October 18 Update: RBC & Petro-Canada team up for more points & savings, last day for SPG Amex, up to 3x miles on Qatar Airways flights

RBC and Petro-Canada came out with more partnership news yesterday. Thanks to RBC, Bruce and Kevin for sending along the details to us! As many of you may be aware we brought you details some time ago about automatically getting 2 cents off per litre of gas at Petro-Canada when you use a RBC credit card to pay for it. They offer ends on the 31st of this month and will be replaced by an even better partnership!

Starting on October 31, RBC clients will be able to link their Petro-Points card to any personal or business RBC debit or credit card to instantly receive 3¢ per litre fuel savings and earn 20 per cent more Petro-Points on qualifying purchases made at Petro-Canada. RBC Rewards credit card holders will also earn 20 per cent more RBC Rewards points on their Petro-Canada purchases. Unlike other loyalty programs where the benefits are limited to a specific card, Canadians will be able to use every RBC card in their wallet to save instantly on fuel and earn more rewards points. Clients simply need to link their Petro-Points card to their RBC profile online once by visiting the secure RBC website, rbc.com/petro-canada

As you can see the discount becomes greater with this partnership however you need to tie your cards together from RBC and Petro-Points. Not a big deal. Petro-Points already has this going on with tie-ins with HBC Rewards, More Rewards, CAA and more. The question that will need to be answered, is that currently with Petro-Points you can link multiple other loyalty accounts to your Petro-Points and get the 20% bonus points from each of them and will that be the case with RBC as well? That is if you link your RBC card and your HBC card will you a 20% bonus twice? And what about More Rewards? Finally for those of you who have Avion cards or other RBC Rewards Cards you'll score that other 20% in RBC Rewards on those Petro-Canada purchases!

Today is the last day to grab the Starwood Preferred Guest Credit from American Express with the 25,000 Starpoint sign up bonus! Read more about that here and apply for now if you have been hemming and hawing.

A bonus offer to be aware of is this flight bonus offer from Qatar Airways and Le Club AccorHotels. Le Club AccorHotels is a program that has set up lots of promotions with their partners like Finnair and now Qatar Airways whereby being a member gets you benefits in that partner's loyalty programs and now members can earn up to 3x QMiles on all Qatar Airways flights until the end of the year. This means that if you are flying on Qatar between Montreal and Doha you can earn this bonus! Of course Le Club is free to join so why wouldn't you take advantage of this if you are planning on flying Qatar Airways before the end of the year! Find out more here!

 Posts since our last update:

• Why my wife and I each grabbed our own WestJet RBC World Elite Mastercards
  Recently my wife and I grabbed ourselves the WestJet RBC World Elite Mastercard and there really were three reasons behind…
• RBC British Airways Visa Infinite Card sign up bonus increased to 50,000 Avios
  RBC has launched a new acquisition offer the RBC British Airways Visa Infinite Card. This time the offer differs slightly…

Travel Deals
No travel deals today but remember to visit Rewards Canada's Travel Booking site to book travel directly with many of your favourite airlines, hotels and more!

Canadian Bonus Offers
N/A

Other Bonus Offers

Aegean Miles&Bonus
- 30% Miles&Bonus Discount on select award tickets within Greece and between Greece and Europe, the Middle East or Africa. More... Until Nov 30, 17

Aeroflot Bonus
- Triple Bonus Miles for stays at Jumeirah Hotels in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. More... Until Jan 30, 18

Marriott Rewards
- 4,000 Bonus Rewards Points for stays of 2+ nights at the Miami Airport Marriott. More... Until Nov 20, 17
- Earn up to 7,500 Bonus Rewards Points for stays at the Residence Inn Jersey City. More... Dec 17 - Feb 28, 18
- 10,000 Bonus Rewards Points for stays of 2+ nights Thursday-Sunday at the London Marriott Hotel Maida Vale Hotel. More... Until Dec 31, 17
- 1,000 Bonus Rewards Points for stays of 2+ nights at over 40 Marriott locations in Southern California. More... Until Dec 14, 17
- 2,500 Bonus Rewards Points PER NIGHT for stays at 4 Marriott locations in Baltimore. More... Until Dec 7, 17

Qatar Airways Privilege Club
- Earn up to Triple QMiles on all Qatar Airways flights Worldwide. More... Until Dec 31, 17

Follow Rewards Canada:

Why my wife and I each grabbed our own WestJet RBC World Elite Mastercards

Recently my wife and I grabbed ourselves the WestJet RBC World Elite Mastercard and there really were three reasons behind this. Now this wasn't an apply for primary and secondary cards for one account. These were two separate applications for both of us to each have our own cards. I've mentioned the reason why before in our Ultimate Credit Card Portfolio for Families and now we've jumped on it ourselves.

Here are the main reasons why we grabbed the cards:

1. We are a family of four that flies WestJet 3-6 times per year and having access to two companion passes will bring us huge savings every year
2. We each got the 250 WestJet dollar sign up bonus on the cards this first year, so that's $500 more towards our next flights - for only $198 - which is almost enough for flights to Europe with WestJet’s partner Delta (see here for details on that!)
3. First Checked Bag Free for up to 8 people - right now with Gold status that isn't a huge selling point but my status expires at the end of the year so without re-qualification it will come in handy!

Now let's get back to point 1 as that was the main reason we grabbed 2 separate WestJet RBC World Elite MasterCard accounts. The annual companion voucher that comes with each card can easily bring much bigger value to you than your annual fee on the card alone:

Here is an example of where these companion passes can provide some huge value. Since you can use them on any fare class, I searched for four tickets from Calgary to London for Easter Break 2018. When we fly long haul we try to do so where we can relax and rest so with WestJet the option would be in Plus:

Four tickets outright in Plus run $8744.44 however if I booked two tickets and used a companion voucher for one of them and my wife did the same we could drop that price down to $5848.45 (two base fares, two companion voucher fares and all taxes/fees). That's nearly a $3,000 saving attributed to the having the companion vouchers from the cards! Would I book this right now? Probably not since I would most likely use miles in another program to go in a true business class but with WestJet adding Boeing 787's with a true business class in a little over a year I hope, really hope, that WestJet will add a business class companion voucher to the card!

In all likelihood the first year of having this card we'll use our companion vouchers for flights to Hawaii especially since Air Canada has Rouged the Maui route so there isn't a true business class product out of Calgary to Hawaii and looking at the pricing on WestJet for those routes we should expect a decent amount of savings as well by using the vouchers.

Those are the reasons why we each grabbed our own  WestJet RBC World Elite Mastercard. I would love to hear from our readers if you have done the same and/or would like to pass along some great stories of saving some $$$ utilizing the vouchers.

RBC British Airways Visa Infinite Card sign up bonus increased to 50,000 Avios

RBC has launched a new acquisition offer the RBC British Airways Visa Infinite Card. This time the offer differs slightly from past 50K offers in that there is a lower spend requirement ($5,000 instead of $9,000) however in lieu of having to spend as much you have to hold onto the card longer as the final part of the 50K bonus is awarded on your card anniversary.

The sign up bonus remains the same at 15,000 Avios however 35,000 additional Avios will be awarded to any new cardholder who applies by Oct 31, 16 and spends $9,000 within the first 3 months of card membership. That's right $9,000! Remember back in 2012 when it used to be $5,000 for that extra 35,000?

What can you get for 50,000 Avios? Just one example is 6 one way or 3 round trip short haul trips between Canada & North America in Economy Class(+taxes/fees).  See how to do so here.

Or nearly 2 Economy Class tickets between Toronto and Dublin. See how you can achieve that here

Offer details:
Earn up to 50,000 Bonus Avios when you apply for and receive the RBC British Airways Visa Infinite Card. Full details

• Receive up to 50,000 Avios, here’s how:
  Step 1: Receive 15,000 Avios as welcome bonus upon approval
  Step 2: 25,000 bonus Avios when you spend $5,000 CAD in the first two months
  Step 3: Another 10,000 bonus Avios when you renew your card after your first year
• Collect 1 Avios for every $1 CAD spent on qualifying net purchases
• Collect double Avios when you shop with British Airways and BA Holidays
• Earn a companion voucher when you spend $30,000 CAD annually
• 10% off British Airways flights when you book and pay with your card
• 250 bonus Avios when you rent a car with Avis and pay with your card
• Redeem for travel on British Airways and oneworld partner airlines

October 17 Update: Amex Platinum Card access to Lufthansa lounges in Munich, Scotia card updates for November + more!

If you read some of the U.S. frequent flyer and rewards blogs you may have seen articles about American Express Platinum Cardmembers having access to Lufthansa lounges in Munich. When those articles came out it wasn't sure if Canadian cards also qualified, well the good news is they do! As long as you are flying with the Lufthansa Group you can have access to four lounges in Munich. The Business lounges are if you are flying in Economy or Business Class and you have access to the Senator lounges if you are flying in Business Class. This is a limited extension of lounge benefits for Platinum Cardmembers that runs until May 31, 18.

Here is a screen shot from The Platinum Card from American Express lounge finder on American Express' Canadian site:

Excerpt from the T&C's

Platinum Card Members have complimentary access to Lufthansa Business Lounges (regardless of ticket class) and Lufthansa Senator Lounges (when flying business class) in the Satellite area of T2 in Munich Airport from 9/15/2017 until 5/31/2018. To access the Lufthansa lounges, Platinum Card Member must present a government issued I.D., a same-day boarding pass showing confirmed reservation on a Lufthansa Group flight (Lufthansa, SWISS and Austrian airlines) and a valid Platinum Card.

Many of Scotiabank's offers for their cards are to come to a wrap on the 31st and what we can say is that you'll want to grab the Scotiabank Gold American Express card now as the new offer, while still quite good won't be as lucrative as it is now and if you were considering the Scotiabank Momentum Visa Infinite card we'd hold off on getting it until November 1 as it will have a much stronger sign up offer. Finally grab yourself the SCENE Visa card if that has been under consideration as it will have not as good of sign up bonus come November.

WestJet announced today that they will offer winter seasonal service between Hamilton and Las Vegas. The twice weekly service will launch on December 29. (Source WestJet)


Posts since our last update:

• Miles & More Award Ticket Sale - Save 50% on Economy class award tickets from Toronto to Europe
  As we do each month we bring you the latest set Miles & More "Meilenschnaeppchen" discounted mileage awards!  This…

Travel Deals
Lufthansa has placed thier Premium Economy on sale for their flights out of Toronto, Montreal & Vancouver. Fares start as low as $1,589. Book by October 24. Find out more here.

Remember to visit Rewards Canada's Travel Booking site to book travel directly with many of your favourite airlines, hotels and more!

Canadian Bonus Offers
N/A

Other Bonus Offers
Aer Lingus Aer Club
- 1,000 Bonus Avios on your next hotel stay booked via Rocketmiles. More... Until Dec 31, 17

British Airways Executive Club
- Earn Triple Avios on all Hilton Hotel stays Worldwide. More... Until Jan 30, 18

Cathay Pacific Asia Miles
- Triple Asia Miles when you book with National car retnal at participating locations in the USA, Canada, UK, Ireland, Germany, France, Spain with minimum 3 days rental. More... For residents of Asia only Book by Nov 30 for rentals until Jan 31, 18

Marriott Rewards
- 2,500 Bonus Rewards Points per stay at the Residence Inn Dallas Market Center. More... Oct 29 - Dec 31, 17

SAS EuroBonus
- Triple EuroBonus Points on Hertz rentals Worldwide. More... Book by Nov 30 for rentals until Jan 7, 18

Sonesta Hotels Travel Pass
- Double Travel Pass Points for stays at all participating Sonesta Hotels in the U.S. More... Book by Nov 17 for stays until Nov 30, 17

Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
- 30% Bonus Flying Club Miles when you purchase Miles Booster for your Virgin Atlantic Flights. More... Until Oct 31, 17
- 30% Bonus Flying Club Miles when you buy miles online. More... Until Oct 31, 17

Voila Hotel Rewards
- 30% Bonus VHR Points for stays at participating VOILÀ network hotels Worldwide. More... Until Feb 28, 18

Follow Rewards Canada:

Miles & More Award Ticket Sale - Save 50% on Economy class award tickets from Toronto to Europe

As we do each month we bring you the latest set Miles & More "Meilenschnaeppchen" discounted mileage awards!  This month we see another good offering of economy  award tickets! The offers are for departures on Lufthansa from Toronto to 85 destinations in Europe.

These are good for travel between Feb 1 and Mar 15 and must be booked by Nov 1.

You can redeem Miles & More miles for round trip economy class tickets on Lufthansa from  Toronto to Europe for only 30,000 miles. This is a 50% discount off the normal Economy Class award ticket price of 60,000 miles.  Granted the Lufthansa tickets will have fuel surcharges but this is still a pretty good deal when you look at it as a whole in terms of miles+cash outlay.

Some of the economy class offers:

As we mention every time they have the 50% off economy offer is that you could in theory get the  tickets with grabbing a single credit that has a $120 annual fee! How so? As we usually mention in this post you can boost your Miles & More account with the Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card from American Express. Currently the card comes with a 25,000 Starpoints sign up bonus but that ends at the end of the day on Wednesday so you'll want to grab it right now! When you convert those 25,000 Starpoints to Miles & More SPG will award you an additional 5,000 miles. Which gives you 30,000 miles. That's enough miles to redeem for one of the economy class tickets in this offer. Bad news is you have only have two weeks left to book these offers so you won't get the points from the credit cards in time.  That being said, the 50% off economy class tickets at 30,000 miles is offered frequently throughout the year so you can grab the card now and use the points for the next time the offer comes up. Need to grab two tickets? You could choose to get one SPG card for yourself and you for your partner or spouse. If that's not your situation and want two tickets for yourself you could also grab The Starwood Preferred Guest Business Credit Card from American Express as it also has 25,000 point sign up bonus until Wednesday and then you would ultimately be able to have 60,000 Miles & More miles.

Simply book the offers seen here by November 1 2017 

Full details on this offer can be found here

October 16 Update: Canalta Rewards lowers free night redemption rates, 500 free Miles & Miles extended to Nov 30 & more

Hot on the heels of our news last week that WestJet Rewards lowered some redemption, Canadian hotel chain Canalta Hotels has also lowered redemption rates! Free nights in the Canalta Rewards program are now only 25,000 points for a regular room and 50,000 points for a Jacuzzi suite. That's down from 40,000 and 80,000 respectively. Earn rate on points remains the same so this is truly the second program enhancement in a week that we are happy to pass along to our readers! Full details.

The offer for 500 free Miles & More miles for downloading their mobile app has been extended! You can now take advantage of the offer until November 30. (HT Head for Points)

Posts since our last update:

• Meet the Collectors: Road warrior of the Canadian Prairies makes the most of his hotel programs
  Today we bring you our latest Meet the Collectors feature. These are interviews with our readers, who are everyday Canadians…
• WestJet Rewards lowers, that's right, lowers redemption rates for Member Exclusive award travel on WestJet & Delta Airlines
  In the 16 years that I have been running Rewards Canada I can count on one hand the number of…

Canadian Bonus Offers
Marriott Rewards
- 5,000 Bonus Rewards Points when you stay 2 or more nights at the JW Marriott Parq or the Douglas, an Autograph Collection hotel in Vancouver. More... Nov 1 - Jan 17, 18

Other Bonus Offers
Air China Phoenix Miles
- Triple Phoenix Miles for stays at all participating Accor Hotels Worldwide. More... Oct 20 - Dec 31, 17

Avianca LifeMiles
- Earn up to 6x LifeMiles on Hertz rentals at participating locations in Belgium, Canada, Caribbean, France, Germany, Italy, Holland, Latin America, Luxembourg, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom and United States. More... Until Dec 31, 17

Le Club AccorHotels
- 4X Le Club AccorHotels Points for stays at new Accor Hotels Worldwide. More... Until Jan 14, 18

Marriott Rewards
- 5,000 Bonus Rewards Points for stays of two or more nights at the Renaissance Brussels Hotel, Brussels Marriott Hotel Grand Place or the Courtyard by Marriott Brussels. More... Jan 4 - Feb 11, 18
- 2,000 Bonus Rewards Points for stays at the Courtyard by Marriott Singapore Novena. More... Nov 19 - Feb 4, 18

Miles & More
- 1,000 Bonus Miles & More Miles for stays at participating Sofitel, MGallery by Sofitel and Pullman hotels Worldwide. More... Until Dec 31, 17
- OFFER EXTENDED 500 Bonus Miles & More Miles when you download and log in to the Miles & More app. More... Until Nov 30, 17

United MileagePlus
- 30% Bonus MileagePlus Miles when you convert hotel loyalty program points to MileagePlus. More... Until Nov 30, 17
- OFFER EXTENDED 1,500 Bonus MileagePlus Miles when you book a mid-size or larger car with Hertz. More... Until Jan 31, 18




Follow Rewards Canada:

Meet the Collectors: Road warrior of the Canadian Prairies makes the most of his hotel programs

 Today we bring you our latest Meet the Collectors feature. These are interviews with our readers, who are everyday Canadians like you, on what they are doing with their loyalty programs.

Bill Wheatley is the Ultimate Road Warrior - he works in Information Technology for NAPA Auto Parts and travels across the prairies for his job, racking up tons of points and miles along the way.

Last year Bill took more than 45 short haul flights between Winnipeg and Saskatoon on Air Canada. He flew more the 50,000 miles on the airline -- good enough for valuable perks including priority baggage and check-in. He also earned more than $8,100 in qualifying dollars.

Continue reading the interview here! 

If you would like to be considered for our Meet the Collectors series please contact us at info@rewardscanada.ca

WestJet Rewards lowers, that's right, lowers redemption rates for Member Exclusive award travel on WestJet & Delta Airlines

In the 16 years that I have been running Rewards Canada I can count on one hand the number of times a frequent flyer program has lowered redemption rates for award travel. We are used to and expect from frequent flyer programs, 'enhancements' as they tend to call them to the their flight award charts or redemption rates. Normally those 'enhancements' are increases to the number of miles or points required and are touted as a way to access more seats or are shrouded in some minor positive changes to the program in an attempt to disguise the increases. Well WestJet isn't shrouding anything and they aren't even really touting this enhancement, at least not yet but they have actually lowered the Member Exclusive pricing for some of their flights and across the board for all International flight redemption options on Delta Airlines!

They did have a big unveiling of the Member Exclusive program in Toronto on Wednesday to promote the ability to use WestJet Rewards to get you to many places in the World!

When WestJet launched their fixed rate flight rewards on Delta, they called them 'Member Exclusive' fares. These fares also became available on select WestJet flights. This meant for flights on their own metal you could redeem 1 WestJet dollar for 1 Canadian dollar of your ticket price as has been the case since the program launched or now you could redeem the flat amount required for the Member Exclusive fare. The latter is how it works when redeeming for International flights on Delta to Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and South America. When launched in April of this year these were the minimum redemption rates:

• Canada to Europe: 400 WestJet dollars each way (800 round trip)
• Canada to South America: N/A   
• Canada to Africa: 560 each way (1,120 round trip)
• Canada to Japan or China: 640 each way (1,280 round trip)
• Canada to Australia: 750 each way (1,500 round trip)
  All the above do not include taxes or fees  

As of October 11th the new minimum Member Exclusive rates for Delta flights are as follows:

• Canada to Europe: 299 WestJet dollars each way (598 round trip)
• Canada to South America:  329 each way (658 round trip)
• Canada to Africa: 429 each way (858 round trip)
• Canada to Japan or China: 549 each way (1,098 round trip)
• Canada to Australia: 659 each way (1,308 round trip)
  All the above do not include taxes or fees

That's right you can now fly to Europe for under 300 WestJet dollars one way, or under 600 round trip. The 250 dollars you can score with the WestJet RBC World Elite Mastercard is almost enough for the one way flight to Europe! That's a decent offer! In fact all of the redemption options globally just got that much more attractive as they have all been reduced significantly.

Also some more great news that we just received today (Oct 13) from WestJet Rewards is that the entire Delta network is now available for redemption including flights to the U.S., Caribbean, Mexico and more! These can be redeemed for via the WestJet Member Exclusive rate as well! 

On to Member Exclusive fares for travel on WestJet flights,  these have also been lowered! Flying from Toronto to Calgary? It used to 160 Westjet dollars one way and that has now been reduced to 125! The round trip can now be had with the sign up bonus alone from their World Elite Mastercard. Short haul redemption rewards went from 100 each to 99 each way after the change on October 11.

As of October 11th the new lowest Member Exclusive rates for WestJet flights are as follows:

• Canada Short haul: 99 WestJet dollars each way (198 round trip)
• Canada Long Haul: 125 WestJet dollars  each way (250 round trip)

Overall this is great news for WestJet Rewards members! Being able to spend less to redeem for Member Exclusive fares is a welcome change and makes this program just that much more competitive and attractive. 

Now let's bring back our chart we built back in April that compares what it takes you to get that round trip economy class ticket on WestJet and Aeroplan strictly with credit card spend on their most popular credit cards:
 

	WestJet RBC World Elite MasterCard	TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite
Canada to Europe
Minimum spend:	$29,900	$40,000
Maximum spend:	$39,867	$60,000
Canada to Japan or China
Minimum spend:	$54,900	$50,000
Maximum spend:	$72,533	$75,000
Canada to Australia
Minimum spend:	$65,400	$60,000
Maximum spend:	$87,200	$90,000

If you recall our post from April, WestJet only came out ahead on Europe flights and it was quite a bit more for Asia or Australia. With these new redemption rates you can see that they have brought them more in line and in many cases cheaper than Aeroplan which makes their credit card very competitive for Economy Class redemption options. Remember though this is just a baseline comparison for credit card spend and does not take into account other earning from flights and partners or even other potential credit cards. You also have to take into account fees and surcharges that will be tacked onto these flights so for a proper comparison you should look at United flights with Aeroplan since those will route via the U.S. like WestJet's flights with Delta and both airlines will have comparable taxes and fees.


What are your thoughts on these changes? Do they make the program more attractive to you and will you utilize them? Is it enough to make you consider switching from another program to WestJet Rewards? Let us know!