How I Manage all My different Loyalty Accounts (updated April 23, 2018)

I cannot believe that it has been almost 5 years since I last wrote an update on this post. I am frequently asked how I track all my loyalty programs at the same time, because it seems like “so much work”. I agree, if a person is not organized, it is definitely a lot of work and may not feel worth it to sign up for many programs.

Luckily, there are websites and Apps out there that make life a lot easier. But I will discuss the elephant in the room first before getting into these programs. The primary concern of using third party sites to track loyalty programs is security.

Security

This has been an extremely sensitive matter, especially with the whole PC Optimum fiasco with people having their points stolen more than once. Just a quick thought on that, changing passwords is probably a good idea, but I would recommend more to cancel the loyalty card and get a new one instead. Have a clean and fresh start instead.

Giving third parties access to our personal information is definitely a risk. So it is important that they have a strong security system in place. But the truth is, nor matter how good their security system is, there is only so much they can do. The idea is if they show up on the news frequently about being hacked, it does not help their company, which will cause them to lose business and eventually probably go bankrupt. I cannot see how is in their best interest.

However, much of the responsibility is still on the person. Even if you had a bank account with money in there, you would probably want to double check that your money is still there tomorrow. That’s how I see my miles and points. They are a currency to me, so I am more than happy to check it once a day. I also check it once a day because I am usually waiting for at least one important transaction per day anyway.

The good news for me is that I can check almost everything in one place.

AwardWallet

AwardWallet is my go-to-program for monitoring all my accounts. I use them because they have strong ties with the major Canadian specific loyalty programs, such as

• Air Canada – Aeroplan
• Air Miles
• Chapters Indigo – Plum Rewards
• Cineplex – Scene
• Esso Extra
• HBC Rewards
• Petro-Canada – Petro Points
• Porter Airlines – VIPorter
• PC Optimum
• VIA Rail – VIA Preference
• WestJet Rewards

I am comfortable with AwardWallet since they have been around since 2004 and I have been a member for over 5 years. They are missing access to several major U.S. based frequent flyer programs, but you can at least manually update your account to help you track your balance.

The features I love about their program is:

• Ability to view all my loyalty programs in one place.
• Ability to automatically update all my balances.
• Ability to see most of my accommodation and flight itineraries
• Ability to monitor the balances for family and friends on their behalf
• Receive emails with alerts (e.g. upcoming miles and points expiry), changes (e.g. flight time changed) and reminders (e.g. check-in to my flight).

With all these loyalty programs, how do I fit the cards in my wallet?

Stocard

Stocard has made my wallet so much lighter. Stocard is an online App that allows you to store your loyalty cards digitally. When you go to the store, all you need to do is pull up the App for them to scan the bar code. Because of this App, I no longer carry physical loyalty cards in my wallet anymore.

Just like Award Wallet, Stocard has partnerships with most of the major Canadian reward programs, which is important to me.