March 2 Update: WestJet to acquire Sunwing Vacations and Sunwing Airlines; Fly Aer Lingus from Toronto to Dublin for under $500 roundtrip

Here's your Rewards Canada Daily update! Your 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! 

 

Big news out of WestJet today - they have announced they are acquiring Sunwing Vacations and Sunwing Airlines. If approved and the deal goes through WestJet will be creating a new tour operating business that will combine Sunwing Vacations and WestJet Vacations. On the airline side it almost reads that Sunwing Airlines will remain as a separate airline that operates under the WestJet group of companies. I could be wrong though. They state it will provide more affordable and competitive airfares and vacation packages however if history is any indicator that is rarely the case when an acquistion in the travel market takes place. (Source WestJet)

Images via WestJet/Sunwing

Offer extended: 10% cash back for the first two months with Tangerine Mastercards

Originally set to end on February 28 the welcome offers on the ever popular Tangerine credit cards have been extended to the end of this month. Both the Tangerine Money-Back Credit Card and the Tangerine World Mastercard will award a 10% cash back welcome earn rate in the first two months for any new approved applications made by March 31, 2022. The 10% is capped on $1,000 of purchases for a total cash back reward of $100. After that 10% cap is hit or after 2 months the regular earn rate of up to 2% cash back kicks in. 

New Amex Offers providing statement credits with lululemon, Lenovo and William Ashley

 

Three more Amex Offers came out this week in addition to the St. Louis Bar & Grill offer we mentioned yesterday. What is interesting is all three of these offers came on my Cobalt Card. and nothing on the Platinum Card. Typically it has been the latter card that gets all the offer with very few coming through on the Cobalt Card. 

Three months in and Scene+ doesn't seem any closer to having a fix for their ongoing issues - time to start asking for compensation?

 
Over the last few days I have been posting about some of the new (and old) Scotiabank credit card offers which in their own right are pretty good offers. I've also received general emails from the Scene+ program heralding the benefits of these cards but I feel I need to address the elephant in the room. This is a topic many of you are still writing to me about and that topic is Scene+ still being a complete disaster nearly three months after the new combined program launched and of course that disaster is primarily for the credit card holders.

Technical issues hamper new flight bookings with BMO Rewards, bank tells customers book elsewhere and redeem points for that travel but at a lower value!

 
UPDATE: We did it! This post seems to have made BMO change their course and are now charging 150 points for $1 instead of 175 to $1. Read our update here.

I went to check out the BMO Rewards site as part of my normal rounds of checking out all the issuers sites for anything new or interesting and it appears BMO Rewards is having technical issues for new flights bookings. Their temporary solution is letting customers they can book the flights themselves with whomever they want and they can take advantage of special promotional rate to redeeming points against the charge however that rate is not as good of rate if you book flights through BMO Rewards.  

New welcome offer of up to 35,000 Scene+ points with the Scotiabank Passport Visa Infinite card

 

Earlier we detailed the new bonus offer for the Scotia Gold American Express Card and as mentioned in that post there is also a new offer for the Scotiabank Passport Visa Infinite card. The new offer for the Scotiabank Passport Visa Infinite card sees it offer up to 35,000 points which is worth $350 towards any travel.

New welcome offer of up to 45,000 Scene+ points with the Scotiabank Gold American Express Card

 

As it is the start of the month get ready for lots of updates coming your way with new credit card offers and extensions. Scotiabank updated many of the offers across their portfolio however it is only two cards that actually see a change instead of extensions. Those cards are tthe Scotia Gold American Express Card and the Scotiabank Passport Visa Infinite card. In this post we'll look at the Gold Amex offer and follow up with a separate post on the Passport Visa offer.

March 1 Update: Amex Offer for St. Louis Bar & Grill, Cobalt Card 30,000 point welcome bonus & American AAdvantage does away with 500 mile upgrades

Here's your Rewards Canada Daily update! Your 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! 

One new Amex Offers offer came out this week. For us this time we got it on the Cobalt Card which is great since this is a dining offer however there are no St. Louis Bar & Grill locations in Calgary but maybe if I make up to Edmonton I could utilize it.

Spend at least $50 in qualifying purchases using your registered Card at participating St. Louis Bar & Grill location(s) or at www.stlouiswings.com by 28/05/2022 and earn a one-time $10 statement credit. Registration cap applies. Terms apply.

New American Express Aeroplan Card offers: Earn up to 110,000 bonus Aeroplan Points

 

American Express released new welcome offers for their trio of Aeroplan co-brand cards today. You'll see that all cards have moved away from offering the bonus Buddy Pass to now offering bonus Aeroplan points for Air Canada, Air Canada Vacations, hotels, and car rental purchases on top of the other points bonuses these cards have been offering for the last little while. With the switch from the Buddy Pass to just a bonus containing points solo travellers can rejoice as you'll be able to take full advantage of any of these welcome offers.

Starbucks and TD expand relationship to reward virtually all TD credit and debit cardholders

In late 2020 when the new Aeroplan program was revealed there was one piece of the news that didn't garner too much of the attention. This wasn't surprising given the sheer breadth of everything that came out from Air Canada and its partners in regards to the new Aeroplan program. That piece of the news was a limited time bonus that only the TD Aeroplan co-brand credit cards had with Starbucks. All of those cards would receive 50% bonus Aeroplan points on Starbucks purchases for a whole year and then that promotion kept being extended until February 14, 2022. And now we know why that was the end date - that's due to this becoming a permanent benefit not only on the Aeroplan cards but virtually all TD debit and credit cards as of today!