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.
GREAT NEWS: According to an interview with Air Canada Aeroplan execs that Anshul at Points, Miles & Bling had over this past weekend the buddy pass conversion option is based on the date you apply not the date the buddy pass posts to your account. Then Aeroplan confirmed with Rewards Canada that there is no set end date for this buddy pass conversion. Ultimately it comes down to the TD end date of this offer on May 30. We feel that after that date the buddy pass will not be offered on the card (pure speculation on our part however!)
this means you can apply for this card by April 30 and be able to convert the buddy pass to Aeroplan points once it posts to your account.
Please note there are mentions on other sites the conversion
option is being extended. There is no confirmation of this just yet - we
have reached out to Air Canada and should know by April 23 if this will
be happening
MAJOR UPDATE: We have been notified The Buddy Pass can only be
converted by April 30th which means it is very unlikely any new
applicants for the TD card will be able to get the pass in time to
convert. This is likely to keep the card from having an influx of new
applicants just to convert the Buddy Pass over to points.
Earlier on the Rewards Canada blog we detailed how you can now convert the Buddy Pass portion of the welcome offer on half a dozen Aeroplan co-brand credits to 30,000 Aeroplan points. This is a huge deal! To be able to get an extra 30,000 points out of a welcome bonus is unprecedented. Yes - the buddy pass can have huge value in its own right but by converting it to points you do take out some uncertainty over shorter term travel (think less than 2 years). Plus the buddy pass is meant for North America travel including Hawaii and only in economy class. By taking the points you can use them to build up your balance for travel to anywhere in the world that you can redeem Aeroplan points for (and that's a lot of places) in any fare class you like including First Class.
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.
The latest Rewards Canada Podcast that covers new hotel openings in Canada from Hilton, Hyatt, IHG & Marriott is now in video format on our YouTube Channel - Check it out here
The latest AIR MILES Bonus Boom event kicked off today with a whole bunch of bonus miles offers for shopping or completing actions with various AIR MILES partners. Most of the bonuses are available between today and April 14 and once again if you use three different Bonus Boom offers you'll get 95 bonus AIR MILES. New this time however is the ability to get the 95 bonus miles all from one retailer so long as they have multiple offers. For example Sobeys has three different offers available so if you meet the criteria for those three offers you'll get the 95 bonus miles.
GREAT NEWS: According to an interview with Air Canada Aeroplan execs
that Anshul at Points, Miles & Bling had over this past weekend the
buddy pass conversion option is based on the date you apply not the
date the buddy pass posts to your account - this means you can apply for
this card by April 30 and be able to convert the buddy pass to Aeroplan
points once it posts to your account. Please note there are mentions on other sites the conversion option is being extended. There is no confirmation of this just yet - we have reached out to Air Canada and should know by April 23 if this will be happening
MAJOR UPDATE: We have been notified The Buddy Pass can only be
converted by April 30th which means it is very unlikely any new
applicants for the TD card will be able to get the pass in time to
convert. This is likely to keep the card from having an influx of new
applicants just to convert the Buddy Pass over to points.
Shout out to Ashul at Points, Miles & Bling and Ricky from Prince of Travel who broke the news last night that Aeroplan is now allowing members to convert the Air Canada Buddy Passes earned from an Aeroplan co-brand card into Aeroplan points! The option to convert has not been published publicly by Air Canada however Anshul and Ricky have confirmed with the airline that this indeed is true. And it is an awesome deal - Air Canada will give you 30,000 Aeroplan points if you choose to convert your Buddy Pass to Aeroplan points. To do so you simply have to call Aeroplan and tell them you would like to convert your Buddy Pass to points.
For the better of a year now Canada's Top Ultra Premium card has had a low welcome bonus of 25,000 points and for good reason. American Express shifted from putting money behind new acquisitions on this card to supporting those that already had it during the pandemic. Existing cardholders saw some pretty amazing offers during this time from Double Points and Double Redemption value to $250 in grocery store credits and much more. Now that there appears to be a light at the end of the tunnel with the pandemic albeit a very long tunnel still, American Express appears to be getting ready for everyone looking for revenge travel! They now have increased sign up bonuses on all their travel based cards except one - the American Express Gold Rewards Card stands alone as the forgotten child!
Now back to this new offer on the Platinum Card of 50,000 welcome points. Those points will be earned when you spend $3,000 on the card in the first three months of having it. Those 50,000 points are worth no less than $500 towards travel when you redeem via the Flexible Points Travel Program, up to $1,000 when you redeem via the Fixed Points for Travel program or $500 to well over $2,000 when you convert to programs like Aeroplan and redeem for business or first class flights.
Recommended reading: Redemption Stories: Saving $3,800 on last minute flights with the Platinum Card from American Express
Now the card does have one of the highest annual fees around - $699 per year but it comes with a slew of benefits and features that more than make up for that fee. There is a reason why this the best Ultra Premium credit card (well charge card) in Canada:
Recommended reading: How to maximize the elite status benefits from The Platinum Card from American Express
Like we mentioned in the Marriott post from earlier today we are excited to see Amex boosting their welcome offers once again. It has been an unprecedented 12 months that I don't think any of us expected and it changed everything in the points and miles world. However when we see news like we did today it provides a glimmer of hope that in due time things will return to normal as now the Platinum Card is back to normal!
There is also a 60,000 point offer for the card via Amex's refer a friend channels. Feel free to contact us if you are interested in receiving that offer link.
After spending most of 2020 supporting existing customers we can say 2021 is the year American Express is back in the game for acquiring new customers! We've seen increased welcome offers on the American Express Cobalt™ Card, the Choice Card from American Express™ and the SimplyCash™ Preferred Card from American Express and now we can add three more cards into the mix! As of today there are now increased welcome bonuses for the Marriott Bonvoy™ American Express® Card, the Marriott Bonvoy™ Business American Express® Card and the The Platinum Card® . In this post we'll cover the new Marriott bonuses and follow up with separate coverage on the Platinum Card.
