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.

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.

VIA Rail to Replace its Quebec-Windsor Corridor Fleet

ByMatt

As you may already know, I am a big fan of trains and it is by far my favourite way to travel. Especially in Canada! Unfortunately, there is limited news that I can write about in Canada as VIA Rail has a fairly stable product and rarely do they shake things up, aside from last year’s Unlimited Pass for only $150 that sold out in less than a day. 

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Marriott International Announces One Set of Benefits

ByMatt

Marriott International announced, today, that it will introduce one set of unified benefits across Marriott Rewards, Ritz-Carlton Rewards and Starwood Preferred Guest for its members that will come into effect in August 2018.

Personally, I am very excited by what they have to offer. I think that they found a way to merge many of the good aspects of all 3 programs. It’s not perfect, but it does offer a lot of value.

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Top Cash Back Credit Card Offers for April 2018

ByMatt

Not much has changed this past month in the cash back scene.

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 on temporary offers only.

Note that we also have two other types of recent monthly lists going on:

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AC Conversion Offers Coming to an End

ByMatt

CIBC has been running a Mexico Contest where you can qualify to win flights for two to Mexico by loading your Air Canada AC Conversion Visa Prepaid Card with at least $100 of foreign currency. 

This contest ran from February 26, 2018 to April 8, 2018. The prize is an Air Canada travel promo code for economy class travel for two to a city in Mexico serviced by Air Canada  Odds of winning depend on number of eligible entries received.  

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Top Credit Card Higher than Normal Sign Up Bonuses for April 2018

ByMatt

Quite a few credit cards has promotions that expired compared to last month’s list, so we have a much less impressive list this month. Note that we also have two other types of monthly lists going on: Top Cash Back…

Rundown of Asia Miles (Cathay Pacific) for Canadians (updated April 3, 2018)

ByMatt

It has been over a year since this post was lasted updated. With some changes to their airline partners and an upgrade to the co-branded RBC credit card, this post is due for an update.

Expiry Policy
First of all, one change that I was hoping for has yet to occur. The expiry policy for Asia Miles continues to be 36 months after your miles are deposited. This means that you need to redeem your miles within 36 months of being deposited unless the member pays $40 USD for every 2,000 miles to renew for another 3 years. That means, you will be paying 2 cents for every mile that you want to renew. Not worth it to me.