RBC Rewards teams up with airbnb - Now earn bonus points on airbnb stays until Feb 29, 16

 In many of my past meetings with credit card issuers I have always been asked the question what can we do to enhance the offerings for our proprietary credit card program cardholders. One thing I always mention is adding more partners to earn points is key, think coalition program style a la AIR MILES and Aeroplan. Now RBC was not one of those issuers that I met with but they seem to be on the same wavelength as me with their RBC Rewards program. They want to give their members more value in the program than just earning points via credit card spend. Hence a couple of years ago they launched the RBC Rewards emall for online shopping and now we have this partnership with airbnb. I thought it may have been Rocketmiles or Pointshound first as I know one of these two companies was in negotiations with RBC but it looks like that have been put on hold d by this limited time partnership with airbnb.

To celebrate the launch of the partnership RBC Rewards members will earn 2x points on all eligible bookings with airbnb and if you it is your first booking with airbnb you'll get an additional 7,000 bonus RBC Rewards points. Both of these bonuses end on Feb 29, 16. After that point you earn the regular RBC Rewards points rate that your card provides on any airbnb bookings. To be eligible for the 7,000 bonus points you must not have used an RBC credit card or debit card for the 24 months prior with airbnb.  You can find out more on the partnership and bonus offers here.

This is the second major loyalty partnership for airbnb as just about a month or so ago they launched a partnership with Virgin America's Elevate program.

December 7 Update: Alitalia MilleMiglia isn't going to end on December 31st, IHG Rewards Club buy points bonus and more!

Welcome to another week of miles, points and more and Rewards Canada!

News, Tips & Tricks

Alitalia seems to be benefiting the Etihad Airways investment in them. Not only is the airline on a major comeback but the MilleMiglia program is finally doing away with one of the most convuluted rules in the frequent flyer world. The expiration of the program every 3 years. Not just miles but due to some old Italian rule the entire MilleMiglia program has to end every three years and be restarted. Typically Alitalia would offer some sort of offer to keep your miles and move them to the new program (usually 1 flight in three months and you'd move your miles over) but now the great news is they've extended the validity of the current program from ending on December 31st to August 31st, 2016. At which time:

"On the 1st of September 2016 we will launch the new MilleMiglia programme edition, even richer with benefits and whatever miles you have accumulated up to 31 August 2016 will also be maintained and transferred to the new edition of the program."

This is good news. Your miles will automatically transfer over and you won't lose them. Part of me was thinking this could be the case as the past 6 months has seen a lot of bonus miles offers on flights, buying miles, hotel stays and more which really didn't make sense if the program was to expire soon. Now we just have to wait to see what Etihad has in store for the new Alitalia MilleMiglia program that will launch next September!

Delta Airlines continues its attack on Alaska Airlines as they are adding a 5th daily flight between Vancouver and Seattle for next summer. (Source Airlineroute.net)

National Airlines has delayed the launch of their Vancouver-Orlando Sanford route from January to May 2016. (Source Airlineroute.net)

Posts since our last update:

• 100% Bonus on buying IHG Rewards Club Points returns until December 11
  We were just detailing in November how the 100% bonus on buying IHG Rewards Club points could be translated…

Bonus Offers
AeroMexico Club Premier
- 2,000 Bonus Club Premier Kilometers for stays of 2 or more nights at participating new Marriott Hotes in Mexico. More... Until Feb 28, 16

Delta SkyMiles
- 1,000 Bonus SkyMiles when you earn miles by using the services of two or more participating non-airline partners. More... Until Feb 29, 16

EgyptAir Plus
- 20% Bonus Plus Miles when you fly EgyptAir between Cairo and Geneva. More... Until Dec 31, 15

IHG Rewards Club
- 100% Bonus IHG Rewards Club Points when you buy points online. More... Until Dec 11, 15

JetBlue TrueBlue (on FrequentFlyerBonuses.com only)
- Earn 1,000 Bonus TrueBlue Points on your first booking of $100 or more with Hotel Tonight. Earn an additional 250 bonus points on your 2nd and 3rd bookings. More... Until Jan 31, 16

Le Club accorhotels
- 4X Le Club Accorhotels Points for stays at new Accor Hotels Worldwide. More... Book by Dec 31 for stays until Jan 31, 16
- 4X Le Club Accorhotels Points for stays at select Ibis Hotels in Brazil. More... Until Dec 20, 15

Qantas Frequent Flyer
- Triple Frequent Flyer Points on all eligible domestic flights within Australia. More... Register and book by Dec 25 for travel until Jan 31, 16
 

100% Bonus on buying IHG Rewards Club Points returns until December 11

We were just detailing in November how the 100% bonus on buying IHG Rewards Club points could be translated into to some big savings on stays at InterContinental Hotels Group hotels worldwide and how that offer expired on November 11th. Well great news! They have brought it back until December 11th!

Offer Details
100% Bonus IHG Rewards Club Points when you buy points online. Full details. Until Dec 11, 15

Here is a copy and paste of part of our post from November detailing how it can be used to save some cash when you travel:

Let's take a stay at the Holiday Inn Express Halifax Airport. This hotel is currently part of the IHG Rewards Club PointsBreaks offer where you only need 5,000 points to stay at the hotel. We checked a stay from Dec 15 to 16th and found the 5,000 point rate was available:

To pay for that room, the best flexible rate is $139.99 plus fees and taxes. The AAA rate is $133.50 and the non-refundable prepaid rate is $125.99

Now if you don't have any points in your IHG account you could buy 6,000 points with the current bonus (3,000 + 3,000) for US $40.50 and have 1,000 points leftover.

Convert that to Canadian dollars and add GST and you are looking around $55 for that same stay. Saving you at least $70!

Need to stay 2 nights? It get's even better as 10,000 points is just over $90 for what would be at least $250 if you paid cash for the stay bringing your savings to $160 or more.

Now lets look at a non PointBreaks hotel, the InterContinental Times Square New York City.  A Saturday night stay, Jan 17-18, 2016 has the best Flexible rate is US$459

To redeem for this same room is 50,000 points

To buy 50,000 points with the bonus is US$312.50. Convert that to Canadian and add GST and you are looking at about C$425 versus the C$596.70 for the Best Flexible rate for a savings of almost $175 on that one night!!

Overall the 100% bonus on buying IHG Rewards Club points can provide great value! The offer brings the price of a point down to 0.575 of a cent and you only have to buy 1,000 points (unlike in the summer where you had to buy 26,000 or more). This per point price is less than the Points+Cash trick of buying points for 0.7 cents. If you choose to buy the maximum number of points, 60,000, it will cost you US$690 but of course you'll end up getting 120,000 points. That's 24 nights at IHG hotels if redeeming via the PointBreaks option which works out to only $28.75 per night!

YOU HAVE TO BUY POINTS BY DECEMBER 11th BUT YOU DON'T HAVE TO USE THEM RIGHT AWAY. However we do recommend that you don't buy points if you don't think you'll use them in the next 3-4 months are you always run the risk of the program raising redemption rates for stays.

Offer Details
100% Bonus IHG Rewards Club Points when you buy points online. Full details. Until Dec 11, 15

December 4 Update: Earn tons of AIR MILES on gift cards at Safeway, WestJet Rewards Hawaii Vacation Bonus and more!

Last update of the week, time for you to hit Safeway to earn some major AIR MILES bonuses for those Christmas gift cards!

News, Tips & Tricks
Air Canada Rouge will be replacing Air Canada Express on the Toronto-Charlottetown route for the Summer 2016 season. (Source Airlineroute.net)


Posts since our last update:

• Big Air Miles Bonuses for Gift Card Purchases at Safeway returns! Up to an $18 return per card (until Dec 10, 15)
  We love this time of year! Its only been a month since the last big AIR MILES bonuses for…
• Miles & More Award Ticket Sale - Save up to 50% on award tickets to Europe from Montreal and Toronto
  As we do at the start of each month we bring you the latest set Miles & More "Meilenschnaeppchen"…

Bonus Offers
Avianca LifeMiles
- Earn up to 750 Bonus LifeMiles for stays at La Quinta Inns and Suites. More... Until Jun 30, 16

Binter Canarias BinterMas (on FrequentFlyerBonuses.com only)
- Double BinterMas points for stays at Barcelo Hotels in the Canary Islands. More... Until Dec 31, 15
- Quadruple BinterMas points for stays at Iberostar Hotels in the Canary Islands. More... Until Dec 31, 15

British Airways Executive Club
- 100 Bonus Avios for every £25 spent when staying with Small Luxury Hotels of the World. More... Book by Dec 31 for stays to Jan 31, 16

Germanwings Boomerang Club (on FrequentFlyerBonuses.com only)
- Double Boomerang Miles when you fly between Cologne, Hamburg or Dusseldorf and Dresden. More... Book by Dec 31 for travel until Jan 31, 16

Marriott Rewards
- 2,000 Bonus Rewards Points per stay at participating Protea Hotels in Africa. More... Until Feb 17, 16

Qatar Airways Privilege Club
- Save up to 14,000 QMiles when you redeem for an award ticket to or from Atlanta. More... Book by Jun 30 for travel Jun 1 - Jul 31, 16
- Save up to 14,000 QMiles when you redeem for an award ticket to or from Boston. More... Book by Apr 15 for travel Mar 16 - May 15, 16
- Double QMiles for stays at participating Kempinski Hotels Worldwide. More... Until Jan 31, 16

WestJet Rewards
- $125 Bonus WestJet Dollars per person when you register and book a minimum five-night WestJet Vacations package at select Starwood Hotels & Resorts Hawaii. More... Register and book by Dec 10 for travel until Dec 15 & Jan 7 - Apr 30, 16

Big Air Miles Bonuses for Gift Card Purchases at Safeway returns! Up to an $18 return per card (until Dec 10, 15)

We love this time of year! Its only been a month since the last big AIR MILES bonuses for Gift Card purchases at Safeway. The latest  are the same as those seen in November and  June but aren't as good as the December 2014 offer of 70 AIR MILES per $50 card but are better than the 55 miles in November 2014. With this offer you'll earn 1.2 miles per dollar on these cards or if you work the other way, we value AIR MILES at 11 to 15 cents a piece so you are essentially earning $7.70 to $10.50 with each card. However if you look at our post about hacking the Air Miles program you'll know that you can actually get value of over 30 cents per mile on car rentals which means you can technically earn ~$18 on each these gift cards!

You have to print out the coupons and you can find them here
Hint: Print multiple copies and go through the till multiple times if you want to buy more than one card for the same retailer!

The merchant gift cards included are Spafinder, Bass Pro Shops, Sears, Roots, Garage, La Senza,  Mark's, Cactus Club,  Golf Town, HBC, PetSmary and Spring. There is also an offer of 75 Bonus Air Miles when you purchase a preloaded Visa Gift Card of $200 or more. Those cards however carry an activation fee so it isn't as worth it to buy them.

I bought many cards during the last few go rounds for a lot of bonus Air Miles plus the double Membership Rewards points as I purchased them on my American Express Gold Rewards card which awards 2 points per dollar spent at grocery stores.

Other credit cards you can look at using to really bump your miles/points earning on these types of purchases include (earning is per dollar spent):
American Express Air Miles Reserve Credit Card: 1 Mile/$10
BMO AIR MILES World Elite MasterCard: 1 Mile/$10
CIBC Aerogold Visas: 1.5 Miles
CIBC Aventura Visas: 1.5 Points
Scotiabank American Express Platinum/Gold: 4 Points
Scotiabank American Express: 2 Points
TD Aeroplan Visas: 1.5 Miles
To learn more about these cards visit our Travel Rewards Credit Card Comparison page

I know I'll definitely be buying the Cactus Club and PetSmart cards multiple times. Not sure about the rest as I don't really frequent those places that much. How about you? What cards will you jump on?

---

The American Express® AIR MILES®* Platinum Credit Card
• Earn a bonus of 2,000 AIR MILES reward miles when you charge a total of $500 in purchases to your Card within your first three months of Cardmembership
• Enjoy your first year free
• Earn 1 reward mile for every $10 in Card purchases at AIR MILES®* Sponsors
• Earn 1 reward mile for every $10 in Card purchases at other eligible grocery stores, gas stations, and drugstores in Canada
• Plus, earn 1 reward mile for every $15 in Card purchases everywhere else
• Shop at participating AIR MILES Sponsors across Canada with your Card and show your AIR MILES®* Collector Card, and you can earn reward miles twice
• More than 1000 rewards to choose from! Redeem for a wide range of rewards - everything from electronics to travel and more
• American Express is not responsible for maintaining or monitoring the accuracy of information on this website. For full details and current product information click the Apply now link.
Apply now
Conditions apply

Miles & More Award Ticket Sale - Save up to 50% on award tickets to Europe from Montreal and Toronto

As we do at the start of each month we bring you the latest set Miles & More "Meilenschnaeppchen" discounted mileage awards!  This month we see Business Class options for flying out of Montreal from Lufthansa and the continuation of the 50% discount on economy class travel on Austrian Airlines between Toronto and Austria. The Lufthansa offers are for travel between Apr 1 and May 15, 16 (must be booked by Dec 31 while the Austrian offers are good for booking and travel until the end of the year.

You can redeem Miles & More miles for round trip tickets on Lufthansa from Montreal to Europe for only 55,000 miles in Business Class. This is nearly a 48% discount off the normal Business Class award ticket price of 105,000 miles. The Austrian Airlines option out of Toronto is also a full 50% discount on economy class which means an award ticket price of only 30,000 miles. Granted all these tickets will also have fuel surcharges but this is still a pretty good deal when you look at it as a whole in terms of miles+cash outlay.

The crazy thing is that you can actually get the round trip economy class tickets for only $5,000 in credit card spend (and a $120 annual fee). How so? As we usually mention in this post you can boost your Miles & More account with the Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card from American Express. If you read our blog regularly you'll know that right now the card comes with a 20,000 Starpoint sign up bonus. When you convert those 20,000 Starpoints to Miles & More SPG will award you an additional 5,000 miles. Which gives you 25,000 miles but if you spend $5,000 on the card you'll have 25,000 Starpoints and the 5,000 Miles bonus giving you the 30,000 miles required for this flight. Of course fuel surcharges and taxes are extra.

Another way to get more miles is to use the current buy Starpoints Discount of up to 25% off and convert to M&M:
Save up to 25% when you buy or gift Starpoints online. Full details Until Dec 31, 15 
Buy 5,000-9,500 Starpoints Save 10%
Buy 10,000-14,500 Starpoints Save 15%
Buy 15,000-19,500 Starpoints Save 20%
Buy 20,000 Starpoints Save 25%

Simply book the offers seen here by December 31st (Lufthansa) or December 31st (Austrian).  
Full details on this offer can be found here

December 3 Update: Alaska Airlines adding extra legroom premium class, Top 5 Credit Card sign up bonuses and much more!

News, Tips & Tricks
Alaska Airlines will be introducing a Premium Class Economy section to their planes starting in late 2016. These new sections will offer 3" to 4" of seat pitch compared to regular economy. Not a huge change for us up North as most of our routes are serviced by Q400s but connecting to other routes (such as Hawaii which is quite popular for us) you will see this option. (Source Alaska Airlines)

Come join us at the Canadian Points University in January! You can save $20 off the ticket price when you use promo code REWARD20 ! Visit the site here.

Posts since our last update:

• Targeted Offer: Earn 50% Bonus Aeroplan Miles on tons of Air Canada flights Worldwide!
  Just received this offer in my email. It is targeted so you can try your Aeroplan number via the…
• Join Choice Hotels Privileges and earn 500 points for free + Choice will donate 500 points to The Steve & Marjorie Harvey Foundation
  Here is a great new sign up bonus for the Choice Hotels Privileges program. Granted no where near the…
• Top 5 Credit Card Sign Up offers for December
  Here are the Rewards Canada Top 5 Credit Card Sign Up offers for the month of December! This is not…
• Club Carlson Cybertastic Thursday - 5,000 Bonus Gold Points per night for stays at Country Inns & Suites
  Book by 11:59 p.m. CST tonight and earn 5,000 bonus Gold Points at any Country Inns & Suites By…
• KLM Flash Sale - Fly Business Class between Canada and Europe from $2499 all in!
  KLM has launched another one of their amazing Business Class sales for travel from Canada to Europe and beyond!…
• Three Days Only - 40% Bonus on buying British Airways Executive Club Avios
  From today to December 4th you can take advantage of a 40% bonus on buying Avios when your purchase…
• Starwood Preferred Guest: 2,015 Bonus Starpoints on your next stay in December
  Starwood has launched a new 'thank you' bonus for your next stay at any of their hotels Worldwide during…

Bonus Offers
Aegean Miles&Bonus
- 30% Miles&Bonus Discount on select award tickets within Greece and between Greece and Europe, the Middle East or Africa. More... Until Feb 29, 16

airBaltic PINS (on FrequentFlyerBonuses.com only)
- Earn up to 5,000 Bonus PINS when you book hotels via Kaligo. More... Book by Jan 31 for stays until Dec 31, 16

American AAdvantage
- 3,000 Bonus AAdvantage Miles per stays at participating Wyndham Hotels Worldwide. More... Until Feb 29, 16
- OFFER EXTENDED Earn up to 75,000 Bonus AAdvantage Miles when you buy or gift miles. More... Until Jan 4, 16

Choice Privileges
- 500 Bonus Privileges Points when you join Choice Privileges + Choice Hotels will donate another 500 points to The Steve & Marjorie Harvey Foundation. More... Until Mar 31, 15

Etihad Guest
- Earn up to 15,000 Bonus Guest Miles on all Etihad flights Worldwide. More... Register and book by Dec 15 for travel until Feb 28, 16

Jet Airways JetPrivilege
- Double JetPrivilege Miles when you fly Jet Airways between Mumbai or Delhi and Vishakhaptanam. More... Book by Dec 15 for travel until Dec 31, 15
- Earn up to Triple JetPrivilege Miles when you rent a car with Hertz Worldwide. More... Until Dec 31, 15

Qatar Airways Privilege Club
- Earn up to 20,000 Bonus QMiles when you fly between Miami, New York or Philadelphia and Doha. More... Register and book by Dec 31 for travel until Jan 31, 16
- Earn up to 20,000 Bonus QMiles when you fly between Atlanta and Doha. More... Jun 1 - Aug 31, 16
- Earn up to 20,000 Bonus QMiles when you fly between Boston and Doha. More... Mar 16 - Jun 15, 16

Starwood Preferred Guest
- 2,015 Bonus Starpoints on your next Starwood stay Worldwide. More... Until Dec 31, 15

Targeted Offer: Earn 50% Bonus Aeroplan Miles on tons of Air Canada flights Worldwide!

Just received this offer in my email. It is targeted so you can try your Aeroplan number via the link below but chances are if you didn't get the email you won't eligible. So check your email!!

It's a nice easy bonus of 50% bonus Aeroplan Miles on lots of routes within Canada, to the U.S., Europe, Asia, South America and Caribbean/Mexico!

Offer Details
50% Bonus Aeroplan Miles when you travel in any fare class within Canada, to the U.S., Europe, Asia, South America and Caribbean/Mexico. Targeted Offer - May not work for everyone. Register Online (Registration is required) Register & book by Jan 13 for travel until Apr 30, 16