February 10 Update: Best Western Rewards halves 2021 elite qualification requirements, Marriott to add 19 all inclusive resorts from Canada's Sunwing Travel & a 40,000 bonus PC Optimum point offer

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! 

 

Best Western Rewards is cutting its Elite Status eligibility qualifications in half for 2021. This means you can achieve Gold Elite Status with just five nights, three stays or 5,000 points. All other levels have also been halved, see the chart below for the qualification requirements. Learn more here. Remember you also get automatic Gold Status and a fast track to Diamond Status with the MBNA Best Western Mastercard or you can also take part in their super easy status match offer if you have status with another hotel program. 

You can now exchange WestJet companion vouchers for lounge access and gift Gold Elite status with your milestone awards

Back in November of 2020 WestJet released the news that new benefits were set to come for WestJet Rewards members who have a WestJet RBC World Elite Mastercard and members who hold Gold or Platinum Elite status. One is the ability to convert the companion voucher earned on the Mastercard to lounge passes and the other for the elite members is the gifting of elite status. The good news is those two new benefits officially launched today on February 10th. 

Fairmont Hotels in Canada offering up new renovations, dining experiences, special packages and more for 2021

Fairmont Hotels here in Canada have been at the forefront of creating meaningful and safe experiences and offers for those wanting to escape from home with a staycation. For 2021 Fairmont is continuing down that path with the introduction renovations, dining experiences, special packages and more at many of their hotels. Below we list just some of the highlights for this year that Fairmont has passed along to us to share with our readers.

February 9 Update: HBC chooses Neo Financial to issue their new Mastercard, Guide to Credit Card Cash Back Liquidity & Air Canada announces more lay offs and route cuts

 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! 

 
HBC (The Bay) has decided on who their credit card partner will be after news that their partnership with Capital One is ending. This one comes as a bit of a surprise and is a huge score for this newcomer. HBC will be partnering with Neo Financial to issue their new Mastercard! We detailed neo late last year (and have another update coming as they have released more card options) as they are a newcomer to the Canadian market, but they have a lot of backing thanks to being founded by some of the same people who launched and sold SkipTheDishers and they are looking to disrupt the current financial model in Canada (banking, credit cards, mortgages etc.). For them to score a co-brand deal this early on is huge for Neo and we pass along a big congratulations to them! Thanks to Rewards Canada contributor Jeff W. for passing along this news! (Source Business Wire)

Koho Premium Prepaid Visa Review

The Koho Premium Prepaid Visa is one of only a select few prepaid credit cards that offers rewards for your everyday spending on the card. This card is virtually open to anyone since there are no credit checks necessary as you have to fund it prior to using it. Technically what you are opening a savings account with Koho that comes with a reloadable prepaid Visa card. They also offer non-premium version called the Koho Reloadable Prepaid Visa.

New Welcome Offer for the enhanced CIBC Dividend® Visa Infinite* Card - 10% cash back on all purchases up to $2,000 and a first year annual fee rebate

 

At the start of this month CIBC brought back their excellent limited time welcome bonus offer for their premium cash back card the CIBC Dividend® Visa Infinite* Card. That offer is 10% cash back on all purchases up to $2,000 made during the first four monthly statement periods. The offer doesn’t end there however as new cardholders will also get their first year annual fee rebated which means you can try this card out at no cost to you other than your actual credit card spending. The other good news coming on February 1st was the launch of the card changes we announced back in October. The biggest drawback the card had, if you would consider it a drawback was only being able to cash out your rewards once per year. Well that's gone and now you can cash out anytime when your rewards balance hits $25 or more. On top of that there are some earning and annual fee changes to the card as well that are detailed below.

Aeroplan Explore For More Contest - enter for your chance to win Air Canada flights and Aeroplan Points

 We've now had three months to start getting used to the new Air Canada Aeroplan program and to further celebrate the launch of the new program and to teach members more about it Air Canada revealed a new contest today. The Aeroplan Explore For More Contest is exactly that, they want you to explore more of the program, learn more about it and in return you'll have the chance to win Aeroplan points or flights with Air Canada:

More BMO credit card changes - travel redemption rate devaluation affects new eclipse Visa cards and BMO Rewards Mastercards

 Last week we covered changes coming to the BMO AIR MILES World Elite Mastercard and the BMO CashBack World Elite Mastercard and now we have news BMO is changing redemption rates that affect their proprietary rewards cards. First we have to  thank @joshnet on Twitter for alerting us to BMO's move to change the redemption rate for travel in the BMO Rewards program. Joshua let us know the bad news that as of May 5 the redemption rate for travel rewards will move to 150 points for $1 from the current 140 points.

Earn rate changes coming to the BMO CashBack World Elite Mastercard - and these are for the better!

 
Yesterday we brought you the news that BMO will be changing its AIR MILES World Elite Mastercard come this May. Turns out that is not the only card they are changing, the BMO CashBack® World Elite®* MasterCard®* will also be going through a revision at that time. Compared to the AIR MILES changes these ones are really good. For most people this truly will be an enhancement.

Great deal! Earn up to a 75% bonus when you buy Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles Miles - use it to get three business class tickets to Hawaii for US$1560

 

Here is a rarity – Turkish Airlines is offering a bonus for buying their Miles&Smiles miles until February 19. The bonus is tiered and maxes out at 75% when you buy 50,000 to 99,999 miles. The cost of the miles are US$30 per 1,000 which means buying 50,000 miles will cost you US$1,500 but you’ll end up with 87,500 miles after the bonus. That ends up being US$ 1.71 cents per mile which is a great deal considering Turkish Miles&Smiles has some real gems for reward flight options. It only costs 10,000 miles to fly one way in economy class within North America but Turkish includes Honolulu, Mexico and Bermuda. So yes you can get a round trip economy class Star Alliance ticket on Air Canada or United from Canada to Hawaii for 20,000 miles. Even better is business class for only30,000 miles round trip! So if buy yourself 52,000 miles for US$1,560 to score 91,000 Miles&Smiles you’ll have three round trip flights in business class to Hawaii! To buy those three business class tickets will cost you a lot more than US$1,560.  Four tickets would be US$2,070! And that’s only one example – the Miles&Smiles program has quite a few other great redemption options that you can check out here. The only major caveat we can see is the bonus miles on the purchased miles must be used by December 31, 2022.