This Air Miles expiry policy coming into effect on December 31, 2016 is really damaging their reputation. Basically, effective December 31, 2016, Air Miles reward miles that are more than 5 years old will begin to expire on a quarterly basis (March 31, June 30, September 30 and December 31). The program started back in 1992, and if people haven’t redeemed since then, they are probably panicking to redeem them now.
Marriott just launched their new Fall MegaBonus promotion on September 1st, 2016. For the first time, Marriott is allowing its members to choose how they earn their rewards points with the new Choose Your Path initiative. Members can choose to either earn up to 10,000 bonus points for every 10 stays or 5,000 bonus points after their second stay. With this new program, members can earn up to 50,000 points which can be can be redeemed for frequent flyer miles, concerts, sporting events and more.
Hyatt has added hotels in Ottawa and Edmonton, so I thought that I’d give a rundown of the loyalty program. First of all, Hyatt is a hotel chain that offers a variety of brands including: Park Hyatt, Andaz, Grand Hyatt, Hyatt Regency, Hyatt hotels, Hyatt Centric, Hyatt Place, Hyatt House, Hyatt Zilara, Hyatt Ziva and Hyatt Residence Club.
The list has really trimmed down for this month. I really hope that it picks back up as we lead into the fall, but with record profits, that doesn’t seem likely at the moment.
The RBC British Airways Visa Infinite is once again offering its 50,000 sign up bonus Avios upon approval. It seems that the trend is that this promotion is offered once every 6 months or so.
Another report, another profitable quarter for the Big Banks. Apparently Canada’s top 6 banks (in alphabetical order: Bank of Montreal, CIBC, National Bank, Royal Bank, Scotiabank, TD Canada) earned a combined $10.4 billion in one quarter or a 12.6% increase from last year. I recently wrote a post about What to do in a Declining Miles and Points Industry.
From my last update on the list of Priority Pass lounges, there were only just over 600 lounges worldwide. Now they bumped up to over 900.
We’ve updated our “Are you a business owner” page to include the option for business owners to have an American Express account manager for the first 12 months of a business card membership.
It’s no secret that it feels like the industry is tightening its belt as the economy recovers. Fewer churning options, lower sign up bonus offers, less first year fee waived opportunities. It’s so easy to write things thoughts and ideas. The hard part is to focus on the positives. So let’s get some negatives out of the way first, so that we can have a more positive post:
If you are a business owner, you may be interested in some bonus American Express Membership Rewards opportunities. Otherweise, we have also put together a list of top business credit cards to consider.