Options outside of Aeroplan and Air Miles. Part 2: Credit Card Programs

The majority of Canada's loyalty program market share is held by two programs, Aeroplan and Air Miles. While both programs have strong roots in travel they have grown into what the industry calls coalition loyalty programs, which in layman's terms means many earning partners and a varied rewards catalog. Its hard not to be a member of at least one of these two programs since you would miss out on some potential rewards because of their vast coverage within Canada. With that being said, I receive numerous emails from my readers on how they are fed up with Aeroplan or Air Miles or both and they want to know what other options they have, particularly for travel rewards. This piece will look at the other options Canadians have for travel reward loyalty programs and while you can take any of these routes as your primary program I would recommend keeping Aeroplan and/or Air Miles as a secondary program. One thing you will notice is that to make one of these other programs your primary one, it will require the use of a credit card to maximize your reward potential. For travel reward programs, credit card use is the easiest way to rack up points and miles outside of actual travel. I've broken out the choices into four parts and will focus on the pros and cons of making one of these choices as your primary program.

Part 1: Frequent Flyer Programs
Part 2: Credit Card Programs

Part 3: Hotel Programs



CREDIT CARD PROGRAMS

If you have followed Rewards Canada for at least sometime you’ll know that I like to split travel credit cards into 5 categories. Part 2 of my feature on your other options outside of Aeroplan and Air Miles focuses on three of those credit card categories: Travel Points (with annual fee), Travel Points (no fee) and Hybrid credit cards. The other two categories of credit cards, airline and hotel are covered in Part 1 and Part 3 respectively.

Flexibility, Flexibility, Flexibility, that is the key to Travel Point and Hybrid credit cards. Despite varying degrees of flexibility (see Infographic below) the premise behind these cards is to give you the flexibility to book any flight at anytime with any airline and not be bound by the sometimes very restricting rules of a Frequent Flyer Program.

Some of the credit cards go even further by allowing point redemptions for hotels, car rentals, vacation packages, train tickets and more. What essentially happens here is that you book travel either on your own and redeem points for that travel or redeem your points for a booking made via the credit card issuer’s travel agency. How you book depends on the credit card, cards like the Capital One Aspire MasterCards, TD Infinite & Platinum Visas, American Express Gold Rewards & Blue Sky Cards and the Diners Club Club Rewards MasterCard all allow you to book your travel yourself via any method (online, travel agency etc) with any travel provider and then redeem the points against the charge on your statement. While the remainder of the cards have you book via the card’s reward center or their dedicated travel agency. So as long as there is availability for the travel you want there shouldn’t be any issues in booking it. This is where these cards stand out over Frequent Flyer programs as FFPs tend to have a limited amount of seats at the lowest redemption levels and may not have the exact dates you want unless you redeem at the ‘higher’ any seat anytime redemption levels. With the travel point/hybrid cards you are technically ‘buying’ a revenue airline ticket, hotel stay etc so the beauty of these bookings is that in most cases you can earn frequent flyer miles on the flights and/or frequent guest points on the hotel stays whereas reward tickets from Frequent Flyer programs do not.

The majority of the travel points and hybrid cards offer a rate of return between 1 – 2.33% on your credit card spending which is very comparable to credit cards that earn frequent flyer miles when redeeming for economy class tickets. Where the travel points and hybrid cards lose value is in redeeming for First or Business Class tickets as the rate of return remains at the 1 - 2.33% while frequent flyer program credit cards can achieve rate of returns upwards of 10% or more. 



If your travel rewards goal is to travel in First or Business Class you will be better off with an airline (frequent flyer) credit card or hybrid card but if your travel rewards goal requires any of the following: flexibility, economy class flights, multiple airline options, hotels, car rentals and virtually any other travel then a travel points or hybrid credit card is more than like the better option for you.



Some of the more popular Travel Points and Hybrid credit cards in Canada are:
American Express Gold Rewards Card
BMO World Elite MasterCard
Capital One Aspire Travel™ World MasterCard®
CIBC Aventura World MasterCard

CIBC Aventura Visa Infinite
CUETS Platinum Class MasterCard

Desjardins Odyssey Gold
Diners Club Club Rewards MasterCard
RBC Visa Infinite Avion
RBC Visa Platinum Avion

TD First Class Visa
 Infinite
TD Platinum Travel Visa

There are nearly 40 more cards that fall into this category from other banks and credit unions in Canada.

Additional Free Night Voucher with the Best Western MasterCard

This offer is no longer available

50% Bonus Aeroplan Miles on Canada, US, & Mexico/Caribbean flights

For a limited time you can earn 50% Bonus Aeroplan Miles on all Air Canada flights within Canada, between Canada and the U.S. as well as to/from Mexico and the Caribbean if you book your flights online at AirCanada.com. The offer is valid for bookings until June 4 for travel until September 3.

Full details can be found here.

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Etihad Airways now serving Vancouver (well sort of... via a codeshare)

I thought I would bring this Etihad news to our readers since they were one of the big sponsors of our 10th Anniversary contest last year and some of you won Etihad Guest miles in that contest that perhaps you can use on this route if you have earned even more Guest miles!

Recently, Abu Dhabi's Etihad Airways began a full code share agreement with Germany's airBerlin, you may have seen some of the bonus offers announced by us when the partnership launched and as some of you may or may not know, airBerlin serves Vancouver during the summer months. With the full partnership between airBerlin and Etihad that means you can earn and redeem Guest Rewards miles for this flight.

Flight No	FROM	TO	DEP	ARR	DAYS
EY 1013	Vancouver	Dusseldorf	12:30	07:10+1	Wed & Sun
EY 024	Dusseldorf	Abu Dhabi	11:50+1	20:20+1	Wed & Sun
EY 023	Abu Dhabi	Dusseldorf	02:00	07:00	Wed & Sun
EY 1016	Dusseldorf	Vancouver	09:45	10:45	Wed & Sun

Service started on May 13th, 2012 with flights every Sunday. Frequency increases to twice a week from June 13th, 2012 every Wednesday and Sunday up until October 21st, 2012.

For those of you down east, Etihad serves Toronto directly from Abu Dhabi as well.

For more details on the Vancouver connection please see here or to book flights visit Etihadairways.com

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Transfer points to Aeroplan to earn up to 40,000 Bonus Aeroplan Miles

Aeroplan is going full tilt this spring with the bonus mileage promotions! From the Star Challenge to using multiple travel partners to buying a Maple Leaf Lounge membership, you pretty much name it and you can get bonus Aeroplan miles for it. The latest in their slew of offers is the return of their partner transfer bonus. Basically what it entails is transferring points out of other loyalty programs into your Aeroplan account. In the past the bonus was based on per transaction basis so the promotion wasn't as attractive as it is now since this time around it is cumulative across all participating partners. That is, you can transfer from partners like American Express, Starwood, Hertz and more and as long as the total Aeroplan miles deposited from all of them reaches one of the bonus target levels you will be awarded the respective bonus miles. What is even better is that if you complete some of these transfers before May 28 they should also count as 'stars' for the Aeroplan Star Challenge. The offer as pulled from our Aeroplan Bonus Mile Promotions page is as follows:

Earn up to 40,000 Bonus Aeroplan Miles when you convert points from a wide selection of Aeroplan partner loyalty programs (hotel, car rental, credit card and points.com). Bonuses are as follows and are awarded on a cumulative basis (not per transaction like previous promotions)
Convert Points to
5,000 Aeroplan Miles to earn a 1,000 Mile bonus
10,000 Aeroplan Miles to earn a 2,000 Mile bonus
20,000 Aeroplan Miles to earn 4,000 Mile bonus
50,000 Aeroplan Miles to earn a 10,000 Mile bonus
100,000 Aeroplan Miles to earn a 25,000 Mile bonus
150,000 Aeroplan Miles to earn a 40,000 Mile bonus
Full details Valid until June 18, 12

Virgin Atlantic Business Class Vancouver-London for $1774 ALL IN!

Many airlines are starting to match British Airways' Jubilee Business Class sale in the U.S. and here in Canada Virgin Atlantic has gone even further by beating BA's Business Class price (see the post below this one for the BA offer) out of Vancouver

The Virgin Atlantic offer needs to be booked by May 18th like the BA offer and is good for travel from May 24th (the first day VS starts serving YVR) to June 10th. The total price for non-limousine Upper Class fares comes in as low as $1774 for round trip flights all taxes and fees included.

For complete details and/or online booking visit Virgin Atlantic

British Airways Business Class sale from Canada $1952 ALL IN!

To celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, British Airways is having a sale on Business Class flights to the U.K. from Canada. The price believe it or not is the same as the year that the Queen was inaugurated, 1952. Yes C$1952 including all fees and taxes for a round trip Business Class flight from any Canadian city that British Airways flies from (Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Montreal) to London or Manchester.

The sale only runs until May 18 and is good for travel between May 26 and June 9, 2012

For complete details and/or to book please visit British Airways

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Rewards Canada now has its own co-branded page on the Priority Club website

Rewards Canada has expanded its relationship with InterContinental Hotels Group with the launch of a co-branded page on the Priorityclub.com website. The landing page welcomes visitors from our two primary websites, FrequentFlyerBonuses.com and RewardsCanada.ca.

The page can be considered your one stop starting point for everything IHG and Priority Club with information on the Priority Club program and it also provides online booking with IHG. The page may also cover various promotions in the near future. Unless you are looking for a specific promo where own Priority Club Bonus Points page is required, this page can be used for all your general IHG & Priority Club needs.

Feel free to visit the page at anytime or better yet bookmark it so you don't have to come back to this post!

Registration for Radisson Big Night Giveaway & Country Inns SOGO now Open

Per last week's FFB post about the latest version of Radisson's Big Night Giveaway, the promotion to earn 50,000 Club Carlson Gold Points for one qualifying stay is now open! The offer of 50,000 points is open to the first 100,000 registrants after which the bonus drops to 15,000 for anyone after the 100K mark. To be awarded the bonus points you must complete your qualifying Radisson or Radisson Blu stay between May 15 and  July 15. Last fall it took a couple of weeks for the first 100,000 spots to fill up and I am guessing that it will go much quicker this time round as more blogs pick up on the promo and the shear success of the first one. So your best bet is to not leave registration to the last minute but rather do it right now at

Radisson Big Night Giveaway

And thanks to Ric Garrido, the Loyalty Traveler, we have learned that this time around Club Carlson is not only running one promotion but three in total. The second is for stays at Country Inns & Suites that awards the first 35,000 registrants a 44,000 Gold Points for a qualifying Country Inns & Suites stays. To be awarded the bonus points you must complete your qualifying Country Inns & Suites stay between May 15 and  July 15.Just like the promo above once the registration limit is reached anyone registering after will receive a 15,000 Gold Points bonus. Once again register now to get in on the promotion at:

Country Inns & Suites SOGO

Once you have registered for these two promos you can book online at Radisson or at Country Inns & Suites. You will still earn your online booking bonuses on top of the big bonuses awarded with these promos.

The third promo is for stays at Park Inns. Just like the above two offers it provides enough bonus points for one free night within the same brand (although the points can be used for other brands, just wording it like they do :-) ) This offer also awards 44,000 Bonus Gold Points however it is only for the first 20,000 registrants after which...you guessed it....people will be awarded 15,000 Bonus Gold Points. To be awarded the bonus points you must complete your qualifying Park Inn stay between May 22 and  July 22. You don't have to worry about me registering for this one as my travels during the promo period does not have me going near a Park Inn. Registration for this offer starts on May 22.

Star Alliance 15th Anniversary Frequent Flyer Bonus

As you may or may not recall, on my Daily Bonus Offer Highlight for April 25 one of the offers highlighted was Miles & More's 15,000 mile bonus to whomever flies the most with Star Alliance to celebrate the 15th Anniversary of the Star Alliance. Well it looks like that bonus offer is being made available to every Star Alliance airline. So the top 15 people in each individual frequent flyer program that flies the most Star Alliance airlines during the promotional period will earn 15,000 bonus miles in that program.

Over and above this some airlines are offering even more miles. For example, Air Canada will award an additional 50,000 Aeroplan miles to all members who fly on 10 or more Star Alliance airlines during the promotional period.

Complete details on Star Alliance's 15th Anniversary promo can be found here. The promotion runs from today (May 14) to November 14, 2012.