Hilton Honors: 100% bonus when you buy points until November 26 - this is one of the better buy points offers

Hilton Honors has released another buy points promotion for their members! Once again this one is a nice flat bonus rate of 100% when you buy 10,000 or more points. This means you are paying US$ 0.5 cents per point which can be easily redeemed at values of 0.8 cents or more!

Remember reward nights start out at only 5,000 points so you could potentially get a lot of nights out of this offer.

Here's an example of how this buy points deal can provide some great value. Want to stay at the Hilton Whistler Resort & Spa for New Year's Eve? The cheapest going rate is C$923 per night on December 31st and January 1st. The points requirement? 80,000 points per night. So it would take 160,000 points for 2 nights or paying $2,500 including taxes for the same room and nights. 160,000 points would mean you only buy 80,000 points (and get 80,000 as a bonus) for US$800 or about C$1092 (includes GST on the points purchase). This example would save you nearly $1,500!

Offer details:
100% Bonus when you buy 10,000 or more Hilton Honors points online. Buy points here Until Nov 26, 19

Can’t make use of this offer? Check out these other bonus opportunities:

• Double Honors points on every stay at participating Hilton Hotels Worldwide.  If you have a Hilton Honors co-brand credit card (U.S., U.K., Japan or Germany) you will earn triple points on each stay.  Full details, online registration and booking (Registration is required)
• Earn up to 7,500 Bonus Honors points for stays at any Hilton Hotels and Resorts Worldwide. Earn 2,500 points on your first stay and 5,000 bonus points on your second stay. Full details, online registration & booking. (Registration is required) Targeted offer - may not work for everyone
• Elite Status Match and Fast Track to Elite Status Offer - Receive Hilton Honors elite status for 90 days when you hold status with another hotel program and then stay 4 times in 90 days to keep Gold Status or 8 times to keep Diamond status. Register Online (Registration is required)

Find many more Honors Bonus Points offers here!

November 14 Update: Scotia will add Disney+ to streaming service category in the new year and 25% bonus Norwegian CashPoints for online shopping (yes Norwegian)

As many of you will know, Disney officially launched their own streaming service, Disney+ earlier this week. As it is a streaming service that naturally let us to reach out to Scotia Bank to see if the new service will fall into their 3x points for streaming services spend category on the Scotia Gold American Express Card. This is what Scotia told me:

We are looking to add the Disney+ streaming service in the near future. Although timing is still being confirmed, we anticipate to have it added early in the new year.

That's mostly good news for those who are going to subscribe to the new service as you may only go a few months without the accelerated earn rate.

We added a couple more promotions to our Top 6 tips for maximizing miles & points earning on your holiday shopping feature. As we mentioned previously we are dynamically updating this piece during this entire holiday season with the latest offers and promotions. Today we added the AIR MILES Shop the Block event to it and also another online shopping mall bonus - 25% Bonus CashPoints for online shopping via Norwegian Reward's eShop. The latter may not even be looked at by most of you but I know a couple of you out there do collect CashPoints even though Norwegian doesn't even set foot in Canada - you use them for their flights out of the U.S., within Europe and so on so that's why I added it. You can check out the feature here.

Posts since our last update:

• AIR MILES Shop the Block is back - earn up to 1,200 Bonus Reward Miles when earning from multiple partners
  The annual AIR MILES Shop the Block event launched today and presents a really nice bonus mile earning opportunity…
• November 13 Update: RBC Avion Holiday Experience Events released, 250 bonus AIR MILES on vacation packages & a dozen new bonus offers
  RBC is once again offering special holiday events for those who have any of their Avion cards. The main…

Travel Deals

IHG Cyber Sale – Save up to 30% on stays around the globe

Enjoy up to 25% off for stays at Fairmont Hotels in North America with their Fairmont Moments offer. Book by Mar 31 for stays until Apr 30, 20 Full details & online booking

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

No programs are giving love to Canada today.

Other Bonus Offers

Aeroflot Bonus
- Earn up to 4,000 Bonus Miles when you rent with Avis for 3 or more days Worldwide. More... Book by Dec 15 for stays until Jan 31, 20

Avianca LifeMiles
- Triple LifeMiles for all hotel stays booked via Booking.com. More... Until Feb 8, 20

Choice Privileges
- 1,000 Bonus Privileges Points when you add the 1000 Points Package for stays at select Choice Hotels in Australia or New Zealand. More... Unknown End Date
- 2,000 Bonus Privileges Points when you add the 2000 Points Package for stays at select Choice Hotels in Australia or New Zealand. More... Unknown End Date
Marriott Bonvoy
- 1,000 Bonus Bonvoy Points per night on Thursday-Monday nights at the Fairfield Inn & Suites Paramus. More... Until Jan 17, 20
- 4,000 Bonus Bonvoy Points per stay at the Preston Marriott Hotel. More... Until Jan 12, 20
- 500 Bonus Bonvoy Points, a free upgrade, 3 course dinner and free breakfast for stays at the Hotel Goldener Hirsch, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Salzburg.  More... Jan 1 - Mar 25, 20
- 1,000 Bonus Bonvoy Points PER NIGHT for stays at the Residence Inn Big Sky/The Wilson Hotel. More... Dec 1 - Feb 23, 20
- 1,000 Bonus Bonvoy Points per stay at the TownePlace Suites Detroit Belleville. More... Dec 30 - Mar 23, 20

Nordic Choice Club
- Earn Double Club Points for all Nordic Choice stays booked via the Nordic Choice website or app. More... Book by Nov 17 for stays Dec 16, 19 – Feb 29, 20

Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus
- Up to a 50% ROP Miles Discount when you redeem for award flights between Bangkok and destinations across the THAI and THAI Smile networks. More... Book by Nov 30 for travel May 1 - Jun 30, 20


Title image courtesy of Disney 

Follow Rewards Canada:

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AIR MILES Shop the Block is back - earn up to 1,200 Bonus Reward Miles when earning from multiple partners

The annual AIR MILES Shop the Block event launched today and presents a really nice bonus mile earning opportunity for AIR MILES collectors. If you meet the requirement of using Shop the Block coupons at 3 or more sponsors you'll be awarded with up to 1,200 Rewards Miles over and above the base miles and coupon bonus miles awarded.  The maximum 1,200 miles is a whopping 800 miles less than we saw for the top tier bonus of 2,000 miles in 2017 and 2018. Looks like Ebeneezer Scrooge may have paid AIR MILES a visit this year! ;-) All kidding aside the Shop the Block event is one of the easiest ways to earn extra AIR MILES Reward Miles on your holiday shopping and typically offers up some great value

This year the bonuses are as follows:

Use 3 different offers Get 300 Bonus Miles (Same as 2018)
Use 5 different offers Get 800 Bonus Miles (200 less than 2018)
Use 7 different offers Get 1,200 Bonus Miles  (800 less than 2018)

Depending on where you live, what you have already linked your AIR MILES account to (ie Hudson Bay and Samsung) and where you need to shop, the bonuses can come to you at not much cost this year. It all depends on what your shopping habits will be for the next month and a half or so! Also if you can, you could move some shopping you had planned from one retailer to another that is an AIR MILES Sponsor than you can earn those bonus miles for your everyday regular spending.

Here are the basic rules around this promotion:

The cheapest way we found to earn the highest bonus simply by looking at all the details on the coupons page (Alberta region) would be as follows:

1. Register to convert Hudson Bay Rewards points to AIR MILES (30 bonus Miles coupon)
2. Link your AIR MILES account to your Samsung Pay account for the first time (100 Bonus Miles Coupon)
3. Spend $10 in-store at Shell (5 Bonus Miles coupon)
4. Spend $25 on parts or service at Davis Chevrolet (3x Miles Coupon)
5. Spend about $8 to buy a tube of Lepage PL Premium Construction Adhesive at Lowes or Rona (20 bonus Miles coupon)
6. Spend $20 online at Canadian Fighting (5x miles coupon)
7. Join Rewarding Your Opinions and complete 3 surveys (15 bonus Miles coupon)

If you can complete the list just at it shows above you'll only have to spend about $63 earn the full 1,200 Bonus Shop the Block Miles! That's the lowest spend I've seen in the three years this promotion has been around. You also have to add in your base amount miles and the coupon bonuses for an additional ~180 miles or so for 1,380 bonus miles in total. We value AIR MILES Rewards Miles at an average of 13 cents each for travel, so you are getting back about $180 in value on only $63 in spending. That's pretty awesome!

If you strictly earn cash rewards, then you are looking at a return of about $145 still pretty decent for spending as little as $63. For some of you it may take more spending but as we mentioned before if this is shopping you are already planning on doing then jump on the Shop Block event right away so that you can earn this bonus as some of the offers are only available for the next week or so while others run the entire promotional period. And yes, going back to my Scrooge comment at the start of this post - I can see now see why the higher tier bonuses are lower this year as in previous years it would take over $200 to get the top level bonus!

Find out more and print all your coupons here!

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November 13 Update: RBC Avion Holiday Experience Events released, 250 bonus AIR MILES on vacation packages & a dozen new bonus offers

RBC is once again offering special holiday events for those who have any of their Avion cards. The main events listed so far are

• The annual complimentary gift wrap and RBC Avion lounges at five Cadillac Fairview malls across Canada
• Apple Event On December 14th, Avioners earn 5X RBC Rewards ® points all day on Apple in-store purchases made with your Avion card.You do have to RSVP for the Apple event and you can do that right here.

More events will be announced at later dates. Find out more about all the Avion Holiday offers here.

Here is an offer that is perfect follow up for our Feature and Podcast onThe Ultimate Guide to Credit Card & Loyalty Programs for the All Inclusive Vacationer. Right now you can earn 250 Bonus AIR MILES Reward Miles when you book an AIR MILES Vacation package! Simply book by December 15 and you can still use AIR MILES to redeem and bring down the price of the package. Find out more here.

Posts since our last update:

• Earn Quadruple Aeroplan Miles for stays at Coast Hotels in Canada and the U.S.
  Back in September we had let you know that you would be able to earn Triple Aeroplan miles for…
• RBC Visa Infinite Avion - Up to 20,000 Bonus RBC Rewards Points and First Year Annual Fee waived
  RBC has a new acquisition offer for their flagship card the RBC Visa Infinite Avion card. Once again you…
• Introducing WorldHotels Rewards - 4x points to celebrate the launch of the program (very similar to Best Western Rewards)
  Earlier in the year we let you know that Best Western Hotels had bought WorldHotels - a chain of…
• Earn 5x Aeroplan Miles for stays at Choice Hotels Worldwide until December 15
  The latest Choice Hotels Aeroplan bonus miles offer was released at the start of this month and it continues…
• Aeroplan Elite Status to be wound down in 2020
  Word is out now that Aeroplan's Elite Status program will be winding down in 2020 and as of January…
• Podcast Episode 60 - The Ultimate Guide to Credit Card & Loyalty Programs for the All Inclusive Vacationer
   Episode 60 - November 12, 2019 The Ultimate Guide to Credit Card & Loyalty Programs for the All Inclusive Vacationer In…
• November 12 Update: AIR MILES Shop the Block returns in 2 days with up to 1,200 bonus miles and the last Air Transat A310 flights to be YQB-CDG
  AIR MILES Shop the Block returns for the holiday shopping season with the opportunity to earn up to 1,200…

Travel Deals

Accor Hotels:Save up to 35% at Fairmont, Swissotel, Sofitel, Pullman, 21c Museum Hotels and Novotel in North and Central America. Full details & online booking
 Up to 25% off your stay Plus, Le Club AccorHotels members who book this offer automatically save an additional 10% off with the Members’ Rate. 

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

Air Canada Aeroplan
- 5x Aeroplan Miles for stays for stays at over 7,000 Choice Hotels worldwide. More... Until Dec 15, 19
- Quadruple Aeroplan Miles for stays at any Coast Hotels location in Canada or the U.S. More... Until Dec 31, 19

AIR MILES (Canada)
- 250 Bonus AIR MILES Reward Miles when you book select vacation packages via AIR MILES Vacations powered by Redtag.ca. More... Book by Dec 15, 19

CIBC Rewards
- Earn up to 35,000 Bonus Aventura Points when you apply for and receive the CIBC Aventura Visa Infinte Card. More... Until Mar 1, 20
- Earn up to 35,000 Bonus Aventura Points when you apply for and receive the CIBC Aventura Gold Visa Card. More... Until Mar 1, 20
- Earn up to 5,000 Bonus Aventura Points when you apply for and receive the CIBC Aventura Visa Card. More... Until Mar 1, 20

RBC Rewards
- Earn up to 20,000 Bonus RBC Rewards Points and first year annual fee waived when you apply for and receive the RBC Visa Infinite Avion card. More... Unknown End Date

Other Bonus Offers

Aeroflot Bonus
- Earn Quadruple Bonus Miles when you book hotels via Trip.com’s PointsPLUS. More... Book by Nov 30 for stays until Jan 31, 20

JAL Mileage Bank
- Earn up to 500 Bonus Mileage Bank Miles for stays at participating Tokyu Hotels in Japan. More... Until Jan 31, 20

Le Club AccorHotels
- 4x Le Club AccorHotels Points for stays at Art Series, Mantra, Peppers, and BreakFree hotels in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, French Polynesia, the Maldives and Hawaii. More... Book by Jan 31 for stays Dec 1 - Feb 29, 20

Stash Hotel Rewards
- Up to 40% off and double Stash Rewards points for stays at select hotels in the U.S. and Mexico. More... Book by Nov 18, 19
- Double Stash Rewards Points for stays at the Shade Hotel Redondo Beach. More... Until Dec 30, 19



Follow Rewards Canada:

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Earn Quadruple Aeroplan Miles for stays at Coast Hotels in Canada and the U.S.

Back in September we had let you know that you would be able to earn Triple Aeroplan miles for stays at Coast Hotels in Canada and the U.S. until the end of November. Well it looks like they have gone and changed the offer on us....

Aeroplan members, your stays with Coast Hotels just got a lot sweeter. Starting November 1, 2019, we’re increasing your bonus miles earned from three to 4X the miles on all eligible stays completed by December 31, 2019!

It's actually good news! They increased the bonus to quadruple miles for any stays you have during this time period.

Offer details:
Quadruple Aeroplan Miles for stays at any Coast Hotels location in Canada or the U.S. Full details & online booking  Until Dec 31, 19

Can’t make use of this offer? Here are some other bonus offers available:

• Earn up to 30% Bonus Aeroplan Miles when you fly on Air Canada or Air China between Canada and China. Bonus is awarded on both one way and round trip flights. Full details, online registration & booking.
• Earn 500 Bonus Aeroplan Miles for stays at Best Western Hotels in Canada, the United States, or the Caribbean Islands Full details, online registration & booking (Registration is required)
• Double Aeroplan Miles for stays at all participating IHG Hotels Worldwide. Full details, online registration & booking. (Registration is required) 

Find our complete list of Aeroplan bonus miles offers here!

RBC Visa Infinite Avion - Up to 20,000 Bonus RBC Rewards Points and First Year Annual Fee waived

RBC has a new acquisition offer for their flagship card the RBC Visa Infinite Avion card. Once again you can get 20,000 points and have the first year free but you'll have to put some spend on the card to get the full bonus.  When approved you'll get 15,000 points then when you spend $1,000 on the card in the first three months you'll be awarded with 5,000 more points for 20,000 total - and the first year annual fee is waived. This means you are basically getting the  20,000 points for free. This is a great deal assuming the $1,000 in spending you put on the card is spending you would do otherwise. This is an easily achievable spend requirement only only $333.33 per month so it is definitely an offer you'll want to check out.

Those 20,000 points will equate to 20,000 British Airways Avios at no cost or more when they run their transfer bonuses like the current 50% bonus.  It is also equivalent to 200 WestJet dollars at no cost and that doesn't even take into account the transfer bonuses they run occasionally throughout the year for WestJet. And remember BA has household accounts so you and your spouse could each get the card then convert to BA and combine the Avios into one account for no less than 40,000 Avios. Remember that you can get really cheap Avios redemptions to Dublin from Toronto and Montreal on Aer Lingus. There are just so many options here....

Here are some articles we have written to help you decide if this offer is for you!

• RBC Visa Infinite Avion Card Review
• How to maximize value out of the RBC Avion Airline Award Chart
• Utilizing British Airways' Executive Club for flights in North America
• How you can easily get a free flight between Toronto and Dublin, Ireland (pre taxes/fees) or 4 flights for $240+fees

Introducing WorldHotels Rewards - 4x points to celebrate the launch of the program (very similar to Best Western Rewards)

Earlier in the year we let you know that Best Western Hotels had bought WorldHotels - a chain of about 300 hotels around the World. Up until now we didn't know how the chain would be, if at all, integrated into Best Western and Best Western Rewards. We have the answer now and it looks like WorldHotels will be run separately with their own program called WorldRewards. This essentially replaces their long defunct World Hotel Peakpoints program.

What is WorldHotels Rewards?
That's an easy question to answer. It's almost an exact copy of Best Western Rewards. The program earns points at the same rate as Best Western Rewards for stays at all participating WorldHotels locations and offers up the same elite levels. Their are slight differences in the levels from the base level being named Red instead of Blue as seen in BWR and the benefits are slightly different like late check out only being available to higher elite levels in WHR.

Elite Levels & Benefits
Here are the WHR levels and benefits:

Compare this to BWR:

As you can see the earn and qualification rates are exactly the same. The benefits are less with WHR as there are no thank you gifts or points, late check out is only available to the top two levels and free night redemptions don't count towards status. 

Also, just like Best Western Rewards, WorldHotels Rewards is offering the famous Status Match No Catch promotion. This means they will match your status from another hotel program, I'm guessing even Best Western Rewards is included. Learn more about the Status Match offer here. I'll have to update our feature  How to maximize the elite status benefits from The Platinum Card from American Express to 10 hotel chain elite statuses now thanks to this status match offer!

Earning Points or Airline Miles
Reading the terms and conditions of the program it does appear that not only do WHR members earn points for stays at select WorldHotels they also receive points for stays at all Best Western Hotels.

Members may earn Points at participating Licensed Hotels on stays that are eligible to earn points (“Eligible Stays”). Not all Licensed Hotels participate in the Program.  Please view the list of participating Licensed Hotels. Members may also earn Points on Eligible Stays at all Best Western branded properties worldwide.

As you can see it states 'Not all licensed hotels participate" and it is a big number. Right now it appears that only 61 of WorldHotels 300 or so locations are participating in the program. None of the hotels are in Canada.

You can also choose to earn airline miles with WHR, they have seventeen airlines to choose from, some of which are not partners with Best Western Rewards (and vice versa).

Learn more about earning WorldHotels Rewards Points here and more about earning Airline Miles here.

Redeeming Points
This is where the big difference lies between the two programs. At this time it appears that you cannot redeem your WorldHotels Rewards points for actual free night stays. That would explain why you don't earn elite status on free nights..... At this point you can only redeem WHR points for gift cards or certificates. Here's an example:

Learn more about redeeming WorldHotels Rewards Points here.

Program Launch Bonus Offer
To celebrate the launch of WorldHotels Rewards you can earn 4x Points on all stays at all the participating WorldHotels locations around the World. This means you'll earn 40 points per US$ spent on those stays. Learn more about the promotion here. The 4x points offer runs until December 31, 2019.

Thoughts
That's about all we know so far about the program! In general you'll want to join this program if you know you may have stays at any of the ~60 hotels and earn the bonus points. It would be nice to know if you could earn Best Western Rewards points for those stays instead however since you would be earning points for future free nights and not just gift cards. Still a reward is a reward and the fact that you can status match right away it should make stays at any of those WorldHotels a little bit better if you can score a room upgrade!

Visit WorldHotels Rewards today to learn more and to join the program

Earn 5x Aeroplan Miles for stays at Choice Hotels Worldwide until December 15

The latest Choice Hotels Aeroplan bonus miles offer was released at the start of this month and it continues on as the same offer we saw until the end of September. A nice and easy 5x miles on all Choice Hotels stays. Here are the Choice Hotels brands as reminder since "Choice" is an actual brick and mortar hotel:

Offer details
5x Aeroplan Miles for stays for stays at over 7,000 Choice Hotels worldwide. Full details & online booking Until Dec 15, 19
Simply provide your Aeroplan Number upon check-in, or update your earning preference in your Choice Privileges account.

Can’t make use of this offer? Here are some other bonus offers available:

• Earn up to 30% Bonus Aeroplan Miles when you fly on Air Canada or Air China between Canada and China. Bonus is awarded on both one way and round trip flights. Full details, online registration & booking.
• Earn 500 Bonus Aeroplan Miles for stays at Best Western Hotels in Canada, the United States, or the Caribbean Islands Full details, online registration & booking (Registration is required)
• Double Aeroplan Miles for stays at all participating IHG Hotels Worldwide. Full details, online registration & booking. (Registration is required) 

Find our complete list of Aeroplan bonus miles offers here!

Aeroplan Elite Status to be wound down in 2020

Word is out now that Aeroplan's Elite Status program will be winding down in 2020 and as of January 2020 you'll no longer be able to qualify for Aeroplan status. That gives you one and half months to rack up as many qualifying miles as possible if you had intentions of hitting anyone of the Aeroplan status levels of Silver, Black or Diamond.

If you have already, or will qualify for one of the status levels by December 31 you will continue to enjoy the benefits of those levels until mid-2020 when the newly revamped Air Canada program launches. At that time several of the benefits will no longer be available, specifically:

• Market Fare Flight Reward Discounts
• Preferential Rates on Flight Reward Fees

Here are all the benefits associated with the Aeroplan Status program:

This change should have been anticipated with Aeroplan being brought back in house to Air Canada. In reality why would you want to run two separate elite status programs? Air Canada has Altitude, the main elite status program for the airline and Mark Nasr has already alluded to potentially offering some sort of elite status benefits with their credit cards in the future so the best guess is that will be the road to elite status for the frequent spender who is a non-frequent flyer.

Sources: Aeroplan / Reddit
 

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Podcast Episode 60 - The Ultimate Guide to Credit Card & Loyalty Programs for the All Inclusive Vacationer

 

Episode 60 - November 12, 2019
The Ultimate Guide to Credit Card & Loyalty Programs for the All Inclusive Vacationer

 

In this episode we delve into one of the latest features on Rewards Canada and a topic that has been mostly ignored by reward programs as well as travel and loyalty points bloggers and websites. That topic is how to use credit card and loyalty program points and miles towards All Inclusive Vacation packages. We discuss six credit cards whose reward programs are ideal for package vacations and also take a look at six loyalty programs whose points and miles can help save you some cash on those same vacations.

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Links relating to this week's topic:
The Ultimate Guide to Credit Card & Loyalty Programs for the All Inclusive Vacationer