April 22 Update: Changes coming to the GHA Discovery program, up to 70,000 bonus SkyMiles for booking Delta Vacations & 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.

 
As first reported by Loyalty Lobby there are some changes happening at the GHA (Global Hotel Alliance) Discovery program. These changes don't affect travel within Canada but if you do utilize the program and their hotels outside of Canada you'll want to note these changes. The first is that U.S. based Omni Hotels are leaving the program at the end of June 2021. That hotel chain will focus on its in house loyalty program called Select Guest. The second bit of news sees Spanish based NH Hotels joining the program in 2022 at which time that hotel chain's NH Rewards will be merged into the Discovery program. Finally in that same press release about NH joining Discovery they note that the Discovery program will be revamped in Q4 of this year including the addition of a digital currency. That means they should be moving to a points based system and away from their current non-point awarding program. 

Aeroplan Availability Alert: Air Canada Lie Flat Business Class between Toronto & Cancun in February 2022 for under 50,000 points round trip

Thanks to Trusty Suitcase for alerting us to this one! Right now you can find lie flat business class seats on Air Canada's flights between Toronto and Cancun for select dates in February 2022. These flights are currently scheduled to be operated with Airbus A330-300 aircraft that feature Air Canada's lie flat business class seats.

New Marriott Bonvoy American Express Card Amex Offer: 3 bonus points per dollar spent on grocery purchases

 

Thanks to Rewards Canada contributor Jeff W. for alerting us this morning to this amazing new Amex Offers offer that came out for the  Marriott Bonvoy™ American Express® Card:

JetBlue is finally coming to Canada! Vancouver to New York JFK and Boston service starts in 2022

 
Another shout out to Anshul at PMB as I saw this on his Twitter feed and then started to see it all over the place! JetBlue has finally announced service to Canada after years of being asked to do so by travelers on both sides of the border! The airline announced yesterday that they will start flying to Vancouver from New York JFK and Boston in the summer of 2022.

Changes coming to Radisson Rewards and it's a mixed bag for Canada but definitely worse for the rest of the world

 
I've been meaning to write about changes to the Radisson Rewards program for a couple weeks now and thanks to even more changes revealed by the program yesterday I am actually getting around to it now! First off, the changes from a couple weeks ago sees the loyalty program and booking websites being split into two and the changes announced yesterday are to the award night chart categories, the amount of points required for award nights and hotels moving about in those categories.

Awesome new welcome bonuses on American Express Small Business Cards!

You can definitely tell that American Express has returned to the business of acquiring new customers in 2021. After spending most of 2020 focusing on existing cardmembers rather than acquisition we have seen Amex increase the welcome offers on many of their consumer cards and now today we see their three proprietary small business cards get major boosts for new customers! Those three cards are the American Express Business Edge™ Card , Business Platinum Card® from American Express and the American Express® Business Gold Rewards Card

Summary of global hotel systemwide bonus points promotions – April 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:

Targeted RBC Offer for WestJet Mastercard holders: 50 bonus WestJet dollars for making $1,000 in pre-authorized payments

 
If you have the WestJet RBC World Elite Mastercard or WestJet RBC Mastercard check your in box to see if you have been targeted for this new offer. Select cardholders will be able to earn 50 bonus WestJet dollars after they enroll in the offer and spend at least $1,000 or more on reoccurring pre-authorized payments. You have to register by April 25 and the payments have to be made between May 1 and July 31.

April 20 Update: Air Canada Buddy Pass conversion based on application date not posting date and convert Coast Rewards points to Aeroplan with a 4x points bonus

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.

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 however 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. In the mean time we have updated a trio of articles we posted back at the end of March / beginning of April to note this change on being able to convert the pass based on the date you apply:

Triple ALL Rewards Points + up to 40% off stays at Fairmont & Accor Hotels in Canada

 

Last week saw the end of Accor Hotels offer for double points for stays at their locations in North American and select Latin American countries but that didn’t mark the end of earning bonus points in the Americas. Right away they released a new offer entitled Get Real – Experience it all which offers triple points for stays at participating Accor Hotels in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Bahamas, Barbados and Bermuda. On top of triple points the promotion provides up to 30% off stays plus an additional 10% off for being an ALL Accor Live Limitless member. For most of this means Triple Points on Fairmont stays across Canada and for stays at the Novotel and Sofitel locations in Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto. On top of this all members earn double status points and nights on all stays in 2021!