August 12 Update: Scotia introduces flexible payment plans for their Visa cards, Air Canada adding Vancouver-Orange County flights & your weekly drug store bonuses

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.

 
Scotiabank has followed in the footsteps of other card issuers in Canada like American Express and CIBC by now offering an optional flexible payment plan for purchases over $100. Called Scotia SelectPay the new feature allows eligible Scotiabank Visa cardholders to turn eligible purchases of $100+ into installments. They can choose fixed installment plan of three, six, or 12-months and pay a flat fee with no interest. The example Scotia provides shows a 2% fee ($24) being applied to a $1,200 purchase. This makes carrying a balance on big purchases much more tolerable than the two figure interest rates but do know you do have to pay the full amount of the purchase within the fixed installment plan time frame you selected. Learn more aboust SelectPay here. To see what Visa cards Scotiabank offers please visit our Scotia page here.

Neo Financial tweaks their credit card offerings again including a lowering of the monthly fees for their Plus and Ultra cards

 

One of Canada's newest financial providers, actually I should say FinTech companies Neo Financial has tweaked their credit card offerings once again. It seems every few months they are changing things up - which can be both a good and a bad thing. Good in that they are flexible and learning the market as they go and are adjusting as needed, bad in that having someone grab their product(s) based on something they have only offered for a short period of time and are already switching it up which may leave a few people wondering if being with a new entrant like this is a safe and rewarding alternative to the traditional offerings. Read on the find out what those tweaks are.

Air Canada launches interactive fare finder to search for getaways using cash or points

 

Are you one of those people who likes to book trips on a whim? Or have a budget for travel and are open to go wherever that budget can take you? Well Air Canada has just released a beta version of an interactive graphical fare finder tool that is similar in vain to Google flights. The new tool allows you to input your departure city, dates of travel (with +/- 5 days of flexibility), your budget, what fare class you want to travel in and even travel interests like beaches, luxury & wellness and much more. The difference between Air Canada's interactive tool from Google flights is that you can choose between cash fares and Aeroplan points. The latter is something Google doesn't have and can make it really fun and easy to find some points deals faster than going to the Air Canada search engine and inputting each search separately!

Earn up to 6,000 bonus IHG Rewards points for multiple night stays

 
Check your email in-box to see if you have been targeted for this offer. IHG Rewards sent out a pre-registration email yesterday and it appears a lot of members are receiving it. The offer awards 3,000 bonus points on your first stay of 2 or more nights plus an additional 3,000 bonus points on your next stay of 2 or more nights. The promotion is for stays between August 19 and September 30.

August 10 Update: Porter Airlines contest giving away 300 tickets, new look for the Walmart Rewards Mastercard & Chatrium Hotels Points Plus added to Rewards Canada

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.

Porter Airlines is getting ready to start service again in September and to celebrate they have launched a contest giving away 300 tickets over the next three weeks. Each week 100 tickets will be given away to 100 lucky winners for completing a social media action on Instagram or Facebook. Learn more about the contest here.

Save up to $100 on Aer Lingus flights from Toronto to Dublin & Europe

 

Aer Lingus has brought back their offer that provides up to an additional $100 off of their flights out of the U.S. and Canada to Ireland and Europe. The discount is available on economy or business class fares booked by September 15 for travel until October 31. The wording of the offer makes it seem that the discount can vary but in a couple of searches I made the promo code gave $100 off round trip flights in any fare class.

Top 5 Credit Card Sign Up offers for August - These cards provide the most value out of their welcome bonuses

 
Here are the Rewards Canada Top 5 Travel Credit Card Sign Up offers for the month of August 2021! This is not a 'best' credit card list like our Top Travel Rewards Credit Card rankings but instead a look at cards 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 two first year free cards on the list.

Targeted Offer: Set up automatic payments on your TD Aeroplan Visa Card to earn up to 7,500 bonus points or up to a $100 statement credit

 

 Long time Rewards Canada reader Len D. forwarded an offer he received on his TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite Card at the end of July. This is a targeted offer so if you hold a TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite Card, TD Aeroplan Visa Platinum Card or the TD Aeroplan Visa Business Card check your email inbox to see if you have received this offer.

AIR MILES Bonus Boom returns on August 26 - earn 95 bonus miles when you use three different Bonus Boom offers

 

 

AIR MILES and BMO have once again sent out a teaser email about the return of the AIR MILES Bonus Boom. Bonus Boom seemed to take a slight break over the summer as the last one ended on June 30 with no bonus in July which ended the monthly streak of this promotion.nce again it will be the standard 95 bonus AIR MILES Reward Miles when you utilize offers from three different partners between August 26 and September 8.

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.