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.

Comparing the AMEX Centurion Card, Cobalt Card, Platinum and Simply Cash Preferred

Today, we feature Pointshogger contributor Leo Doss, general manager of Carlined. He highlights some of the advantages and disadvantages of the American Express Centurion Card, Cobalt Card, Platinum Card and Simply Cash Preferred Card to help people decide which American Express card best suits their personal situation. 

Most American Express (AMEX) cards have very useful features and benefits, allowing you to save money, as well as valuable travel insurance. You can choose the AMEX card that is most appropriate to your lifestyle. AMEX can be especially valuable to business owners who frequent frequently.

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Best Credit Cards While Backpacking (updated February 26, 2018)

I cannot believe that it has been 3 and a half years since I last wrote a post about credit cards for backpackers. As you probably know, quite a bit has changed in the industry since then. There is no question that I am way overdue for a update on this post.

There are many reasons to go backpacking, but I think that we can mostly agree that part of the reason is to keep costs down so that we can travel for a more extended period of time. But just because we want to keep costs down, does not mean that we cannot also earn rewards along the

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Best Current First Year Fee Waived Cards for February 2018

We are back again with our monthly update on the first year fee waived credit cards list. Seems like the current trend is that most first year fee waivers are with fixed rewards or cash back. I really hope that this trend will shift at some point to see more airline and hotel (miles and points) promotions instead.

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

Top Cash Back Credit Card Offers

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Top Credit Cards to use at Restaurants (updated February 17, 2018)

It has been just over a year since I last updated this post. A few changes to the industry means this post is due for an update. Usually I update this post ahead of Valentine’s Day, but hey, we eat all year round. Furthermore, this has been a long winter in some parts of the country, so spring and summer cannot come soon enough, where we might be more willing to go out. So below is a list of the top credit cards to use at restaurants if you want to prepare for warmer weather ahead of time.

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RBC to WestJet Conversion Bonus

RBC Rewards is once again offering a 15% transfer bonus to WestJet between February 1, 2018 and February 28, 2018, so we are already halfway through the promotion. We have seen 25% transfer bonuses before, but I highly doubt we will see those generous days any time soon. For WestJet, 15% seems to be the bonus for the foreseeable future. At this point, I am just glad that there is even a bonus offer.

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Top Cash Back Credit Card Offers for February 2018

Very little has changed over the last 2 months as the current cash back offers are still good for a while.

Though keep in mind that we also have a Top Cash Back Credit Cards page. The difference is that the main page focuses on any (permanent or temporary offers), while this post focuses on temporary offers only.

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

Marriott Rewards 2018 Category Changes

Marriott is making quite a few hotel category changes this year. There are 1,083 hotels increasing in categories and 248 hotels dropping. The new changes come into effect on March 6, 2018.

In Canada, there are 46 hotels increasing and 17 decreasing. If you are planning any upcoming trips, you will want to take a closer look at which hotels are being affected to help determine when to make your reservation, whether before or after March 6, 2018.

Starwood Preferred Guest 2018 Category Changes

It is that time of the year when most hotel chains readjust their categories. Some hotels go up, some goes down. Today’s post is the changes that Starwood Preferred Guest is doing. There are 276 hotels that are affected, of which 13 are increasing by at least 1 category in Canada, while 2 are decreasing. This is quite surprising to me since the Canadian dollar has been fairly week the past year.