Aeroplan soft launches using miles to bid for upgrades and a full time buy/gift miles option

Air Canada's Aeroplan soft-launched two new features today for program members. The first is using Aeroplan Miles to bid for upgrades on flights and the second is the full time availability to buying or gifting Aeroplan miles.

Here are the details as provided to us by Air Canada:

• Use Aeroplan Miles to submit offers for Bid Upgrades. Members now have the option to use Aeroplan Miles when bidding for an upgrade to a higher cabin. Previously, customers could only bid for a cabin upgrade using cash at https://upgrade.plusgrade.com/offer/AirCanada?lang=en. This is the first of what will be many new ways for members to access popular extras and premium travel to make their trip more relaxing and rewarding
• Buy or Gift Aeroplan Miles at any time. Members can now purchase miles for themselves, and give the gift of miles to other Aeroplan Members, at any time, through https://www.aeroplan.com/buy-gift-miles.do#/. Previously, members could only purchase miles to top up their Aeroplan account when they were making a flight reward booking. This feature continues to be available. Members can also continue to transfer their miles to another member. 

It's nice to see the program pushing out more developments and features that members can utilize. Of course the using miles to bid for upgrades is something more of us will look at down the road since there isn't a lot of flying going on. That being said, if you do find yourself flying in the next few month it is definitely a feature you'll want to check out. In fact, if you do please let us know we'd love to have you detail it for us and/or write about it (and we do pay you for these articles). If you are interested please send me a note at info@rewardscanada.ca.

Learn more about the Bid Upgrades here

For the buying miles option, it is just like you have seen on our site from many other airline and hotel programs. You can now buy or gift miles at anytime and Aeroplan allows you to buy anywhere from 1,000 to 250,000 miles. The cost is 3 cents (C$) per mile. This rate is on the high side - but that is always the case when you buy miles from airline programs when you don't take any bonuses into account.

Hopefully Air Canada will be like all the others who sell miles and offer bonuses or discounts from time to time. That being said, there are many award flights in business or first class where you can easily get value way above 3 cents per mile so it can make sense to buy miles for those awards and as always it can make sense to buy miles to top off for an award. For example, if your only 2,000 miles shy of a business class ticket worth thousands of dollars paying $60 to get to that award is worth it.

Learn more about buying Aeroplan miles here.

All screenshots/images via Air Canada

WestJet Rewards extending elite status and providing voucher extensions

Last night an email went out to WestJet Rewards members detailing what they are planning for to those who have elite status expiring soon as well as vouchers that were set to expire shortly:

Tier Status Retention and upgrades
For elite status extensions and/or upgrades WestJet is focusing on those members whose elite status is set to expire in March, April or May:

You may have questions on how a reduction in travel may impact your ability to retain your status or move to the next tier. Since our program has a variable qualification period unique to each member, our actions to date have been focused on those who are impacted in the near term. We have proactively extended or upgraded members who were on track to achieve status in March, April or May. Rest assured; we will similarly look after those whose tier status may be impacted in the months ahead.

When I checked all of my family's accounts we are all still showing our Gold Elite status expiring on April 30 and May 31. With our April trip on WestJet cancelled our qualifying spend isn't near the re-qualification mark for Gold status for all four of us. Hopefully we'll see that extended but honestly there is no rush as WestJet and all the other airlines have more important issues to attend to.

Companion Voucher expiry
WestJet also provided details on what is going to happen to companion vouchers that come from the WestJet RBC World Elite Mastercard and WestJet RBC Mastercard or issued as Milestone awards. The following vouchers will be extended at this time, although WestJet does not state until when:

• Unredeemed vouchers expiring in March, April or May
• Companion vouchers with an earlier expiry date that were redeemed for travel between March 1 and April 30, 2020 where travel was cancelled due to COVID-19

These extensions are set to be completed by March 31 or within 14 days of your travel being cancelled. WestJet advises that you check your account online for details. The flights we just had cancelled utilized our companion vouchers which have an expiry in September. They haven't shown back up in our account yet but based on the above I figure they should be back in our accounts by the first week of April. I also don't expect to see extensions on them until September closes in and only if the current situation we are in continues.

Lounge Access and vouchers
WestJet also provided the following in the email:

We have decided to temporarily close the Chinook Lounge, in partnership with the Calgary Airport Authority, effective immediately. In addition, all lounge access benefits for Platinum, Gold and Silver members will also be temporarily paused, effective Monday, March 23 at 11:59 p.m. MDT. Some airport lounges operated by our partners, including Plaza Premium, may still be open, however your lounge access benefits will remain temporarily paused in all airport lounges until further notice. Please know that we do not take the pausing of member benefits lightly. Safety has always been our top priority; the safety of you and our WestJetters is not something we are willing to compromise. We will provide an update on the re-opening of the Chinook Lounge and resumption of lounge benefits as soon as we can. 

I would also assume that this could potentially mean a delay in the opening of WestJet's new flagship lounge in Calgary. It was set to open early this summer and again I'm sure that will be dependent on how everything unfolds over the next few months.

What wasn't addressed in WestJet's email is what is happening to seat selection vouchers and guest lounge vouchers that are also awarded as a benefit to elite members. Chances are these will be treated the same as the Companion Vouchers but we'll check with WestJet for confirmation.

Use Instacart to circumvent Loblaw stores non-acceptance of Amex and to earn 5x points with the Cobalt Card

Last week we had our reader TitaniumTux let us know that Instacart is finally coding properly as a eats and drinks merchant with American Express. And do you know what that means? That means you can now earn your American Express Cobalt Card category multiplier for shopping at Loblaw''s family of stores:  Loblaws, Real Canadian Superstore and T&T stores. Loblaw Companies Ltd. launched with Instacart in late 2017 in the Toronto region and expanded Canada wide after that. This provided a workaround for those wanting to use an American Express card at their stores. Since all Loblaw Companies stores do not accept Amex this method of getting your groceries delivered via Instacart was the way you could use your Amex as you actually bought the groceries from Instacart and not Loblaws.There was an issue however - Instacart didn't code as a eats & drinks merchant with Amex Canada so this meant you would not earn any category bonuses on the cards - you'd simply earn 1 point per dollar spent.

Fast forward to this month and that seems to have changed. As TitaniumTux pointed out he received 5x points on his latest Instacart order when he used his American Express Cobalt Card for the purchase. We did some searching on Google and other than his posts on Red Flag Deals and our post there really isn't any news around when this change with American Express happened. 

So whether is just happened in the past few weeks or a few months ago we wanted to pass this along again to our readers who shop at Loblaw's family of stores and even more so now that people are opting for delivery instead of going in to the store. Now is the time to rack up those points and miles with the American Express Cobalt Card as it has an excellent eats & drinks multiplier. If you don't have one of the cards I would recommend getting one of them as it provides a very liquid point redemption options which is so needed right now - that is, you can easily use the points for a statement credit without spending a ton of money.

The American Express Cobalt™ Card  earns 5x points with Instacart which translates to a 3.5% cash back return on those purchases.  The 5x points for eats & drinks is limited to $30,000 annually. Once you are at 1,000 points you can start redeeming and those 1,000 points will net you a $7 statement credit. You may ask though, what about a card that earn 4% cash back on groceries like the Scotia Momentum Visa Infinite card and why should I give up that extra 0.5% in cash back? It's about access to that cash back. The Scotia Momentum Visa Infinite Card only pays out your cash back reward once per year. So you have to ask yourself - can I wait to get that cash back in 3 months, 6 months, or even 12 months? Or would I prefer to have access to the cash when I need it or as Jesus Jones sand Right here, Right now? That's where the Cobalt Card has pretty much every other card in the market beat. No other card will give you instant access to a $7 statement credit that is potentially earned as a 3.5% return.

UPDATE:

Limited Time Offer: Increased value in American Express Use Points for Purchases (1,000 points = up to $20!)

Do note that when you shop via Instacart you will earn 10 PC Optimum points per dollar spent however you will not earn any bonuses that may be advertised directly from the stores. Also of note is that some sale prices that may be available in store may not be available via Instacart. This really is the trade off - if you are truly self isolating go the delivery route (and earn your 5x points) but if the savings are too big and you are willing to go shop in store or do grocery pick up do so but you won't be able to use your Amex.

I normally don't shop via Real Canadian Superstore (Loblaw's flagship store out west) but now have my first order with them set for delivery this Thursday via Instacart. and used my Cobalt card for it. I have also been ordering groceries via Save-On-Foods and using services like DoorDash both of whom also code as 5x points with the Cobalt Card.

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Amazon Canada temporarily unavailable via AIR MILES Shops

When we were posting about the new bonus offer for shopping via airmilessshops.ca this morning there was a new pop up on the shopping portal's site:

"ATTENTION: Starting March 23, 2020, and until further notice, Amazon will temporarily be unavailable through airmilesshops.ca due to the impact of COVID-19. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause."

This follows our post from last week discussing the Amazon.ca limitations that were put in place on most shopping portals where only Aeroplan and AIR MILES were rewarding shopping in select categories and all cash back sites stopped rewarding cash back. This means that as of this morning only Aeroplan eStore is offering miles on a very limited selection of categories with Amazon.ca but I expect that will change soon.

Great News - Scotiabank postpones planned increase to select non-travel point redemption options

Last week we brought you the news that Scotiabank was raising the point requirements for select non-travel point redemption options - namely Points for Credit, Gift Cards and Apple/Best Buy Catalogues. In that post we stated the following:

"It really sucks when redemption rates get nerfed like this and it's taking place at a really bad time in the market. Looks like Scotia may be finding the increased earn rates on their Gold American Express card and No Foreign Transaction fees on their two most popular cards are cutting into their revenues and they need to make up for it elsewhere.

As many Canadians are going to be stretching their dollars over the next few months and many are hoping to have their points help them along the way it may be time for Scotia to provide some good will and postpone these changes until late summer or early fall when (hopefully) things are back to normal in this world."

And thanks to Rewards Canada reader Vino V. for letting us know that Scotia has decided not to go ahead with the planned changes on May 4! Here is what they have put on their site:

Update to Important Notice: We recognize that this is an uncertain time for everyone and are here to help our customers navigate this uncertain time. As of March 19th, 2020, we have made the decision to delay the changes to the Scotia Rewards point requirements for certain non-travel categories including Scotia Rewards Points for Credit, gift cards and Apple and Best Buy Catalogues. These changes described below will no longer take effect on May 4, 2020 and will be postponed until further notice.

Kudos to Scotiabank for making the decision to at least delay these changes so that their cardholders can make the most of their points at this time when it is most needed!

You can learn more about the now delayed changes here and also read our post about the changes.

Image via Scotiabank

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50 Bonus AIR MILES when you spend $100 or more via AIR MILES Shops

Many stores across Canada are closing their doors to help stop the spread of the Corona Virus. From Bed, Bath & Beyond to EB Games to Sephora - all have made moves to create social distancing and keep employees and potential customers safe. That means the world of online shopping becomes all that more important to every single Canadian. This also means making the most of online shopping portals to maximize your points and miles earning on those purchases. So when a bonus comes along you want to be able to see if you can take advantage of it.

One such bonus is for airmilesshops.ca who are offering 50 bonus AIR MILES Reward Miles when you spend $100 or more in a single transaction until April 16. So if you need to re-stock on beauty products from Sephora, get some books from  Indigo or need some bedding from Bed, Bath & Beyond you'll want to check out this offer.

As we stated in our piece Shifting your loyalty strategy to help with these trying times last week, before you do your online shopping with AIR MILES be sure to move your earning preference to 100% Cash Miles so that you can use to miles to help pay for your groceries and other items in the future. If you are financially fine however there is no harm in using bonuses like these to just build your Dream Miles account for future travel. If you are 100% Cash Miles these 50 bonus miles will get you a little more than half way to that $10 for 95 miles award level.

Offer details
50 Bonus AIR MILES Reward Miles when you spend $100 or more in single transaction at participating retailers via airmilesshops.ca. Full details. Until Apr 16, 20

Image via AIR MILES

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Online shopping portals have eligible Amazon.ca purchases curtailed

Thanks to Rewards Canada reader Todd W. for forwarding details about new limitations on Amazon.ca purchases made via the Aeroplan eStore. We dug a little deeper and it's not just Aeroplan who has limited what Amazon.ca purchases earn Aeroplan miles, we see the same thing with airmilesshops.ca, Rakuten (nee ebates.ca). As you can see the categories you can earn miles on have been really cut back while the cash back sites no longer award anything on Amazon.ca purchases.

Here are the updated terms for Amazon.ca purchases made via the Aeroplan eStore:

Earn 1 Aeroplan Miles for every $1 you spend on participating categories. Aeroplan miles will be earned across the following categories when shopping on Amazon.ca via the Aeroplan eStore: Apparel, Cloud Cam & Blink, Echo Devices, Eero Devices, Fashion, Fire Tablets, Fire TV Devices, Furniture, Handmade, Home, Kindle Devices, Kitchen, Luggage, Pet Products, Ring Devices. Categories for Aeroplan mile earn may change from time to time.

Please note that the following categories, as well as any others not listed above, are not eligible for earn of Aeroplan miles at this time: Arts & Crafts, Automotive, Baby & Nursery, Beauty, Books & Textbooks, Camera & Photo, Cell Phones & Accessories, Computers, Electronics & Audio, Grocery & Gourmet, Health & Personal Care, Home Entertainment, Home & Portable Audio, Jewelry, Kindle eBooks, Kindle Tablet Accessories, Lawn & Garden, Magazine Subscriptions, Major Appliances, Mobile Electronics, Movies & TV Shows, Music, Musical Instruments, Office & School Products, Outdoor, Power & Hand Tools, Shoes, Software, Sports & Outdoors, Tools & Hardware, Toys, Video Games, Watches, Wireless Accessories and gift cards.

Terms for airmilesshops.ca:

You will get AIR MILES® Reward Miles on purchases made in the following categories, all other categories are excluded. You will not get AIR MILES® Reward Miles on purchases made via the Amazon app.

Included categories: Amazon Echo Devices, Amazon Echo Look, Amazon Fire TV Devices, Amazon Fire Tablets, Amazon Kindle E-readers, Apparel, Automotive, Baby & Nursery, Cameras, Cloud Cam & Blink, Element Smart TV, Furniture, Handmade, Home Entertainment, Jewelry, Kitchen, Luggage, Luxury Beauty, Office & School Supplies, Outdoor Recreation, Pet Food & Supplies, Power & Hand Tools, Private Label Fashion, Ring Video Doorbells

Meanwhile both Rakuten and Great Canadian Rebates no longer offer cash back for Amazon.ca purchases!

Looks like these changes came about sometime in February. It couldn't have come at worse time  with online shopping exploding due everyone staying home and not going out as much to physical stores to shop!

Reminder: Opt-in to receive emails from Sobeys and get 25 free AIR MILES Reward Miles

Earlier this week we posted about Shifting your loyalty strategy to help with these trying times and one of the key points in that post was using AIR MILES Cash Miles to help with your finances. Which means any opportunity you can get to earn more miles to boost your balance up is a welcome one. We have posted about this offer before and just wanted to send it out again as a friendly reminder! If you have never opted in to receive emails from Sobeys you can do so with via this offer and get 25 AIR MILES for free for doing so. REMEMBER though to set your AIR MILES earning preference to Cash Miles before signing up to make sure you keep these new miles more liquid!

Offer details:
25 Free AIR MILES Reward Miles for subscribing to emails from Sobeys. Full details.

Once you start receiving the emails don't just delete them! Read them and click on the 'Load offers' link in them as you should be getting bonus miles offers every week. Here are examples of some I received this past week:

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March 20 Update: Choice Privileges & Emirates Skywards buy points/miles offers, Hilton extends 2,000 bonus points per night offer & Cathay Pacific will continue with 3x weekly Vancouver flights

Remember to visit and bookmark our COVID-19 resource page where we are keeping you up to date with all the latest airline, hotel, lounges and loyalty program news, policies, closures and more.

Earlier we brought you details of the Alaska Airlines buy miles offer and there are two more to let you know about. Both Choice Hotels Privileges and Emirates Skywards have offers out right now for buying their currencies and we foresee many more programs coming out with offers in the near term to try to boost cash flow. You'll find the details on the Choice and Emirates below in the bonus offers section.

Image via Choice Privileges

Hilton Honors have extended their systemwide bonus points promotion where you can earn 2,000 Bonus Honors points per stay at Hilton Hotels worldwide plus 10,000 bonus points for every 10 nights stayed. It was scheduled to end on May 3 but it has now been extended to May 31. Of course the worldwide portion of it won't be in the cards for most of us for at least a couple of months but if you have essential travel within Canada and need a hotel stay you can consider Hilton's brands of hotels to take advantage of this bonus. Learn more about and register for the bonus here. (Rewards Canada earns a commission for bookings made via this link and while you don't have to choose to use it we thank you in advance if you do)

Image via Hilton

Cathay Pacific announced today a major reduction in flights ad will only fly to 15 destinations during April and May. Vancouver will be one of those cities and Cathay will fly between HKG and YVR three times per week during this time. This means they will completely suspend Toronto flights during this time. (Source Cathay Pacific)

Image via Cathay Pacific

Posts since our last update:

• 40% bonus when you buy or gift Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan Miles
  This is one of the short term offers we will and do post on Rewards Canada here. For the…
• Targetted Hyatt offer for free World of Hyatt Explorist status for 90 days + a fast track to keep Explorist or gain Globalist status (Wait to register for it)
   Editors Note: In light of global events and a major slow down it travel we here at Rewards Canada will…
• Aeroplan confirms flight reward cancel with no fee policy and pauses expiration of miles + Air Canada Altitude updates
  Aeroplan has provided further updates on their program tonight in regards to the COVID-19 Pandemic.: Cancel any Flight Reward…
• Shifting your loyalty program strategy to help during these trying and tough financial times
  What a world we live in right now! As my wife told our daughters, what is happening right now…
• Air Canada to suspend most U.S. and International flights and reduce flights within Canada
  Air Canada announced this evening that they are going to gradually suspend most of their U.S. and International flights…
• March 18 Update: Instacart now coding properly for 5x points with Amex Cobalt Card, Centurion Lounges shutting down temporarily & 2x RBC Rewards points when converting Hudson's Bay Rewards points
  Remember to visit and bookmark our COVID-19 resource page where we are keeping you up to date with all the…

Canadian Bonus Offers

AIR MILES (Canada)
- Earn up to 100 Bonus AIR MILES Reward Miles when you rent a car with Budget. More... Until May 31, 20

Other Bonus Offers

Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan
- 40% Bonus Mileage Plan Miles when you buy or gift 20,000 or more miles. More...   Until Mar 25, 20

British Airways Executive Club
- Earn up to 18,000 Bonus Avios when you subscribe to the Economist. More...   Apr 1 - May 31, 20

Choice Privileges
- Receive up to a 40% Bonus when you buy Choice Privileges points. More...   Until Apr 27, 20

Emirates Skywards
- Receive up to a 30% Discount when you buy or gift Skywards Miles. More... Until Apr 9, 20

Ethiopian ShebaMiles
- Triple ShebaMiles when you rent with Sixt for 3 or more days Worldwide. More... Until Apr 30, 20

JAL Mileage Bank
- 2,000 Bonus Mileage Bank Miles for stays at participating Marriott hotels in New York City and Los Angeles. More... Book by May 10 for stays until Sep 7, 20


Follow Rewards Canada:

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40% bonus when you buy or gift Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan Miles

This is one of the short term offers we will and do post on Rewards Canada here. For the next few days you can get a 40% bonus when you buy or gift Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles. This is definitely a speculative buy as we don’t know when full fledged travel will resume but if I were to buy any type of miles or points it would be Mileage Plan miles as they are some of the most valuable in the world. Short term – they would be used for domestic flights within the U.S. but long term speculators will be grabbing them for flights on Cathay Pacific, JAL and more.

With the 40% bonus you are buying Mileage Plan miles for 2.11 cents each and with the C$ crashing over the past week you are looking at just over 3 cents per mile in our currency.I wouldn't consider this the best deal right now for those of us here in Canada but some of you might like to speculate  and take advantage of this offer for when travel outside our border resumes.

Offer details:
40% Bonus Mileage Plan Miles when you buy or gift 20,000 or more miles. Buy Alaska Miles Here Until Mar 25, 20

Editors Note: In light of global events and a major slow down it travel we here at Rewards Canada will continue with our mission of delivering frequent traveller promotions to our audience but with some limitations. We will not be posting offers that end in the short term – that is for March and the first half of April. We will post offers that go beyond that or if it is a short term one, it will be one that doesn’t require travel such as free points for some sort of non-travel action, elite status matches or other promotions like that.