Author: Matt

Matt has been an avid points collector since 1992 (an elementary school student), when his dad signed up for the new (at the time) Air Miles program. Since then, Matt took a keen interest in learning how the miles and points world works. He quickly found out that there is a lot of value in leveraging miles and points to fund his passion for travelling.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

Ranking the Credit Card Portfolios of Each Canadian Financial Institutions (updated December 1, 2020)

ByMatt

It has been 8 months since our last update. Can you believe it, 8 months ago we were already dealing with lockdowns.

Suffice to say, there has been some major changes to the industry since then, namely, Capital One slowly shutting things down, along with Aeroplan’s launch of new co-branded cards. Even so, you will notice most of the ranking changes from the middle to the end of the list. 

So Does Canada Have a Travel Ban?

ByMatt

The Canadian Government has lots of information regarding who is permitted to travel to and from Canada (along with exceptions). There seems to be a lot of information to sort through. But let’s dig a little deeper as we hope to demystify the whole “travel ban” in place.

We will avoid being political in this post. This post is suppose to be as neutral as possible, but also highlights open-ended questions for food for thought. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section below! 

|

[PROMOTION] Last Chance for Aeroplan Black Friday Bonus Opportunities

ByMatt

Air Canada’s Aeroplan program is offering a wide variety of Black Friday bonuses. This is a great way to rack up more points for things that you plan on purchasing anyway. In some cases, you may want to advance your purchase that you were planning to take advantage of the offers available. Furthermore, there are discounts to reward redemptions too. 

The promotion period started on November 19, 2020 and runs until tomorrow, November 29, 2020. So this is the last chance to take advantage.

Below are some of the offers to look forward to: 

| | | | |

Best Current First Year Fee Waived Cards for November 2020

ByMatt

Several offers ending (see October 2020 and November 2020 cards) on this list that would not make it to next month’s list. So if you are thinking about a specific offer, you may want to go for it now.

Keep in mind that this post refers to temporary offers. We also have an ongoingly updated Top Credit Cards pages that includes permanent first year fee waived offers too. Here are some of the more relevant ones that are more related to this post:

|

[PROMOTIONS] Marriott Bonus Points Purchase and Cyber Sale

ByMatt

Marriott Bonvoy is offering several deals all at once to close out the month of November. Below are the highlights of some of their current and upcoming offers.

Just a quick disclaimer. Even though we are no endorsing unnecessary travel, we understand that there are people who do absolutely have to travel for work. And for those who do want to take a vacation, have fun, but please be careful! 

[INTERVIEW] CIBC – Dividend Credit Card Changes

ByMatt

Today we continue our interview series feature Andrew Wakefield, Director of Cash Back Cards at CIBC. He will be sharing with us the upcoming changes to its Dividend cards that come into effect on February 1, 2021. Thank you Andrew for your time in providing us with a preview of what’s to come, so that cardholders and future cardholders are more prepared! 

1) Please tell us about yourself and your role at CIBC?

| | |

Top Cash Back Credit Card Offers for November 2020

ByMatt

All the offers remain the same from last month. The two expiring ones (Laurentian Bank and Scotiabank) both got extended. 

Keep in mind that this monthly post only includes temporary offers with higher than normal cash back offer. We have a list of ongoing offers in the Top Cash Back Credit Cards page with a more complete list.

| |

Comparing CIBC and TD Aeroplan Platinum/Student Cards

ByMatt

For the time being, this will be the last of a series of Aeroplan co-branded credit cards comparison post.

For today, I will be comparing 3 the lowest tier credit cards that were introduced to the market on the exact same day (November 8, 2020). Unlike the other posts, American Express is not on the list this time. But CIBC does offer 2 options, a student and regular version. Since they have virtually the same features and benefits, they will be lumped into one category.

| | | |

Comparing American Express, CIBC and TD Infinite Business Cards

ByMatt

We continue our series on comparing Aeroplan credit cards that were introduced to the market on November 8, 2020. Today’s post focuses on all the business cards. Unlike our previous comparison posts, where we picked similar cards to look it, this post has a wider range of annual fee.

I went ahead with this post anyway as there are only 3 co-branded Aeroplan business cards to compare overall anyway. You can technically count the CIBC Business Plus card as a 4th one, but it depends on the type of business to qualify for that card, so for the purposes of this post, I will only include 3, but mention how the Plus card works too.