While not the flashiest hotel chain, I am still a big fan of Best Western, Where they may lack in luxury, they make it up in affordability, availability and customer service.
In 2021, they have cut the requirements to qualify for its elite status program in half. So I thought I would take this opportunity to update our last rundown post from over 2 years ago.
Due to the government lockdowns that occurred throughout the past 12 months (already? … gasp!), I find that I have dramatically reduced spending. The reduction in spending inspired me to write up this post. I’m sure that I’m not the only person to have reduced spending, so I thought I’d put together what I think would be an ideal no annual fee credit card portfolio.
Keep in mind that this post focused on credit cards with no annual fees whatsoever. This is important because I am thinking longevity (i.e. retaining the same card long term), so I will not be factoring churning, which would be a post for another day. For this post, you may notice some of the more lower profile cards, but do have some hidden value in them.
For this month’s list, the HSBC and RBC offers are coming to an end, but we introduce the 40,000 sign up bonus Scotiabank Gold American Express.
Top Higher than Normal Sign Up Bonuses for March 2021
Several offers are expiring at the end of the month, so if you have been thinking about these offers, you may want to apply for them soon as they expire in 3 days.
Keep in mind that permanent first year fee waived offer are not included in this list, we are only listing promotions with an end date.
Limited Time First Year Fee Offers
Since the Canadian market has a strong 10% cash back market, we will be retiring our Top Current Cash Back post that we last published this month and replace that slot with this one instead. This month’s list is boosted with 2 new permanent offers from CIBC.
However, we start our list with the temporary offers as they are set to expire. Notably, the 10% cash back offer on the Scotia Momentum Visa Infinite Card is set to expire this month.
Today is going to be the last time that we posted this monthly list, regarding top cash back credit card promotions. The reason is because there is a strong 10% cash back market (permanent and temporary offers) in Canada. We will be replacing this slot with a new monthly list that we tried out last month (Current 10% Cash Back Portfolio for January 2021). There will still be a 10% cash back post last this month, but starting in February, it will replace this slot (which comes out in and around the 15th of every month).
I can’t believe we are already into the second month of 2021. Time is just flying, However, most of the current offers are still rollovers from 2020. The newest additions are the American Express and HSBC offers that were added, while the Scotiabank Passport Visa Infinite Business Card is the first set to expire from the list.
Top Higher than Normal Sign Up Bonuses for February 2021
The industry seems to go in ups and downs. There was a period of time where first year fee waived cards were far and few in between. At the moment, there are quite a few cards with first year fee waived offers.
Also note that we are only listing credit cards that have limited time offers and not ones that have an indefinite first year fee waived offer, like some of the CIBC cards.
It seems like cash back credit cards have really come into their own in Canada and there are lots of cash to be had. So today, we are going to give a try to a new monthly post idea, regarding credit cards that offer at least 10% cash back.
We were will be listing the 10% or more cash back offers on a monthly basis by splitting them into 2 categories, permanent and temporary offers.
A new year, but not yet a new list. The list has really trimmed down over time. The first one up for expiry is the Scotia Momentum Visa Infinite Card. The other 3 promotions are going to hang around a while longer.
Keep in mind that this monthly post focuses on temporary offers. We have a more complete list of ongoing offers in the Top Cash Back Credit Cards page.