 Bonus Mileage Plan Miles on qualifying paid nonstop flights between Seattle(SEA) and Boston(BOS), Las Vegas(LAS), Los Angeles(LAX), Philadelphia(PHL), or San Francisco (SFO), and between Portland(PDX) and Atlanta(ATL), Chicago(ORD), Dallas(DFW), Las Vegas(LAS), Los Angeles(LAX), or San Francisco(SFO). More... Until Nov 12, 13

Cathay Pacific Asia Miles
- Double Asia miles when you register and fly one-way or round-trip in First, Business or Premium Economy Class on Cathay Pacific from Canada to Hong Kong. More... Sep 1- Nov 30, 13 Valid for residents of Canada only

Etihad Guest
- Earn up to Triple Guest Miles on all Etihad flights Worldwide. More... Until Sep 30, 13 Valid for members whose accounts are connected with an Etihad BusinessConnect account only

BMO World Elite MasterCard being enhanced as of September 1st!

As I mentioned yesterday, watch for changes to come to a few Canadian credit card this September and here is the first of them that we are going to bring you.

A pretty strong card in its own right that came 5th place in the "Travel Points Credit Card with annual fee" category in our 2013 Top Travel Rewards Credit Card rankings, the BMO World Elite MasterCard is getting a slight revamping as of September 1st.

Thanks to Rewards Canada reader Michael D. for passing along this information from a letter he received:

Just got a letter from BMO that Effective September 1 ... the redemption rate will now be 2% for every dollar vs 1.9%. Also they are giving free additional cards. Also you will now get 2 BMO points for ever dollar to make it easier to understand the redemption. 100 BMO points will = $1

These aren't huge changes but the fact that they are all good is huge given the negative news from many programs over the past few months!

Free additional cards is a great new feature considering the primary card costs $150 (this is now exactly the same as another top card, the American Express Gold Rewards Card)

The redemption rate moves to 2% from 1.9% while not huge it does make this card even better. This redemption rate is because of the card now offering 2 points per dollar instead of 1 and that the method of redemption of BMO Rewards Points is now less complex. Before the changes the card offered 1 point per dollar but that 1 point was worth 1.9% due to a somewhat complex redemption process. The new redemption process as mentioned will be 100 points = $1 (no more trying to calculate what your points are worth at that 1.9% rate) as 1 point will equal a 1% return and since the card will earn 2 points on all eligible spending you actual rate of return is 2%.

The only possible negative aspect of this change is that the sign up bonus gets highly devalued if they don't increase it as of September 1st. The current sign up bonus is 15,000 points which is currently marketed as a $285 travel credit (using the 1.9% value) but because of the new redemption rate of 100 points = $1 that 15,000 points will only equal a $150 travel credit (or with this special link where you get 20,000 points or $200). I wouldn't be surprised if we see the sign up bonus move to 25,000 or 30,000 points as of September 1st to accommodate the new redemption rate but then again because of the new feature that supplementary cards are free the may not as the reduced value of the sign up bonus would compensate for that new benefit.

TRENDING
Scene+ is not just for movies anymore - it's become a versatile powerhouse for all types of rewards

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Aug 27 Update: Air France KLM Fall/Winter Seat Sale, Best Western Bonus for South America stays, Hertz Gold Plus Rewards Bonus

PointsHound: Double Miles/Points on all bookings until August 31

Monday, August 26, 2013

August 26 Update: Via Rail Preference Reward Sale, Le Club accorhotels Platinum Status Offer, IHG's The Big Win Promotion

Latest Priority Club PointBreaks Offers released (good to 10/31)

Europe

Asia

Middle East & Africa

Central & South America

Mexico

Canada

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Delta SkyMiles® World MasterCard® to offer priority boarding on Delta flights

IHG Rewards Club - The Big Win: Earn 50,000+ Bonus Points

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Aug 22 Update: Reader question on Air Miles/WestJet fees and Hyatt's next systemwide promo

Hyatt: Earn up to 50,000 Bonus Gold Passport Points for stays Sep 9 - Nov 30, 13

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Aug 21 Update: 2x Asia Miles for premium fares between Canada & Hong Kong, Air Canada Altitude devalued, Alaska Airlines flight bonus

BMO World Elite MasterCard being enhanced as of September 1st!

Top 5 Travel Cards in Canada

TRENDINGScene+ is not just for movies anymore - it's become a versatile powerhouse for all types of rewards

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Monday, August 26, 2013

Europe

Asia

Middle East & Africa

Central & South America

Mexico

Canada

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

TRENDING
Scene+ is not just for movies anymore - it's become a versatile powerhouse for all types of rewards