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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Marriott 15 Reward Night Credits Coming Through

ByMatt

It is official, at least for me, Chase Canada has fully honoured what they promised when the closed its Chase Marriott Rewards Premier Visa. Here is a chronology is what has been happening:

Chase Marriott Rewards Premier Visa Discontinued (existing cardholders grandfathered)
All grandfathered cardholders terminated (with promise of Free Night Certificate and 15 Reward Night Credits)
Free Night Certificate Awarded
15 Reward Night Credits Awarded (see below)

Earn 250 SPG Points for Checking-in on Mobile App

ByMatt

Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) has added a check-in feature on its mobile App. In celebration of this launch, they are running a bonus points promotion until June 15, 2018. All SPG members can receive 250 bonus points for checking-in using the SPG mobile app across all 7 SPG brands (St. Regis, The Luxury Collection, Sheraton, Westin, Le Meridien, Tribute Portfolio and Four Points). There is no limit on the number of bonus points that you can earn. Starpoints will be deposited within a few weeks of the promotion ending.

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Ranking the Credit Card Portfolios of Each Canadian Financial Institutions (updated May 1, 2018)

ByMatt

A few companies need to be added to this list, so I thought it was due for an update from 6 months ago. Most of the ranking changes occurred in the bottom half of the list. Furthermore, I also revamped the list to go with a pure ranking system instead of the previous grouping system. I think that it will run smoother now.

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.

IHG’s Pointsbreak Released (April 30, 2018 – July 31, 2018)

ByMatt

IHG has released its latest Pointsbreak program, which runs from April 30, 2018 – July 31, 2018. This is the second time that IHG released its new version of Pointsbreak. In the past, all hotels on the list can be redeemed for 5,000 points per night. However, they revamped their list to include discounts of down to 10,000 or 15,000 points per night as well.

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Marriott Rewards Free Night Certificate Coming Through

ByMatt

Check your Marriott Rewards account. The much anticipated “Rewards Certificate MR VISA CA ANNIV FREE NGT CAT 5” due to the termination of the Chase Marriott credit cards should be coming through today. 
It should look something like this when it shows up on your account:

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Best Current First Year Fee Waived Cards for April 2018

ByMatt

We are back again with our monthly update on the first year fee waived credit cards list. Quite a few changes from last month to consider. Note that we also have two other types of monthly lists going on: Top…

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Aeroplan Renews Rocketmiles Partnership

ByMatt

Let’s face it, after a slew of bad news for Aeroplan, they could use some good news. Aeroplan announced the renewal of a multi-year agreement with Rocketmiles. Rocketmiles is a third party hotel booking that allows you to earn miles for bookings. This partnership means that Aeroplan members can continue to earn a minimum of 1,000 miles and up to 10,000 miles per night. Note that Rocketmiles has more than 400,000 hotels in their portfolio to choose from.

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How I Manage all My different Loyalty Accounts (updated April 23, 2018)

ByMatt

I cannot believe that it has been almost 5 years since I last wrote an update on this post. I am frequently asked how I track all my loyalty programs at the same time, because it seems like “so much work”. I agree, if a person is not organized, it is definitely a lot of work and may not feel worth it to sign up for many programs.

Luckily, there are websites and Apps out there that make life a lot easier. But I will discuss the elephant in the room first before getting into these programs. The primary concern of using third party sites to track loyalty programs is security.

How to make Economy Air Travel more Comfortable (updated April 20, 2018)

ByMatt

I actually wrote a post about this subject two years ago and I thought it was due for a slight update. As you probably already do, a lot of time is spent collecting miles and points so that we can have a First Class treatment when travelling. Basically, the goal is to earn enough miles and points to redeem for a reward that we would not otherwise use out-of-pocket cash to pay.

However, the majority of people who fly are on economy. So today, I will share some of my personal tips on how I make my economy travel more comfortable.