January 19 Update: New Prepaid Credit Cards page on Rewards Canada and the Marriott Bonvoy Business card retains its up to 85,000 bonus points bonus

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! 

 
Added yet another new page to the main Rewards Canada site. Over the past couple of years we have been providing more coverage of the Prepaid Credit Card market so it only makes sense to have a summary page of the card offers.The page is in its infancy with several offers listed but don't worry I'll be adding more cards to the page over the next few weeks including Stack, CIBC AC Prepaid Conversion etc. Click here to check out the page

 

Lynx Air will start flying on April 7 between five Canadian cities

 

The long awaited story of Calgary based charter carrier EnerJet launching an Ultra Low Cost Carrier (ULCC) has come to fruition. As we reported back in November, Lynx Air as the new airline is named announced they were going to launch in 2022 with three Boeing 737 Max aircraft. As of today everything looks official as you can now book flights with Lynx Air for travel between five cities in Canada. Those cities are Calgary (their home base), Kelowna, Toronto, Vancouver and Winnipeg.

IHG Rewards announces changes to the program starting with the elite status tiers

Earlier today we brought you the new global IHG Rewards bonus points offer and in that post mentioned the hotel chain has more news that was released today. That news is about changes coming to the IHG Rewards program in March and today they only revealed the first of the program's updates and that is to the elite status portion program. The changes in elite status include renaming the Spire tier to Diamond, adding an additional tier, changing the qualification requirements and adjusting the bonus points earned by elite members.

Earn 2x points on all IHG stays in Canada and worldwide (Register now for stays Feb 1-Mar 31)

IHG Rewards provided several pieces of news today – the first is a new systemwide global points bonus offer and the second are changes to the actual program. In this post we’ll cover the post offer and follow up with another with the program changes. This new global points bonus offer is a simple one, double points on all IHG Hotel stays completed between February 1 and March 31. You can register for the offer as today and must be registered prior to completing stays. There is no limit to the number of bonus points that you can earn.

PC Optimum now the official loyalty program for Esso as Esso Extra is retired

 
Yesterday marked the end of an era as a long running gas station loyalty program in Canada, Esso Extra was officially retired. The gas retailer has now implemented PC Optimum as its official loyalty program. First announced in June 2021 the switch to offering only loyalty program came as a bit of a surprise at that time but as Esso offered customers a choice of earning Esso Extra points or PC Optimum points on purchases the data must have shown more people choosing the latter. Now as of this week, that's your only choice for earning extra loyalty rewards at Esso stations!

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.