October 26 Update: Air Transat adding more U.S. and Europe flights for summer 2022 and a new RBC Offer for Boston Pizza purchases

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 Transat has announced some new U.S. and European routes for Summer 2022. For U.S. flights the airline will offer twice weekly service between Montreal and San Francisco, three times weekly service between Toronto and Los Angeles and they will make Montreal to Miami and Quebec City to Ft. Lauderdale flights year round instead of just over the winter. For Europe the airline is adding Montreal to Amsterdam and Quebec City to London flights. Both of the Europe flights will operate once per week. (Source Air Transat)

American AAdvantage simplifies and changes how elite status is earned

 
Big changes from American Airlines today in regards to their AAdvantage frequent flyer program. The changes revolve around earning elite status and AA has gone away from the model most airlines have adopted over the past decade or so. Gone are elite qualifying miles, elite qualifying segments and elite qualifying dollars, to be replaced by Loyalty Points. One simple elite qualifier, Loyalty Points are earned on a one to one basis for most AAdvantage miles earned by a member through flying, credit card spend and earning with partners.

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

Flying Blue's buy miles bonus has returned not too long after we last saw it. The offer provides up to a 100% bonus when you buy Flying Blue miles and this time that 100% level starts at 20,000 miles instead of 30,000 miles. If you are short some miles for a redemption or want to speculatively buy for if and when we see a 50% off business class promo reward you'll want to check out this offer.

Big changes coming to the Marriott Bonvoy program including dynamic pricing (award charts to be done away with)

 

We all woke up to big news this fine Tuesday morning and that news affects a lot of Canadians including ourselves. Some of it is good but the major part of it isn't so good. The news comes to us from Marriott International and their Bonvoy frequent guest program. This is Canada's favourite (as voted on by you) and most popular hotel loyalty program that we have all loved to use and also get mad at for past changes - just like we have done with so many other programs like Aeroplan and AIR MILES. Today's news will definitely continue that love hate relationship.

AIR MILES Shops Halloween special: 7x miles sitewide for your online shopping

 

Time for another bonus for your online shopping! AIR MILES shops is back with a Halloween special 7x site wide bonus offer. This offer is good for purchases made by October 31, 21

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.