April 26 Update: Voila Grocery Delivery/Pick up codes as 5x points for Cobalt Card and Turkish Airlines set to launch Vancouver route on May 2

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.

 
Added one more merchant to our American Express Cobalt Card Confirmed Multiplier Locations listing! That merchant is Voila.ca - which is the online ordering for curbside pick up/delivery from the Sobeys family of grocery stores. They launched out east in 2020 and f I'm not mistaken are relatively new out west - well to me at least they are! Here in Calgary we can only use it at four locations and for curbside pick up only. I used it for a Safeway purchase last week and the transaction shows up as Voila with American Express. The good news is Voila codes as a grocery partner (as it should!) and earns 5x points. See it and other confirmed locations here.

AIR MILES Bonus Boom returns on May 13 - earn 95 bonus miles when you use three different Bonus Boom offers

 

AIR MILES and BMO sent out a teaser email about the return of the AIR MILES Bonus Boom. This promotional event now seems to appear almost every month with the last one just ending on April 14! Once again it will be the standard 95 bonus AIR MILES Reward Miles when you utilize offers from three different partners between May 13 and May 26, 2021.

[OFFER EXPIRED] Ending Soon: Increased welcome bonus offer of 12,500 points for the no fee Choice Card from American Express

 

THIS OFFER IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE

In early December American Express resurrected and relaunched the Choice Card from American Express TM. This is their no fee reward cards that just recently just took second spot in the Top No Fee Travel Rewards Credit Card category in our 2021 Travel Credit Card rankings. When it was relaunched it came with a decent 10,000 point welcome bonus but for a few months has seen a 25% boost to 12,500 points when you spend $1,250 on the card within the first three months of having it. That's equivalent to a $125 credit towards any travel booked on your own or $87.50 when using it to redeem for any purchase that isn't travel related. It also equates 15,000 Marriott Bonvoy points which is a pretty sweet deal as we value Marriott Bonvoy points at no less than 1 cent a piece so that makes the welcome bonus worth at least $150 but wait that's only a minimum. Read on to find out more.

Podcast Episode 79 - Converting the Air Canada Buddy Pass to Aeroplan Points & Plaza Premium Lounge set to leave Priority Pass & LoungeKey

In this episode we bring you the latest news surrounding the unadvertised option to convert Air Canada Buddy Passes received from several Aeroplan co-brand credit cards to Aeroplan points (it's good news!). Then we move into the not so good news of one of the largest third party airport lounge operators, Plaza Premium, deciding to leave the Priority Pass and LoungeKey lounge access programs

Click Here to download the podcast (mp3)

Receive a $20 bonus for every $100 Best Western Travel Card purchase

 

Best Western is once again offering a 20% bonus on Best Western Travel/Gift Cards! This is fourth incarnation or should we say extension of this offer. When you buy a $100 gift card they will give you a $20 bonus card to use. You can buy up to $500 worth of gift cards with this promotion to receive $100 in bonus cards. Note the terminology difference in the cards – the travel/gift card is a true gift card – that is it has no expiry date as they can’t put one on them due to laws against it in countries like the U.S. and Canada. However the bonus card is not considered as such since it is an incentive and you are not paying cash for it. That means they can put an expiry on the bonus card and have done so. Any bonus cards you receive are only valid until November 15, 2021. Nonetheless if you think you’ll be traveling and staying at Best Western hotels by the end of June then by all means avail of this offer to garner those savings! Also note that you can buy the travel cards in USD, CAD, EUR or GBP currencies.

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.