Airline alliances have really revolutionised frequent flyer programs. Having codeshare partners has really increased the value of many loyalty programs by giving us to ability to redeem miles with one airline to use on partner airlines.For today’s post, many affiliate airlines have been discontinued, so I thought this post was due for an update. I also added the connecting partners mentioned by one of our readers from last time.
No real changes from last month’s list. Most offers are expiring in June or October of this year.Featured CardSince there are no real changes this month, the featured card will remain the same, the TD First Class Travel Visa Infinite Card with its 80,000 sign up bonus and first year fee waived offer.
I have been debating how often I should update this post. I decided on 6 months, and it has been the latest trend anyway. There has been several changes (though mostly in the bottom half of the rankings) to the industry in that period of time to warrant an update anyway. Most significantly, it was time to include Brim Financial and Cuets.Every time I write up an update, I generally try to have a theme throughout the post. This time around, I am going to emphasis more on the gap between the rankings.Below are my personal rankings of each company, along with a commentary and a list of some of my top credit card picks for each financial institution.
UPDATE [April 30, 2019 8:15pm EST]- Please note that some information has been updated in the responses below from when it was posted earlier today [April 30, 2019 9:20am EST]. Today we have the pleasure of interviewing Blair Cameron, President of AIR MILES who is going to share some exciting news about airmilesshops.ca, its partnership with redtag.ca and other titbits. Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions Mr. Cameron. Q1: Please tell us about yourself.Hello, I am Blair Cameron, President of the AIR MILES Reward Program, Canada’s most recognized loyalty Program.
For this month’s list, you’ll notice many promotions that ended in February that are off this list. There are times when promotions get extended, but other times not. This goes to show that if you do see a promotion that you like to go for it, and not necessarily risk waiting for a better offer.As March comes to an end, this was the first full month where we started a new trend of featuring a top credit card on our monthly lists. See the other two monthly lists on how we highlighted the featured card:Top Cash Back Credit C
Every year, when I write about my wish lists, you may notice that I include retention bonuses as one of them. Sure enough, Canada has starting picking up in this segment of the industry. With the introduction of the Scotiabank Passport Visa Infinite Business Card, I thought it was time for me to write a post up on this topic. Basically, churning has been frowned upon. However, a compromise to this is to offer incentives for big spenders. The bonus rewards that we would receive, should in theory, reduce the amount of churning that happens. Ideally the spending bonus would cover the need to churn to generate more bonus points.
We are well into 2019 now and most of the 2018 offers expired by the end of March. Going forward, we are looking at new offers. The reason I mention this is because there tends to be a theme each other. For example, high sign up bonuses (2013, 2017), strong cash back (2018), etc. So I am trying to figure out what the theme is. For now, it seems like we are still riding the momentum of a strong 2018 cash back year.
As we get deeper into 2019, we have a better idea of how things are shaping up. Till now, 2019 is shaping up to be a strong year for higher than normal credit cards sign up bonuses. If you’re looking for another round of credit card sign ups, to boost your miles and points portfolio, there may be some cards below to consider.
Featured Card
Personally, I am enjoying picking featured card(s) of the month, as it requires me to put more thought into my personal research when I consider my next cards to sign up for. For this month, I am going to give this honour to the TD First Class Travel Visa Infinite Card only with its 80,000 sign up bonus and first year fee waived offer.
See Also: Top Reasons to go on Road Trips
I usually try to update this post once a year, as we get into spring. Historically, I have updated this post in June, but it may be more useful to update it sooner. The Canadian credit card landscape has changed quite a bit over the past year, so this post was definitely due for an update.
For Canadians, road trips generally consist of cross country or cross boarder to the United States. Perhaps some people venture further into Mexico, but probably not much further south. So this post will focus on two portfolios to put together, for travel within Canada and for travel to the United States / Mexico.
I often get questions like: “Should I go to this country?”, “Is it safe to go to this country?”
As you probably know, part of the reason this blog was created, was because I wanted to write about my travel habits, strategies, etc. The latest is that I find myself on the Canadian government website much more often that I used to.