August 6 Update: Preferred Hotels Group adds a new elite tier, Best Western & AIR MILES parted ways & another 5x Cobalt Multiplier in Calgary

 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.

Preferred Hotels Group has updated the elite status offering in their I Prefer program. The program used to be a two tier system but as of August 1st they added a middle tier between the base level Insider and the only elite tier aptly called Elite. The new tier is called Explorer and it will require 25,000 points to achieve while Elite will remain at 50,000 points. They also appear to be adding more benefits to the elite level tiers with the top Elite level now receiving a food & beverage offering and a digital anniversary gift.

Air Miles Shops Back to School Offer - 7x miles sitewide for your online shopping

 

Time for another bonus for your online back to school shopping! This time we have AIR MILES shops providing a site wide bonus offer! That bonus is 7x the rewards miles on all eligible purchases made by August 16.

American Express Small Business Cards: A new offer on the Aeroplan Business Reserve

Earlier in the week we brought you the updated card offers on Amex's five consumer cards that were part of their previous best ever offers and now here are the details of the two business cards that were also part of that previous promotion. The two small business cards are the American Express® Aeroplan®* Business Reserve Card and the Marriott Bonvoy™ Business American Express® Card
with the Aeroplan card seeing a new offer while the Marriott card's offer has been extended. The latter card is the only one that retains the best ever offering that we saw for those five or so weeks of Amex running that promotion.

WestJet to launch new non-stop flights between Calgary and Seattle

 
Earlier this week WestJet announced they will be launching new service between Calgary and Seattle starting on November 4. The route will initially be flown four times per week by WestJet Encore on their Q400 aircraft and eventually move to twice daily service by May 2022. The press release states there will be connection options via Seattle that they will release on a later date. Seeing that WestJet has a major partnership with Delta, and Seattle being a Delta hub in only makes sense that those connection options will be with Delta.

Receive elite status with Sixt rent a car when you have status with any number of airline or hotel programs

 

I feel like I may have written about this offer briefly many years ago but I can't seem to find where I wrote about so just in case I didn't write about it here it is! This is a nice and easy status match offer that can be put to use if you will be renting a car outside of Canada. Germany's Sixt rent a car provides a status match program for many of their airline and hotel partners. If you hold status with Lufthansa's Miles & More, American AAdvantage, Marriott Bonvoy or numerous other programs you can receive Sixt Gold or Platinum status.

New limited time welcome offers The Platinum Card from American Express and American Express Aeroplan cards

 The best ever American Express card offers are done and gone now however several of the cards that were part of that amazing promotion do retain higher that normal welcome offers. Those cards are The Platinum Card®,  American Express® Aeroplan®* Card and the American Express® Aeroplan®* Reserve Card. Both of the Marriott cards and the AIR MILES Reserve card drop down to their standard bonuses of 50,000 points and 2,400 AIR MILES respectively. So let's take a look at the cards that do retain elevated welcome bonuses:

Aeroplan joins Chase Ultimate Rewards + a waitlist bonus for the new Chase Aeroplan Card (U.S. only)

 

This post is for our readers from the U.S. and of course for our Canadian readers who play the U.S. credit card game!

In December 2020 Air Canada Aeroplan and Chase announced they would be launching a new partnership in 2021 that would see Chase issue an Aeroplan co-brand credit card for the U.S. market and see Aeroplan become a transfer partner of Chase Ultimate Rewards. It is the latter that officially kicks off today as Aeroplan is now part of Chase Ultimate Rewards. While the co-brand card hasn't been released just yet they have opened up a special wait list offer for it that you can register for starting today.

Here are the latest RBC Offers including up to $25 in credits for The Keg and 5,000 bonus points with Petro-Canada

 
The last half of July saw a handful of new RBC offers being released which have now been added to our Guide to RBC Offers.

Be sure to login to your RBC account right away to load these offers (if required) or get the promo codes if required. Personally I received these offers on the WestJet RBC World Elite Mastercard but I know most if not all should also available for RBC's most popular card the RBC Avion Visa Infinite Card and most other RBC cards.

Earn up to 7x points with select retailers via the Aeroplan eStore during their Back to School event

 
Air Canada Aeroplan is running a 'Back to School' event where you can earn up to 7x points for shopping online at select retailers via Aeroplan's eStore. This offer runs until August 15 with retailers like Indigo being 5x points, HP Small Business at 7x points and Foot Locker offering 4x points.

Air France KLM Flying Blue Promo Rewards return! Save 25% on Economy class reward flights from Calgary, Montreal & Vancouver to Europe

 

After 18 months we see the return of Air France KLM Flying Blue's Promo Rewards to Canada! Due to the pandemic and shut down of international travel for the greater part of that time these discounted award flight offers have mostly been limited to flights within Europe and to French/Dutch overseas possessions over the past 8-10 months. But as of this month we see the return of offers for North America as there are Canadian and Mexican cities in the mix.