Earning and redeeming miles and points are great. But what happens if you do not have enough rewards to book your trip? Then you need to pay the travel expenses (namely air fare, hotel and car rental). So what’s the best credit card to optimize the return on your rewards?
Marriott buying out Starwood could really mean the end of Starpoints. But for now, things remain status quo and it may be 12-18 more months before we see any sort of movement in the reward programs. For now, there is still time to accumulate Starpoints.
For those of you who don’t like paying annual fees. This is the post for you. Personally, I would actually prefer signing up for credit cards that waive their first year annual fees. Those are generally the credit cards with much more generous sign up bonuses. So you take the bonus first, then decide what you want to do with the credit card after the first year. In some cases, it may make sense to pay the annual fee.
“Fifth freedom” flights are actually a very interested concept. It is the right for an airline to fly between 2 foreign countries on a flight originating or ending in one’s own country. For example, Air China is an airline that originates from China. However, there is a route that flies between Montreal and Havana. All it is really doing is that it flies from Havana to Beijing, but it makes a stop in Montreal.
I think that we are due for an update for airline expiration policies, as a few of them have changed recently. I have only listed frequent flyer programs that have a direct way of earning miles with them in Canada. You can always keep these accounts active with co-share or alliance member partners.
Starwood Preferred Guest has announced its 2016 hotel category changes, which will come into effect on March 1, 2016. But first, here is a quick recap on the number of points required for a reward night for each category:
Marriott Rewards has released their 2016 hotel category changes that come into effect on March 24, 2016. First off, let’s recap the number of points required for a reward night with Marriott.
It has been a while since my last hotel expiry policies update. There have been a few changes ever since, so I thought I’d give my list a quick update. In deciding my preference for hotel loyalty programs, I give a lot of consideration to the expiry policy. I have been focusing my energy on 4 hotel rewards programs: Best Western Rewards, Hilton HHonors, IHG Rewards and Starwood Preferred Guest.
Desjardins is primarily a Quebec based credit card company, though they appear to be looking to expand across the country. One of their top credit cards is the Visa Prestige Platinum. Below are the highlights of its credit card:
American Express in the United States has already completely discontinued its referral bonuses. This is one instance where it is a good thing that Canada is still lagging behind. It is fairly well documented that American Express Canada only has a handful of credit cards or charged cards left that give a referral bonus.