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.
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Top Credit Card Higher than Normal Sign Up Bonuses for April 2019

ByMatt

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.

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Top Credit Cards to Use on Road Trips (updated April 1, 2019)

ByMatt

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.

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Best Current First Year Fee Waived Cards for March 2019

ByMatt

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:

Tim Hortons Launches Tims Rewards Program

ByMatt

I was recently interviewed by Global News to provide my thoughts about Tim Hortons’ new rewards program called Tims Rewards (free to sign up). Looks like they want to compete with McDonald’s and Starbuck’s loyalty programs.

Earning
The program is fairly straight forward. For every 7 qualifying purchases (coffee, tea, or baked good), you earn 1 point. After 7 points, you earn 1 reward. However, you can only have a maximum of 5 rewards in the bank. This essentially forces you to redeem on the go. I really like the 5 reward limit condition, because it goes with the earn and burn philosophy that we emphasize at Pointshogger.

Credit Cards with Travel Medical Insurance for 65+ Years Old

ByMatt

A Pointshogger reader reached out to us and mentioned that it has been over 3 years since we last provided an update our post for travel insurance for people 65 years and older. So I think that it was appropriate to provide an update. It is not easy to find an insurance company that offers travel insurance to people over the age of 65. Even if you do find a company, chances are it is fairly expensive. So having the insurance coverage with credit cards is a nice benefit to have.

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Top Cash Back Credit Card Offers for March 2019

ByMatt

In my last top credit cards post, I started a new trend of mentioning featured cards in each list. I thought I’d keep it going. For this month, there are actually two cards that are tied.

Also keep in mind that we also have an going Top Cash Back Credit Cards page which consists of permanent and temporary offers, while this post focuses primarily on temporary offers.

Featured Cards
The Meridian Visa Infinite Cash Back Card and Scotia Momentum Visa Infinite Card have virtually the same offers, features and benefits. The two key are the first year fee waived and 10% cash back on the first $2,000 in purchases. The main difference is that the Meridian card does not seem to have an end-date on its offer, but the cards is only available to Ontario residents. The Scotiabank card is more widely accepted.

Toronto Miles & Points Event

ByMatt

Fellow Toronto-based travel & points blogger Ricky from Prince of Travel (whom we had the pleasure of interviewing) will be putting together the next Toronto Miles & Points Event on Sunday, April 7, 2019 at the Walrus Pub & Beer Hall in Downtown Toronto.

Attending in-person events like these is one of the best ways to pick up on some of the advanced topics within this hobby that are often kept secret, like manufactured spending. In addition, Ricky has mentioned in his post on this event that the focus of his presentation will very much be on these advanced topics, and I’m sure there will also be plenty of discussion in the networking session afterwards.