December 13 Update: 25% bonus when you convert Shangri-La Hotels points to Aeroplan & other airlines; earn 25,000 bonus Be Well points at Rexall tomorrow

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! 

Shangri-La Hotels Golden Circle is offering a conversion bonus to several of their airlines. From now until December 31 you'll receive a 25% bonus when converting GC Award points to Air Canada Aeroplan, Air France KLM Flying Blue and several other airlines. Points convert to miles 1:1 so you would receive 1.25 miles for every GC Award point and they have lowered the minimum conversion requirement of 2,500 points to 1,000 points for this promotion. While GC Award points are hard to come by if you don't have a lot of them ie. enough for a free night stay, this option could make sense for you to use up some points that you may never end up using. Click here to learn more.

The new Scene+ program is now live, find all the details here!

Cineplex SCENE and Scotia Rewards members rejoice! Your revamped and combined Scene+ program is now here! After some technical issues causing the originally planned launch in November the program went live today.. well some of it was actually operable over the weekend but for the most part all of it went up today. 

Save up to 30% for stays at Accor Hotels in Canada and the Americas

 
A friendly reminder here about Fairmont Hotel’s Take Your Time promotion where you can also earn triple points on these stays!  The Take Your Time provides up to a 30% discount for stays at Accor Hotels in Canada (Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto & Vancouver) as well as the U.S. and Central America.

Earn 3,000 bonus points per night at Sheraton Toronto Centre Hotel

 
Here's the other new Canadian stay bonus offers for Marriott Bonvoy members that I mentioned earlier in the week in the bonus points in Quebec post.  This one is an excellent one for stays at the Sheraton Toronto Centre Hotel and it provides 3,000 bonus points PER NIGHT on Sunday to Thursday nights until March 1

Save up to 30% & earn 3x points for stays at Fairmont Hotels in the Americas

 

A friendly reminder here about Fairmont Hotel’s Take Your Time promotion where you can also earn triple points on these stays! Take Your Time provides up to a 30% discount for stays at Fairmont Hotels in North and Central America plus you have the opportunity to earn extra ALL Rewards points on those stays.

Podcast Episode 86: 2021 Year in Review. A look back at what happened in the world of loyalty programs, credit cards and more

 

TD Aeroplan cardholders can receive a 20% rebate on eligible travel redemptions

Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles isn't the only program to have an award ticket sale! Air Canada Aeroplan in conjunction with TD have their own they launched today. TD Aeroplan co-brand cardholders can receive a 20% rebate when they redeem their Aeroplan Points for eligible travel rewards. These include flight rewards, car rentals, hotel bookings, Air Canada Vacations and Air Canada gift cards. 

Award Availability Alert: 30% discount on Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles award tickets out of Canada (and worldwide)

Turkish Airlines has brought back another one of their really good award flight sales. You can book trips this month for travel through to the middle of May and receive a 30% discount in the numbers of miles required. Availability and routing do play into account here so it's not like every award ticket is discounted. You'll have to search for those discounts!

Top 5 Small Business Credit Card Sign Up offers for December - These cards provide the best value out of their welcome bonuses

 
Here are the Rewards Canada Top 5 Small Business Credit Card Sign Up offers for this month! This is not a 'best' credit card list like our Top Travel Rewards Credit Card rankings but instead a look at cards for small businesses 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 three first year free cards on the list! And remember this list is based on minimum value towards travel which we calculate as the minimum value of the welcome bonus less the annual fee. It is entirely possible to receive more value out of the welcome bonuses on all of these cards since they earn Aeroplan points or Marriott Bonvoy points - both of which can provide some huge outsized value rewards!

Earn 2,000 bonus Marriott Bonvoy points for stays at Delta Hotels in Quebec in the new year

 
There are several new Canadian stay bonus offers for Marriott Bonvoy members and the first we'll cover is this one for a quartet of hotels in Quebec. You can earn 2,000 bonus Bonvoy points per stay at any one of four Delta Hotels in the province between January 9 and March 27, 2022. The bonus offer prices the same as the best available rate so in most cases it can be worth it to book. You can see more in the example we provide below the offer details.