You can earn Air France KLM Flying Blue Miles for shopping online in Canada + earn 500 bonus miles on your first purchase

 

When it comes to earning points & miles for shopping online we are all familiar with Aeroplan's eStore and AIR MILES Shops to name a few. However there is one online shopping portal that is relatively unknown and that is Flying Blue's Shop for Miles. Flying Blue is the frequent flyer program for Air France and KLM, both very popular airlines for Canadians as prior to the pandemic they were a major player flying from Canada to Europe and beyond. Suffice to say there are quite a Flying Blue members here in Canada and outside of flying on Air France, KLM or other Star Alliance airlines it can be difficult to earn those Flying Blue miles, especially so with the pandemic right now. So that's where shopping online comes in! 

March 15 Update: Marriott elites can now select their annual choice benefits, Accor Hotels offering COVID-19 test kits at Canadian & US hotels, World of Hyatt peak & off peak pricing coming soon

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.

 
To all our Marriott Elite Status readers who have 50 nights or more in their accounts it's time ti select your annual choice benefits! From suite night awards to gifting status to additional elite night credits you can now log in via this page and make those selections. Remember once you make your selection you cannot change them.

Last day to book Fairmont's Stay Close Offer - Every 2nd night free plus earn double points & elite status credit

 
TODAY IS THE LAST DAY TO BOOK THIS OFFER FOR STAYS UNTIL JUNE 30

For nearly nine months now we've provided an abundance of coverage on Fairmont Hotels' Stay Close offer. It has been one of the best hotel promotions to emerge during the pandemic and this is a reminder that there are only two weeks left to book the current version of it. 

Why the American Express Cobalt Card is the best card to get for your future travel plans

It has now been over a year since the Rewards Canada family has set foot on a plane and like many Canadians we are itching to get away! That being said we are fine to continue to wait to travel until things are safe to do so and also as important, enjoyable to do so. I say enjoyable in the terms of less restrictions in place when a lot of the current measures are lifted. So what do you do until said time? Do what we are doing. You make sure you rack up as many points and miles possible for those future travels. That's our motto of the year and of our Top Travel Rewards Credit Card rankings from which the number one card overall in Canada is your best bet for those future travels. The American Express Cobalt Card is one of the best options in Canada to score a lot points - and valuable flexible points at that - to help fund future travel. In fact in our household we actually run with two Cobalt accounts to maximize the points we earn off the cards.

Earn up to 10,000 bonus AeroMexico Club Premier Points with just one Choice Hotels stay

 

Here’s an offer that has the potential to provide a lot of value – AeroMexico’s Club Premier is offering bonus points for stays at Choice Hotels. I should rephrase that – for a single stay and if you have never stayed at a Choice Hotel before you’ll get the big bonus of 10,000 Club Premier points. That’s right 10,000 points for a simple one night stay and with Choice Hotels having a lot of budget locations you could complete a very cheap stay to earn those points. Now, 10,000 points isn’t enough for a flight on its own but it gets close – when we just check one way flights within Mexico were going for as low as 12,000 points  and one way flights within North America (we checked Toronto to New York City) were available at 22,000 points. Ideally then this offer is for adding extra points or topping off your Club Premier account. If you don’t utilize Club Premier and don’t think you’ll earn any more points beyond a stay like this then no need to bother.

Top 5 Small Business Credit Card Sign Up offers for March - These cards provide the best value out of their welcome bonuses

Here are the Rewards Canada Top 5 Small Business Credit Card Sign Up offers for this month! This is not a 'best' credit card list like our Top Travel Rewards Credit Card rankings but instead a look at cards for small businesses that have very good acquisition (welcome/sign up) offers. As always when choosing a card you should always take other factors into account other than the just sign up bonus, but when some of these cards are first year free, they can and do pay off even when you grab them strictly for the sign up rewards. This month we see four first year free cards on the list! And remember this list is based on minimum value towards travel which we calculate as the minimum value of the welcome bonus less the annual fee. It is entirely possible to receive more value out of the welcome bonuses on some the cards below namely those like Aeroplan and Marriott. 

March 11 Update: AIR MILES Bonus Boom returns later this month, lots of bonus for shopping online from the U.S. & two new Rexall Be Well bonus offers

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.

 AIR MILES and BMO sent out a teaser email about the return of the AIR MILES Bonus Boom. This promotional event that we are now seeing with increasing frequency will run from March 25 to April 14. It appears it will be the standard 95 bonus AIR MILES Reward Miles when you utilize offers from three different partners. One of the offers will provide 50 bonus AIR MLES when you opt-in and spend $350 at one partner (I'm assuming you have to use a BMO AIR MILES card for these 50 bonus miles). Learn more about Bonus Boom here. (The website has not been updated yet since the last promotion)

Air Canada Aeroplan's Status Pass benefit is officially here

 
Air Canada Aeroplan has formally rolled out the Status Pass feature that was announced last year as part of the new Aeroplan program. This feature allows Aeroplan 50K Elite Status and higher members to share some elite benefits with friends and family who are not travelling with them.

IHG Rewards Fast Track to Elite Status returns - Stay 2 nights get Gold, 5 nights get Platinum

 
IHG Rewards has brought back their fast track offer to elite status that we saw during the last half of 2020. The offer makes it very easy to obtain status in the recently rebranded IHG Rewards program! It is perfect for those who don’t have status in the program as it takes very few nights to reach elite with this promotion. The main difference between this 2021 version of the offer from 2020 is that there is now a 90 day time limit for completing the required nights whereas in 2020 you had until the date the promotion ended which was December 31. So in this case you'll want to time your registration for the offer correctly so that you can make sure you can complete the 2 or 5 nights within those 90 days. And that brings us to the elite status you get. After you register if you complete 2 nights within those 90 days you'll be granted IHG Rewards Gold Status. Complete 5 nights and Platinum Status is yours. By comparison if you don't register it would take a COVID-19 adjusted level of 7 nights to earn Gold Status or 30 nights to reach Platinum. As you can see it doesn’t take a lot of nights to earn status with this offer!

Great new limited time redemption offer from American Express for prepaid cards or using points for Amazon purchases

 

Yesterday American Express launched an pretty awesome points redemption special for prepaid American Express Cards and for using your points for Amazon.ca purchases. This limited time offer runs until March 22 and the rates match the good rates seen for when you redeem Points for Travel Purchases. That is, you get $10 in value for every 1,000 points you redeem.Which translates to a 1% to 5% return depending on which American Express card you earned those points with.