Air Canada’s frequent flyer program, Aeroplan, has launched a partnership with Starbucks Canada that enables Aeroplan members to earn and redeem points on Starbucks (e.g. beverages and snacks).
Link Accounts
Members need to go to aircanada.com/starbucks to link their Aeroplan and Starbucks Rewards accounts together.
Due to the government lockdowns that occurred throughout the past 12 months (already? … gasp!), I find that I have dramatically reduced spending. The reduction in spending inspired me to write up this post. I’m sure that I’m not the only person to have reduced spending, so I thought I’d put together what I think would be an ideal no annual fee credit card portfolio.
Keep in mind that this post focused on credit cards with no annual fees whatsoever. This is important because I am thinking longevity (i.e. retaining the same card long term), so I will not be factoring churning, which would be a post for another day. For this post, you may notice some of the more lower profile cards, but do have some hidden value in them.
For this month’s list, the HSBC and RBC offers are coming to an end, but we introduce the 40,000 sign up bonus Scotiabank Gold American Express.
Top Higher than Normal Sign Up Bonuses for March 2021
It has been over 2 years since my last update regarding VIA Rail’s loyalty program: VIA Preference. Also, if you have read my other train related posts, you’ll know that I am a huge fan of trains… yes… even more than the plane when factoring the overall experience. So I always have fun writing about Canada’s primary passenger rail service!
With international travel restrictions tightening up, travel within Canada might be the way to go? Today’s post will update the features and benefits of the VIA Preference program. But also, introduce Rail passes, which I may look into writing an more in-depth post about it in the future. Let’s kick things off with one significant change to VIA Rail’s loyalty program, the expiry policy.
Several offers are expiring at the end of the month, so if you have been thinking about these offers, you may want to apply for them soon as they expire in 3 days.
Keep in mind that permanent first year fee waived offer are not included in this list, we are only listing promotions with an end date.
Limited Time First Year Fee Offers
We feature guest writer, Raúl Menéndez, who is an Outreach Specialist with Money.com. Today’s post may seem a little different than our usual theme on maximising earning rewards. Raúl will be sharing his experience of going from a low credit score to a high one, and then how to maintain it. So the credit card strategy behind going from a low to high credit score is very different than for someone who already has a strong score looking to leverage for more rewards (which is a post for another time!). For now, thank you Raúl for taking the time to share your knowledge with us, we really appreciate it!
It is official, the February 22, 2021 hotel quarantine rules for incoming air travellers are now in effect and the list of approved hotels are out on the Government of Canada website.
Keep in mind that there are currently only 4 airports in Canada accepting international flights. This means that if you are flying into a different part of the country, you will probably have a connecting flight at one of these airports. Keep in mind that you will still need to quarantine in one of these hotels because being able to board your connecting flight several days later, as you wait for the test results.
Since the Canadian market has a strong 10% cash back market, we will be retiring our Top Current Cash Back post that we last published this month and replace that slot with this one instead. This month’s list is boosted with 2 new permanent offers from CIBC.
However, we start our list with the temporary offers as they are set to expire. Notably, the 10% cash back offer on the Scotia Momentum Visa Infinite Card is set to expire this month.
CBC released an article about people finding ways to circumvent the hotel quarantine requirement, so I thought I’d chime in my thoughts into the matter since it seems to be a hot topic.
Quarantine Requirement
We have written an extensive post already on the hotel quarantine requirements.
Today is going to be the last time that we posted this monthly list, regarding top cash back credit card promotions. The reason is because there is a strong 10% cash back market (permanent and temporary offers) in Canada. We will be replacing this slot with a new monthly list that we tried out last month (Current 10% Cash Back Portfolio for January 2021). There will still be a 10% cash back post last this month, but starting in February, it will replace this slot (which comes out in and around the 15th of every month).