October 25 Update: Air Canada adding new Quebec City to Calgary & Vancouver flights and earn 1,000 bonus points on your next Best Western stay

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. This update is brought to you by the HSBC World Elite Mastercard which is currently offering a welcome bonus of up to 100,000 bonus points worth $500, has no foreign transaction fees and no annual fee in the first year! 

 
Air Canada Rouge has announced a couple more new routes for next summer - both out of Quebec City. The airline will be offering summer seasonal service from Quebec City to Calgary and Vancouver. YVR flights launch on May 20 with up to three flights per week and the YYC flights start up on May 21 with up to four flights per week. Learn more here

A closer look at the credit card that Canada voted as the number one no annual fee travel rewards card in Canada

The results of Canada's Choice 2021 were revealed earlier this month covering 10 categories of credit cards and loyalty with some surprising and not so surprising results. We are now providing a series if posts that take a closer look at all the winners and our commentary on it. The second of which we look is the card that took the top spot in the No Annual Fee Travel Rewards Credit Card category and that's the BMO AIR MILES®† MasterCard®*.

Air Canada partners with Switch Health to offer portable self-administered COVID-19 tests

 

Air Canada has announced a new partnership with Canadian healthcare company Switch Health to offer comprehensive travel testing options including self administered COVID-19 tests. The various test options are portable and can be taken by travelers to anywhere they are traveling to. As part of the partnership between the airline and Switch, Aeroplan members receive discounted pricing and and can earn points on the kit purchases.

October 22 Update: Hilton adds automatic upgrades for Gold & Diamond Elites, WorldHotels Rewards offering instant Gold Elite status & 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. This update is brought to you by the HSBC World Elite Mastercard which is currently offering a welcome bonus of up to 100,000 bonus points worth $500, has no foreign transaction fees and no annual fee in the first year! 

 Hilton Hotels announced some minor changes this week that include automatic upgrades for elite members and digital key sharing. Here are the details Hilton provided to us:

Loyalty Lesson: Is a 30% return on credit card spending possible? Yes, it sure is!

 
This is one of those posts that wasn't planned but it kind of fell right into my lap and I had to write it after I completed another post on our site. That other post was A closer look at the credit card that Canada voted as the number one overall travel rewards card in Canada where we took a detailed look at the TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite Card. In that post we provided an example of how you could redeem Aeroplan points for a Business Class ticket between Calgary and Toronto and get 6 cents per point in value.

Summary of global hotel systemwide bonus points promotions – October 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. 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! Most of 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:

WestJet will allow you to use expiring companion vouchers for others and you don't have to travel with them

 

WestJet Rewards revealed a new limited time promotion today that will allow members to utilize any companion vouchers that are expiring this year for others without the need of the voucher holder travelling. 

AIR MILES Flight-A-Day Giveaway - Enter to win $5,000 and $25,000 flight vouchers

 

As mentioned in our Big changes coming to the AIR MILES program post from earlier this month one of the promotions you could expect is now here! That promotion is the AIR MILES Flight-A-Day Giveaway which offers a total of 21 $5,000 flights vouchers (1 awarded per day) and a grand prize of a $25,000 flight voucher! 

A standardized Canadian COVID-19 Proof of Vaccination (Vaccine Passport) is now here

 

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced today that a Canadian Vaccine Passport that can be used for international travel will be available soon. The Government of Canada has worked with the provinces and territories to create a standardized proof of vaccination.

A closer look at the credit card that Canada voted as the number one overall travel rewards card in Canada

 

The results of Canada's Choice 2021 were revealed earlier this week covering 10 categories of credit cards and loyalty with some surprising and not so surprising results. The first of those we look at was a not so surprising showing by the TD® Aeroplan® Visa Infinite* Card The card took first place in two categories along with it's associated program, Aeroplan, taking top spot in a third category.