January 27 Update: Alaska Airlines changing some mileage earn rates, Amex Offer for Hillberg & Berk and 50,000 bonus PC Optimum points with Shoppers Drug Mart online

Here's your Rewards Canada Daily update! Your daily dose (or near daily dose) of loyalty program, credit card and travel news, bonuses, deals and more. This update is brought to you by the HSBC +Rewards Mastercard which is currently offering a welcome bonus of up to 30,000 bonus points, no annual fee in the first year and a low 11.9% interest rate! 

 

Alaska Airlines will be changing mileage earn rates for travel on their own flights as of March 30. There aren't too many details as of yet but One Mile at time notes the only publicly known changes so far are for earn rates on some First Class Fares (the highest fare class will earn more two lower fare classes will earn less) Alaska does state the new earn chart will be released on February 23, 2021. There is no word yet on whether mileage earn rates on Alaska's partner airlines will change or not. (Source OMAAT)

Radisson Rewards – Double Points on all stays in Canada and Worldwide from February 1 to April 30

 
Radisson Rewards first global promotion of 2021 is here and it’s a nice simple one. Double points on each and every stay at all hotels worldwide. For most who read Rewards Canada that will mean stays in Canada and all hotels here are participating. The offer doesn’t start until February 1st but you can register for it now and also book now for stays between February 1st and April 30th.

January 26 Update: Redeem Amex Membership Rewards points for education via HigherEdPoints, AIR MILES Bonus Boom returns February 4 and more!

Here's your Rewards Canada Daily update! Your daily dose (or near daily dose) of loyalty program, credit card and travel news, bonuses, deals and more. This update is brought to you by the HSBC +Rewards Mastercard which is currently offering a welcome bonus of up to 30,000 bonus points, no annual fee in the first year and a low 11.9% interest rate! 

 
Great news from our friends at HigherEdPoints as they have brought back another big loyalty partner to their ranks that you can redeem points for education! You can now once again redeem American Express Membership Rewards points for a HigherEdPoints certificate. This means you can use your Membership Rewards points (all types Select, First etc.) to help pay for tuition and/or student loans. The redemption rate is 32,500 Membership Rewards points for $250. This works out to almost 0.77 cents per point which puts the redemption value about 10% higher than the Use Points for Purchases option (essentially cash back). This means for cards like the American Express Cobalt Card which earns up to 5x points your return woud range from 0.77% to just over 3.8%. Learn more about redeeming MR points for HigherEdPoints here.

Canada’s Top Travel Rewards Credit Cards 2021 Revealed - Time to rack up the points for future travel

 
Travel may not be on the radar for Canadians due to the ongoing pandemic but people are itching to get away once it is safe to do so. That means most Canadians are planning for the long term when it comes to travel and now is the time to start thinking about collecting as many points and miles possible for those future travels. The easiest way to build up those points balances is through credit card spend and that plays a key factor in determining the best travel rewards cards in Canada For a fourth straight year, the American Express Cobalt Card takes the top prize in Reward Canada’s Travel Rewards Credit Cards Ranking as it is the best card to use to build up a flexible travel rewards balance that provides big redemption value. For over 13 years Rewards Canada has been helping Canadians sift through the more than 70 travel rewards credit card offerings with its annual ranking. The rankings can be found at rewardscanada.ca/TopTravelCreditCard2021

January 22 Update: Receive a $25 Amazon gift card when you redeem HSBC Rewards points, you can have up to 4 personal Amex credit cards & the U.S. looking to implement a quarantine requirement

Here's your Rewards Canada Daily update! Your daily dose (or near daily dose) of loyalty program, credit card and travel news, bonuses, deals and more. This update is brought to you by the HSBC +Rewards Mastercard which is currently offering a welcome bonus of up to 30,000 bonus points, no annual fee in the first year and a low 11.9% interest rate! 

 
UPDATE! Thanks to DC for forwarding the full T&Cs of this offer and - you have to redeem 150,000 points in one fell swoop to get the gift card....

There is a new (well, new as of January 15) HSBC offer available to their cardholders. You may recall from last month we brought you details on how HSBC now has exclusive offers akin to Amex Offers and RBC Offers. The offers for Door Dash and Spotify are still available but now they have also added one for an Amazon gift card. When you redeem a minimum amount of points for an eligible reward by January 31 HSBC will send you a $25 Amazon.ca Gift Card. They don't state what the minimum amount is however. I would guess that if you redeem 25,000 points for $75 statement credit (their cash back option) you would earn the $25 gift card. The terms state this is only available for the first 600 people so you may want to get in on it sooner than later if it appeals to you. Learn more here. 

Summary of global hotel systemwide bonus points promotions – January Edition

 

Here is your monthly update of all the global hotel bonus points promotions that are available. One of the easiest ways to rack up lots of hotel points is to take advantage of these systemwide bonuses that come from many of the big chain programs and also from the lesser known programs. In fact, right now it should be rare for you NOT to earn a bonus. Unless you are staying at a boutique hotel or perhaps an independent hotel most other hotels out there have a bonus. So take advantage of it! These systemwide bonuses simply require you to register beforehand and they do not affect hotel pricing as long as you book a point eligible rate which are most rates out there. Of course booking through a third party site like Expedia or Rocketmiles does not count as most chains only award points on bookings that are made directly with them.  Here are all the current promotions that are available to everyone this month:

The postponed Scotiabank Rewards devaluation for some non-travel redemptions will now take place on April 1

 

In January of 2020 Scotiabank revealed they were going to change the points requirements for some of their non-travel redemption options. You can read our original post about the changes here. However it didn't take long for Scotia to reverse course because of the Coronavirus pandemic causing a shift in how Canadians were using their points. Only about a week after most of the country went into lockdown they announced that they were postponing the redemption option changes due to the uncertain times ahead. As travel was curtailed and financial woes hit I'm sure cardholders were happy to redeem Points for Credit without the planned devaluation. Fast forward to now and I hate to be the bearer of bad news but it appears Scotia will now go ahead with their changes as of April 1st. 

January 21 Update: Double Accor ALL Rewards points for stays in Canada, the U.S., Mexico and Panama, Rewards Canada Podcast now on YouTube & Budget extends Fastbreak status?!?

 Here's your Rewards Canada Daily update! Your daily dose (or near daily dose) of loyalty program, credit card and travel news, bonuses, deals and more. This update is brought to you by the HSBC +Rewards Mastercard which is currently offering a welcome bonus of up to 30,000 bonus points, no annual fee in the first year and a low 11.9% interest rate! 

On January 11th we provided details on the next iteration of Fairmont's Stay Close offer where you can get your second night free on stays at select Fairmont Hotels and in that post we also gave details on how you could earn Triple ALL Rewards points on those stays if you booked by Janaury 15. Now we can tell if you missed the triple points you can stil get a bonus as ALL Accor Live Limitless launched a new bonus today offering Double ALL Rewards Points on all stays that are booked by March 31 for completion by June 30. Sure Double Points doesn't match the Triple we had before but it's better than no bonus at all! What you need to do is simply register for the offer here first and then book your Fairmont Stay Close stay here. If you already have a stay booked simply register and you'll be all set.

The Platinum Card from American Express will lose its Shangri-La Golden Circle Jade Elite Status benefit on March 31

 
Earlier in the month the U.K. based points and miles blog Head for Points announced the U.K. version of the Platinum Card from American Express was losing its Shangri-La Hotels Golden Circle Jade elite status benefit. Rewards Canada immediately reached out to American Express Canada who confirmed this is the case for Canadian cardholders as well. At Amex Canada's request we didn't release the details until now as Platinum Cardmembers will be receiving details on their next statement about the departure of this benefit. Based on the U.K. and Canada losing this benefit I am under the impression this is a change seen by American Express globally.

New 40,000 point welcome bonus and no fee in the first year for the HSBC World Elite Mastercard

 
Earlier this week HSBC's revealed a new offer for their HSBC World Elite Mastercard that is better than the standard welcome offer we've seen since late December but by no means does it come close to the 100K offer they ran for the last four months of 2020. The new offer provides up to 40,000 bonus HSBC Rewards Points along with having the first year $149 annual fee waived on the primary card.  The bonus is awarded as follows: