August 23 Update: Air France adding Montreal-Guadeloupe flights, save an additional $50 on WestJet flights to Europe & one more Cobalt multiplier location

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.

Air France is going to offer new flights out of Montreal to their Caribbean territory of Guadeloupe. Flights between Montreal and Pointe-à-Pitre will start on November 23 and operate twice per week. Flights from Montreal will operate on Wednesday and Saturday with returning flights operating on Tuesday and Friday. If you fly on this route before the end of the year and are buying tickets you'll automatically earn Double Flying Blue XP credits. Also seeing that we just had the news that you can convert Amex Membership Rewards points to Flying Blue we checked how many Flying Blue Miles are needed for this flight and they start at 17,500 miles one way for Economy and 34,500 for Business Class plus pretty hefty taxes and fees. This means for a roundtrip economy class flight you would need 46,700 Membership Rewards points. Compare this to Amex Fixed Points for travel which is 50,000 points but only 25,000 to 35,000 round trip with Aeroplan in Economy class. So the best bet here with Membership Rewards points is to go with Aeroplan if you are looking for the best redemption option. (Source Air France)

Earn 10x Aeroplan points and get 15% off Air Canada flights when paying with a TD Aeroplan card

Air Canada Aeroplan and TD are at it again with yet another great offer holders of the TD Aeroplan co-brand credit cards. Starting today eligible cardholders can earn 10x Aeroplan points for Air Canada and Air Canada vacations purchases up to $1,000. The 10x points offer is valid on all eligible purchases made until October 1. On top of the of the bonus points members can receive 15% off base fares for travel in Canada, to the U.S. or Sun Destinations by using code promo code DH3RE8G1 for bookings made by September 6 for travel until June 30, 2022. Aeroplan members must register their Aeroplan numbers to earn the bonus points.

WestJet bringing back Calgary to Orange County flights and resuming year round San Francisco service

California is once again proving to be a popular destination for Canadians, especially for those out west! In just the past few months we've seen Flair Airlines announce flights to Hollywood Burbank, Air Canada announcing of Vancouver to Orange County service and now it's WestJet's turn as they announced today that they are bringing back Calgary to Orange County flights and moving from summer service to year round service between Calgary and San Francisco.

Receive a $75 Visa gift card, save some $$ and still earn points plus elite credit for stays at two Marriott Hotels in Victoria

Here we have one addition to the post we had late in July that showed some of these regional tourism board offers we have writing about are better than just getting a gift card. In that previous post we showed that they offers actually price better than the best available rates at select hotels and since you book direct with the actual hotel chain you can receive all your points earning and elite member recognition and benefits. In this post we bring you another example of just that with two Marriott hotels in Victoria

Aeroplan Availability Alert: Business Class on Austrian Airlines out of Montreal for up to 4 or more people for Winter 2022 travel

 
Spencer at Straight to the Points sent out an alert about business class tickets for up to 4 people being available on Austrian Airlines and since the airline is a Star Alliance member you can use your Aeroplan points to redeem for these flights. Availability is showing from Janaury through to March 2022 for flights to Vienna and beyond. Aeroplan charges 70,000 points each way for partner award flights in business class plus the $39 partner award booking fee.

August 20 Update: IHG Rewards Fast Track to Elite Status offer & earn 100 bonus AIR MILES when you buy a $150 Sobeys Gift Card

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.

 

IHG Rewards has extended their Fast Track to Elite Status promotion. This offer was set to end on August 31 but the registration period has now been extended to November 30. After you register for it you will receive Gold Elite Status after only 2 nights or Platinum Elite Status with only 5 nights. You do have to complete the nights within 90 days of registering for the offer so do keep that in mind in terms of timing your stays (ie this may not be an offer to register for right away like we usually advise). For example you could wait until November 30 to register to cover any hotel stays you would have until February 28, 2022. Learn more about and register for this offer here.

Best Western Rewards - Earn 2,000 bonus points on your next stay

 
Earlier in the week you may have seen the post discussing my feeble attempt at lowering my Best Western Rewards account but in fact growing it from 26,000 to over 41,000 points (read that post here). That was thanks in part to a lot of bonus offers that BW has and funny thing is I received an email not long after that post offering me 2,000 points on my next stay and I'm sharing it here so that you can give it a try well. These offers are meant to be targeted but personally I wasn't targeted for some of those bonuses I received on the last stay so go ahead and register, give it a shot but do remember YMMV.

It's finally here! You can now convert American Express Membership Rewards points to Air France KLM Flying Blue

 

For those who saw this several years ago the wait is over. American Express Canada has added a new airline program to their Membership Rewards frequent traveler participants! This is the part of the program where you can convert Membership Rewards points to airline programs and the two most popular up to today have been Air Canada Aeroplan and British Airways Executive Club. Now you can add in a third program that may prove to be popular and that is Flying Blue - the frequent flyer program for Air France and KLM! We say the wait is over as a few years ago Flying Blue did show up for a couple of days in Amex Canada's list of airlines probably as a test but then disappeared until now!

August 19 Update: What to do if you don't receive an Amex multiplier, Cobalt multipliers for YYC Food Trucks & a couple of AIR MILES 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.

 
Here is a reminder to everyone using an American Express card at merchants that could or should be considered part of one of their spend category accelerators but only earn 1 point per dollar instead of 2, 3 or 5 points. If this happens to you you can reach out to American Express and have them look into it, in fact American Express encourages it as this is what they asked us to pass onto our readers back in 2017:

Summary of global hotel systemwide bonus points promotions – August 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: