Sunday, July 3, 2022

Earning Stories: Completing a quintuple dip for purchasing gas at Shell


You'll often hear points and miles enthusiasts and those that write about the industry make reference to dipping. That is double dip, triple dip and so on. What this refers to is earning multiple points, miles or other incentives for a single purchase or action. For most transactions the double dip is most common. It is your base earn in the loyalty program (the first dip), and then earning on your credit card for that purchase (the second dip). However, add in any bonuses or other promotions and that can grow to a triple or quadruple dip or even higher. Recently a combination of standard offers and limited time promotions allowed me to complete a quintuple dip when fueling up for gas at Shell!

Achieving the quintuple dip

How did I achieve a quintuple dip? Well it took three standard offers and two limited time promotions to do so. The standard offers were the base AIR MILES earn, the base credit card earn and the discount that Shell offers to CAA members. Then, to round out the big time dip there was a bonus miles offer from Shell and an Amex Offers promotion to receive statement credits for making purchases at Shell.

Dip 1: Base AIR MILES Earn

The base earn rate for Bronze fuel at Shell is one AIR MILES Reward Miles for every 20L purchased. Seeing that I purchased right around $60 worth of gas that amounted to just over 30 litres for one base mile earned.

Dip 2: Bonus AIR MILES Earn

AIR MILES sends out monthly emails to earn bonus miles at Shell for that month and you have to click the link to opt-in. I always opt-in even though I'm not really a Shell guy but I always opt-in just in case I do stop at Shell for gas. I'm glad I did opt-in as it allowed me to earn 50 bonus AIR MILES on this purchase. (This 50 was part of total 75 bonus mile offer in place, the first 25 were earned the week before)

The base earn rate plus the monthly bonus

 

Dip 3: CAA Discount

The third dip is not points earning but rather a discount for bringing in yet another program. If you are a CAA member you can enjoy 3 cents off per litre at participating Shell stations. I have my CAA membership # set up in the Shell App so the discount is automatically applied by utilizing Shell EasyPay.

Image courtesy of the CAA

Dip 4: Points earned on the Platinum Card

My four visits to Shell during the month of June were all paid for with my Platinum Card from American Express. These visits earned the base 1 point per dollar spent that the card offers. Normally I pay for gas with my American Express Cobalt Card or American Express Gold Rewards Card since both of them offer 2 points per dollar on gas but for those four ~$60 purchases it was worth it to forego the 240 or so extra points I would have earned for the $20 in savings provided by the 5th dip!

Dip 5: Statement credits earned on the Platinum Card 

Up until June 30 there was an Amex Offers promotion where you could earn a $5 statement credit on a $60 purchase from Shell and you could earn it up to 4 times. I only received it on my Platinum Card so as you have already learned, that is why I used it for these purchases.

To ensure I maximized this offer from American Express and Shell I actually made sure to only buy around $60 of gas each time so that I could make it to Shell more often. My SUV has a 100L tank so I purchased less than half a tank on June 10 and about the same on June 11 so that I could earn the credit twice instead of only once had I filled the tank completely on the 10th:

And that is how I achieved a quintuple at Shell for the June 10 purchases. The other three purchases were all quadruple dips since they didn't earn any bonus AIR MILES Reward Miles.

The value of the Quintuple Dip in numbers:

  • Dip 1 - $0.105
  • Dip 2 - $5.25
  • Dip 3 - $1.00
  • Dip 4 - $0.60
  • Dip 5 - $5.00

The total value is nearly $12 on a $60 purchase. Not bad at all! And that's taking into account the minimum value for American Express Membership Rewards points of 1 cent per point. In all honesty I will most likely redeem them for 4 to 6 cents a piece (or more) which would put my total return around $15. 

Wrapping it up

One of the reasons behind American Express having Amex Offers is to encourage cardmembers to use their cards at places they may not regularly shop at. And it works. I'm normally a Petro-Canada person out of convenience plus I do like the value I get out of Petro-Points when redeeming for car wash cards. However for most of June I switched to Shell to earn those $5 statement credits and everything else earned was icing on the cake. Now I didn't go out of my way to go to find a Shell but strategically stopped at their stations when I could. For July, it will be back to Petro-Canada and what perfect timing as they are offering triple Petro-Points for fuel purchases this month!


Amex Offers: Spend $50 at lululemon and receive a $50 statement credit (2 times)

 A new Amex Offers for lululemon came out this past Friday! This one is pretty amazing in that if you strategically buy lululemon items for $50 (I know that's tough with this store but it is possible) you essentially get those items for free as a $50 spend gets you a $50 statement credit. You can do this once for the remainder of 2022 and then once in the first half of 2023. Personally I received the offer on my Platinum Card

Saturday, July 2, 2022

TD Aeroplan cardholders: Earn 2 bonus points per dollar spent on foreign exchange purchases

For the next two months TD Aeroplan cardholders well 2 bonus points per dollar spent on foreign exchange purchases. That is, 2 bonus points on any purchases that are not in C$. So whether you are shopping online from outside of Canada or travelling outside our borders you earn those 2 bonus Aeroplan points. 

Two new Marriott hotels will be opening in Montreal this year

 

This is a relatively quiet year for new Marriott Hotel openings in Canada with only six new locations but we can actually add two more hotels to that list. Montreal will see two new hotels - the Residence Inn Montreal Midtown and Courtyard Montreal Midtown and we have to thank our reader Mike M. for letting us know about them.

Friday, July 1, 2022

Scene+ redemption rate for groceries will be a great 1,000 points for $10


Today sees Scene+ revealing a few more details on the upcoming partnership with their new co-owner Empire Company Limited. The Atlantic Canada based corporation that operates grocery stores, pharmacies, liquor and convenience stores announced last month they were leaving the AIR MILES program to become part of Scene+

Thursday, June 30, 2022

Amex Shop Small promotion returns for the summer! Receive a $5 credit for every $10 you spend at up to 5 participating small businesses


 

American Express Canada's awesome Shop Small offer is back for its summer run! This is an amazing promotion that many Amex Cardmembers eagerly await each year. For the next eight weeks Cardmembers are encouraged to use their Amex Card at participating Shop Small merchants to receive a $5 statement credit each time they spend $10 or more at up to 5 different participating small businesses.

Join Starbucks Rewards and earn 150 bonus Stars + 400 points for linking to Aeroplan & El Al to discontinue Toronto-Tel Aviv flights this fall

Here's your Rewards Canada Daily update! Your near daily dose of loyalty program, credit card and travel news, bonuses, deals and more.
Today's update is brought to you by the Scotiabank Gold American Express Card which you can earn up to 40,000 bonus Scene+ Rewards points (that’s up to $400 towards travel) and pay no annual fee in your first year with Click here to learn more about this offer


For a limited time you can earn 150 bonus Starbucks Rewards Stars when you join the program and then link your Aeroplan account! So if you are not yet a member of Starbucks Rewards yet now is the time to join as those 150 Stars can get you one fancy drink worht $5-$6 or three pastry items worth $9-$10! On top of this Aeroplan awards you with 400 Aeroplan points after your first purchase within 30 days of linking. Click here to learn more about this offer.

Amex Offers: Spend $60 on groceries three times and receive a $30 statement credit

 

Amex Offers Grocery Offer

 

Another amazing promotion from Amex Offers came out today! Today we see the return of a grocery offer that provides a $30 statement credit when you spend at least $60 three times at Empire Group of grocery stores! Personally I received the offer on our Platinum Card

The first step in the Scene+ Sobeys partnership is here - awesome new earn rates for Scotiabank credit cards


The newly minted partnership between Scotiabank, Scene+ and Empire Company Limited who operates Sobeys, Safeway and other stores took its first step today in revealing what we could expect from it. Scotiabank announced new earn rates on their credit cards that earn Scene+ points when using them Empire's group of stores plus a few other changes to the card. This comes only a day before we see the revamped Scotiabank Platinum and Red American Express cards launch. 

New Scotiabank American Express Card Offers provide up to 60,000 bonus Scene+ points


Scotiabank has revealed their summer welcome bonus offers for their trio of American Express Cards. Two of the cards, The Platinum Card and the basic Red Card see best ever bonuses in place as they are about to undergo some changes and the mainstay Gold American Express comes in with a respectable new offer.