January 18 Update: More confirmed Cobalt Card 5x points locations, Tims Rewards offering 2x points this week & Starbucks Rewards postpones Star expiration

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! 

We're happy to let you know that we've added even more merchants to our American Express Cobalt™ Card Confirmed Multiplier Locations feature. Thanks to Rewards Canada reader C with a T for letting us know of the following locations that all earn 5x points on the Cobalt Card which weren't on our list before:

Air France launching Quebec City to Paris route this May

 
On January 17th Air France announced the launch of a new route from Quebec City to Paris. This marks the airline's fourth Canadian city that they provide service from. The airline has long served Montreal and Toronto and more recently Vancouver, well kind of recent, it's been nearly 7 years since they started flying to YVR. The new Quebec City to Paris Charles de Gaulle flight will start on May 17, 2022 and operate three times weekly.

Podcast Episode 87: Canada's Top Travel Rewards & Cash Back Credit Cards 2022

It's that time of year again! Time for our annual travel rewards and cash back credit card rankings. In this the 14th edition of the travel rewards rankings and 6th edition of cash back rankings we take a look at the best cards to rack up points, miles, and cash back, receiving benefits and more. On the travel side we provide details on the top overall cards, the best travel points cards, no fee cards, hybrid cards, airline cards and once again Ultra Premium credit cards. For cash back we look at the top 5 cards overall. Listen in to find to find out all the details behind Canada's most trusted rankings! Check out the Top Travel Cards here and the Top Cash Back Cards here

CIBC Aventura offering a 50% discount when you redeem points for any travel you book yourself

Similar to a promotion that has BMO Rewards has been offering since December, CIBC is providing a discount for their Aventura cardholders when redeeming points against travel they book themselves. This is different than booking flights via CIBC Rewards and utilizing the Aventura Reward Chart or redeeming points against any travel booked with them. This is where you go out and buy travel with any provider like Air Canada, WestJet, Expedia etc. and then when the charge shows up on your account you redeem points against that charge.

January 17 Update: Best Western Rewards Pay with Points expanded, Rewards Canada Clash Standings & Paytm shutting down

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! 

 Catching up on some news that came out earlier this month. If you recall Best Western Rewards introduced a Pay with Points feature to the program in 2021 that was available only at select hotels in Canada and the U.S.. On January 5th Best Western announced an expansion to the Pay with Points feature to most of their hotels across North America. The feature allows you to redeem 5,000 points for $25 off your stay and goes up in increments of 1,000 points for an additional $5 off. Click here to learn more about Best Western's Pay with Points feature. 

Guide to Credit Card Emergency Medical Insurance Coverage - Updated for 2022

The one good thing about doing a website redesign and updating pages on a one by one basis is that it allows us to also bring the content of those pages up to date. Such is the case with this feature we first published back in February 2013. It has had a few updates along the way but definitely needed to be a thorough brushing up for 2022. 

TD Refer a Friend limited time offer: earn up to $300 in e-gift cards for credit card referrals

 
We've now seen several banks offer incentives for referring friends and family to their card products, with American Express being the most notable and now TD is in the referral game. Launching today, TD has a limited time offer whereby if you have a TD card you can refer friends and family to get a TD credit card and you'll receive a $100 e-gift card for each successful application up to three times.

New Amex Offers for Kinka Izakaya & Kinton Ramen

 
A couple of new Amex Offers were released on Friday and these are the return of statement credits for purchases as Kinka Izakaya and Kinton Ramen. Both offers are valid until April 15, 2022. Seeing that these are dining establishments you'll want to use your American Express Cobalt Card to earn 5x points or the Platinum Card to earn 3x points - so long as the offers show up for you on those cards!

Choice Hotels: Earn up to 8,000 bonus Privileges points when you complete two stays by March 12

 
Choice Hotels next promotion is here and it is the same offer we used to always see from them! They word the promotion differently in terms of get a free night or get a $50 gift card. In the end the two promos are the same, they will award you enough bonus points after you complete 2 separate stays to have 8,000 points after those stays. This time it is being promoted as the gift card offer as the promotion also sees the redemption rate of those $50 gift cards halved from 16,000 points to 8,000 points.With award night starting as low as 8,000 points you would get more value out of the points for an actual hotel stay over the $50 gift card but there is no harm in redeeming for a gift card especially if Choice isn't your primary choice of hotel programs.

Reminder: Earn up to 60,000 Bonus Avios^ with the RBC British Airways Visa Infinite Card + save 10% on all BA flights

 
Another card reminder for our readers as this one has not been discussed much since it came out in September and that's the best ever welcome bonus on the RBC British Airways Visa Infinite Card. We had seen this card sit steady with an of up to 50,000 Avios offer since October of 2017, but RBC has bumped the offer up by 10,000 Avios so that new applicants can earn up to 60,000 Avios, which is the best ever welcome bonus seen on this card.