There seems to be a lot of controversy regarding the PCR tests that airlines passengers must take on arrival in Canada. I thought it’s time for me to share my thoughts on this matter.
Arrival Testing Rules
First off, let’s go over some of the current rules and advisories in place, found on the Canadian government website:
Effective today, January 18, 2022, until April 30, 2022, Esso Extra members are able to convert their points to PC Optimum points.
At the beginning of the month, we predicted that the cash back market is going to heat up this year. So I am expecting to be very busy with updating this monthly post this year. To start the year off, the two Tangerine 15% cash back offers end this month, while Scotiabank has added its Momentum card to the list.
It is already 2022! To kick off the year with our first monthly higher than normal sign up bonus post, the National Bank offers ended last month and were not extended, so we will see if they offer another one later this year. The Scotiabank Gold American Express was set to expire, but now extended to February 28, 2022 to align with a couple other Scotiabank offers. Today is the last day for the two RBC WestJet offers.
Back in 2016, I began a tradition of trying to predict the travel / rewards market in Canada. The first year was rough, but it got better over the years. How did it go in 2021?
Happy New Year Everyone!!
A new year means a new wish list. Note that we generally provide a mid-term report on Canada Day (July 1) and a final report on New Year’s Eve. To be fair, all wishes have the goal of being a win/win/win scenario for everyone: “loyalty company, credit card company and customer”. In some cases it is just win/win because one party is not involved; for example a credit card company who offers in-house loyalty program with the customer as the other party.
As we close out 2021, we continue with our year-end series of grading our wish list from our first post of the year. This report card is a continuation from our yearly mid-term report back on Canada Day (July 1st of every year).
Over the years, during our Christmas Day post, we would provide shopping tips ahead of Boxing Day tomorrow. We’ve accumulated quite a bit of tips that you can refer to: 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019.
For this year, I would like to emphasis on online shopping, which has really taken off.
TD had most of their promotion ending from last month’s list, but they ended up extending most of their offers to March 2022 (with some minor tweaks to the offer) or May 2022.
The Brim offer is coming to an end this month. Usually they extended it by 1 month at a time. This time around, they extended by a rare 2 months in one shot, so there is a chance this will really come to an end this time. Or maybe they will offer something different instead starting January. Either way, if you have been thinking about this card for a while now, as is as good a time as any to go for it.
It has been just over a year since our last update (December 1, 2020) of the rankings list. The timing works well to update again this month, since we are coming to the end of the year. Now we get a snapshot of 2021, as we head into 2022.