September 8 Update: Points earned for Red Cross donations count towards Everyday Status Qualification, earn bonus points on Air Canada gift cards & a 50,000 PC Optimum points offer

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. 

 
Rewards Canada reader Jason T. reached out to us via Facebook and asked if the promotion for earning Air Canada Aeroplan points for donating to the Canadian Red Cross counts towards Everday Status Qualification. We reached out to Aeroplan and have confirmation that yes those points do count! Technically speaking you could donate $5,000 and receive 100,000 points which would earn you Aeroplan 25K status. But as Jason also points out these donations aren't tax deductible so if you were to donate $5,000 that's a significant amount you can't deduct that from your taxes. You might have to do the math to see if the Status is worth more than the deduction. Nonetheless this is something to consider if you are nearing that 100K mark and need a boost you to get that status. Click here to learn more about this donation offer.

Image via Canadian Red Cross

Earn up to 5,000 bonus points for stays at Choice Hotels from Sep 12 to Oct 31

Wow! Choice Hotels changed it up for their next systemwide promotion! It’s not earn a free night or earn a gift card offer where they bonus your stay(s) to 8,000 points. This time they have a multi-night offer that sees them awarding 2,000 points when you complete a 2 night stay or 5,000 points for a 3 night or longer stay. Not the most valuable of offers but better than nothing – ideally your best stay is 3 nights to maximize the offer.

Up to a 100% bonus when you buy Air France KLM Flying Blue Miles and how there can be value in buying them

Last week we had several posts covering the latest edition of Air France KLM's Flying Blue Promo Rewards. These are the discounted reward flight offers from those airlines and for the second month in a row they have featured cities in Canada. What we haven't seen yet though are business class offers out of Canada and the ones at 50% off. We mentioned in our previous discussions that one way to plan ahead for when AF KLM does have those 50% off business class flights is to keep an eye out for the program to offer a buy miles bonus. Well, one of those bonuses is here now.

Aeroplan credit card holders now receive a free Uber Pass benefit

 
Just over a year ago Aeroplan launched a partnership with Uber Eats whereby you could earn points on Uber Eats orders made through the Aeroplan eStore. Today that partnership with Uber has been expanded and it operates in pretty much the same fashion as the RBC & DoorDash Pass offer. This new Aeroplan partnership sees holders of an Aeroplan co-brand credit card receive a free Uber Pass membership. The free membership runs for three, six or twelve months depending on which card you have.

September 7 Update: Update for the Amex Gold Rewards Card waitlist offer, Amex Aeroplan Reserve Card also gets a NEXUS credit & updates to two of our features

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.

 
Wanted to provide a heads up to the American Express Gold Rewards Card waitlist offer we posted early this morning. If you read our post between 3:30am and 10:30am MT and filled out the form then I would recommend doing so again as Amex didn't update the landing page until later today. The form looks the same but the title and graphics have changed - I would feel better if our readers filled out the updated page form just to be safe! Read that post here.

Top 5 Credit Card Sign Up offers for September - 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 September 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.

Join the waitlist for the revamped American Express Gold Rewards card and earn 5,000 additional points when you get the card

Update: The waitlist form is now up and running!

Update: Please wait to sign up as Amex is updating the landing page - we'll update this post once we know the new form is up.

Last Thursday we brought you the details of the revamped American Express Gold Rewards Card. In that post we mentioned that a waitlist offer would be available on the card soon. Well that offer is here and it is 5,000 additional points over and above whatever the new welcome bonus offer will be when the card is brought back into the market.

Top 5 Cash Back Credit Card Sign Up offers for September - These cards provide the best value out of their welcome bonuses

Here are Rewards Canada's Top 5 Cash Back Credit Card Sign Up offers for the month of September 2021. This is not a 'best' credit card list like our Top Cash Back 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.

Air France KLM Flying Blue Promo Rewards are working now - save 25% on economy class reward flights between Canada and Europe

 
Earlier this week we had a post covering September's Flying Blue Promo Rewards which are the discounted reward flight offers from Air France and KLM. In that post I mentioned that I could not find any of the discounted fares from Edmonton, Montreal or Toronto. I even tried Mexico City, Dubai, Johannesburg and Vancouver - all cities that are on the list to be discounted but no luck. So I reached out to Air France to see if there was an issue and sure enough we alerted to them to a mistake they had in loading the fares to their system. That seems to be all fixed now and the discounts are showing for the Canadian cities being offered for this month.

September 3 Update: The Platinum Card receives a $100 NEXUS credit benefit & Air Transat offering 10,000 seats under $299

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. 

 
In an unannounced move American Express has also now added a NEXUS benefit to The Platinum Card like they will be doing for the revamped Gold Rewards Card. Platinum Cardmembers will receieve up to a $100 statement credit every four years. (HT Canadian Rewards)