This year started out strong with all-time high sign up bonuses from various credit card issuers. Unfortunately, it is starting to look like we are closing out the year on a low note. Earlier today, we published a post regarding the end of the MBNA Alaska Airlines cards. Now we are writing a separate post on one of my personal favourites, MBNA Best Western MasterCard, who is also coming to an end.
See also: COVID-19 Updates for our most up-to-date tracking.
For some parts of the world, travel seems to be opening up, especially in the United States. However, in other places like Canada, travel restrictions continue, and are as strict as they have been. So many people have been unable to generate activity on some of their hotel loyalty programs to keep their accounts active.
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.
See also: COVID-19 Updates for our most up-to-date tracking.
I’m not sure about everyone, but when I start travelling again, it will most likely be road trips within Canada ONLY for the foresable future. For this reason, I have been tracking hotel points expiry policies, elite status extensions and other relevant information more closely than airline industry.
I still hope to see hotels being used for multi-purposes, not just for tourism. For example, government buying up rooms to house certain people temporarily to alleviate the hospitals. Marriott has introduced a work anywhere program.
See also: COVID-19 Updates for our most up-to-date tracking.
Hotel chains have done a great job at extending elite status memberships, as well as points expiry policies.
Below is a list of extension offers by programs more relevant to Canadians.
See also: COVID-19 Updates for our most up-to-date tracking.
Things have evolved quite a bit since March 2020 when the coronavirus lockdowns hit the travel industry. As time went on, airline and hotel program made adjustments to stay afloat. They also tried to make things more generous for customers, while trying to juggle their balance sheet.
Many people would argue that airlines would get government bailouts anyway, so all they really need to do is sit back and relax. Whether true or not, today’s post focuses on extensions given to member account balances. Several of those extensions have now expired, while some programs made some more permanent changes to their expiry policies.
Due to the current coronavirus pandemic, airline and hotel loyalty programs have paused/extended expiry policies to their miles and points. Today’s post is a current snapshot of the state of these programs.
Please note that we ongoingly update our COVID-19 updates page as well for most up-to-date information.
Airlines and hotels have been putting together some positive videos together on YouTube, so I wanted to give them a shout out for putting these videos together. The videos range from: Thank you message Giving passengers assurance message (e.g. being…
IHG is the latest hotel chain to extend its elite statuses and expiry policy, which rounds out the majority of the major hotel chains. Note that we also have an ongoingly updated page found on our menu bar.
Below is a current recap of the elite status and points expiry extensions offer by some of the major hotel chains.
Best Western
Best Western‘s Rewards program is one of two remaining hotel chains that have a co-branded credit card in Canada (unless you count Hilton as an AMEX transfer partner). Also, Best Western is one of my favourite hotel chains. It might…