Rewards/Travel Credit Cards - looking for recommendation

[The Goon]

I was just reading that Aeroplan is hiking travel points required to go anywhere, and thinking that I'm not getting the value for this card anymore.

My wife and I don't use a card for business - is there a consensus as to which card provides the best return, whether it be for travel, cash back, or other rewards?

Thanks

[loob job]

CIBC Dividend card. What better reward then cash.

[IliketoPuck]

TD Travel Rewards card. What better reward then Travel?

[burn_this_city]

I got the avion card from RBC for the travel points. I end up expensing a couple flights every 2 weeks so it works pretty well.

[jar_e]

Originally Posted by The Goon

I was just reading that Aeroplan is hiking travel points required to go anywhere, and thinking that I'm not getting the value for this card anymore.

My wife and I don't use a card for business - is there a consensus as to which card provides the best return, whether it be for travel, cash back, or other rewards?

Thanks

Did you read the article? The aeroplan changes aren't that widespread...

The changes will include increasing the points needed for a long-haul business-class flight within North America to 50,000 points from the previous 40,000 points on Air Canada flights.



The required number of points to fly business class to both Middle Eastern and Australian destinations will rise by 20,000 points to 135,000 points.


There were smaller changes to economy class point requirements as well, with a flight to Mexico on Air Canada rising to 40,000 points from 35,000.

[VladtheImpaler]

If you do your research, you will find that the Capital One Aspire M/C is supposed to be the best travel card in Canada...

P.S. I think you need a minimum income of $60K or $75K to qualify

[bizaro86]

If you find you can use an Amex, I think the SPG Amex is pretty much the best value out there. 1 SPG point per dollar spent, and great value per point using their cash and points feature to book hotel nights.

Can also transfer to Aeroplan/pretty much every other frequent flier program at a rate of 1:1, or get 25,000 FF miles for 20,000 SPG points.

Comes with a $120 annual fee, but if you wait for a promo you should be able to get that waived for the first year.

[Tinordi]

Avion Infinite, it still has a 20,000 point bonus for first time sign ups I believe.

What makes the avion points great is the annual 1.5x exchange with British Airways points and the end of every year. BA points allow you to fly on any of their partner airlines with week long stop overs at the same rate for BA. So a return flight from Western Canada to Asia is 50,000 on Cathay pacific. That's actually like 33,000 points factoring in the 1.5 exchange. I don't think there's any card cheaper for flights and certainly very few of them allow the generous stop over policy BA does.

[getbak]

If you want no fees, decent accumulation rates, and a real tangible reward, it's hard to beat the Smart Cash Platinum Mastercard that MBNA offers: http://mbna.ca/smartcash_cardlist.html

You get 3% cash back for all gas and grocery purchases, and 1% of all other purchases on the card. Every time you accumulate $50 in rewards, they send you a cheque.

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The card I'm using primarily now is the ScotiaGold Passport Visa: http://www.scotiabank.com/cda/conten..._LIDen,00.html

The drawback is that it has a $110 annual fee, however, you get travel medical, lost luggage, trip cancellation/interruption, etc. insurance for any travel paid for on the card. So, as long as you do use it for booking travel and would have purchased the insurance separately, the included insurance offsets the annual fee. They also have a sign-up bonus that basically covers your first year's fee.

As for the Rewards, you get 1 point for every dollar you spend (awarded once a month when your billing cycle closes, and they round to the nearest dollar for the total of all purchases made in the month). Each point is worth 1 cent on their travel booking website.

When redeeming the points, there are no restrictions as to how many you have to use, or limits on how many you can use. If you have 21,589 points, you can use them for $215.89 towards your travel booking. There is a special website you have to use to book the travel rewards, but they have the exact same prices you can find at Expedia or anywhere else.

Finally, the thing that pushed them over the edge for me is that when you book a flight, cruise, or travel package through their rewards site, they give you 5% cash back on whatever costs you have to pay out-of-pocket for the trip.

For example: I got the card in May of last year. In August, I booked a trip to Barbados with Air Canada Vacations through the Rewards site. The total cost of the trip was about $1,700. I had accumulated about $260 worth of Rewards Points at that point (they were giving out a $200 sign-up bonus last year), so my out-of-pocket costs for the trip were about $1,440. About a week after I got home from my trip, I received a credit on my account for $72 (5% of the out-of-pocket costs).

Most of the cards available are virtually interchangeable, but the Scotiabank one is the only one I've found that offers the 5% cash back when you book travel through their site.



Whatever you do, make sure you check out the fine print on the redemption rules the cards have. Some of them promise a lot of points, but their redemption rules are so convoluted that the points aren't worth as much as they promise, or you'll have to accumulate points for the next five years before you can even think of redeeming them.

Capital One has a card that accumulates double the points of all the others, but when you look at their redemption rules, they use a sliding scale, so anything between $0 and $150 requires $150 worth of points, and so on. So, you've accumlated double the points, but actually getting double the value is a lot tougher.

[Buzzard]

This site may help.

http://www.creditcards.ca/rewards.php

[Bend it like Bourgeois]

RFD has a pretty good comparison.

http://creditcards.redflagdeals.com/...-Credit-Cards/

I fly a lot so use an aeroplan amex. I have been thinking of looking at SPG...for like a year. Its almost possible this will push me past the procrastination.

[squiggs96]

I use the TD First Class Travel Visa Infinite Card seen here: http://www.tdcanadatrust.com/tdvisa/...lasstravel.jsp

I pay for all of my Canadian purchases on it, pay it off in full and use the rewards when I travel. The annual fee is $120, but I get back much more than that in money back.

[Deelow]

Sorry to bump but this is some what related. As an RBC Avion card holder I am currently being offered a 50% mile bonus if I switch to BA Miles. Basically 100,000 RBC Rewards will turn into 150,000 BA rewards. This seems like a pretty good deal but I'm curious if A) Anyone collects BA rewards would recommend using the program and B) has done a similar transfer and was happy with the decision? Here's a link...
http://www.britishairways.com/travel...0/public/en_ca

[albertGQ]

What is BA?

[I-Hate-Hulse]

Meh, I have a lot of BA ExecClub miles and I find it quite limiting to use. First of all the # of point required to do anything is quite high. While there are a couple OneWorld flights to Chicago / DFW, we generally don't go to the states a lot. It's decent if you're going to Heathrow a lot but frankly I'd rather go AC than BA on that route.

One thing I do like about BA Exec club is that you can combine the miles of a family into a "Family" account for redemption on flights (not for status). That does help to rack up usable mileage.

However it still suffers from the same problem all frequent flier point systems. It gets you a free fare, but doesn't cover taxes, surcharges, and fees. You still end up paying 20-40% of the flight yourself. This is why I ditched these in favor of cash back cards and the TD Infinite for travel.

[Deelow]

Originally Posted by albertGQ

What is BA?

British Airways.

[Deelow]

Originally Posted by I-Hate-Hulse

Meh, I have a lot of BA ExecClub miles and I find it quite limiting to use. First of all the # of point required to do anything is quite high. While there are a couple OneWorld flights to Chicago / DFW, we generally don't go to the states a lot. It's decent if you're going to Heathrow a lot but frankly I'd rather go AC than BA on that route.

One thing I do like about BA Exec club is that you can combine the miles of a family into a "Family" account for redemption on flights (not for status). That does help to rack up usable mileage.

However it still suffers from the same problem all frequent flier point systems. It gets you a free fare, but doesn't cover taxes, surcharges, and fees. You still end up paying 20-40% of the flight yourself. This is why I ditched these in favor of cash back cards and the TD Infinite for travel.

Interesting. I did some research. Many online say that it actually takes less points to travel with BA than with RBC Rewards. I guess it all depends what you're comparing it to. Thanks for the info. Most of my travel is to the states so maybe the BA awards are too limiting. It's still a nice bonus though. Gotta think about about it.

[GP_Matt]

I will plug MBNA Travel Rewards.
It does have an annual fee but the card lets you use your points to pay the taxes and fees when booking flights. I just booked a flight to Europe that used 60000 points and the fees cost me another 15000 points. If I paid cash the fees came to $600 but the points are only worth $150.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by GP_Matt

I will plug MBNA Travel Rewards.
It does have an annual fee but the card lets you use your points to pay the taxes and fees when booking flights. I just booked a flight to Europe that used 60000 points and the fees cost me another 15000 points. If I paid cash the fees came to $600 but the points are only worth $150.

I have the MBNA Travel Rewards Elite card, which I use as a backup to my SPG amex. It's a pretty good card, my favourite redemption option is the hotels, where they give you 2 cents per point (so a 2 percent return). It can only be booked through their travel agency, but prices are comparable to expedia, travelocity, etc. The only difference between the Elite and regular card is the elite doesn't have a fee. They don't offer it anymore, but if you were to mention it when calling and threatening to cancel, I bet you'd get a fee discount. They might even let you switch to the elite version. YMMV, obviously.

I still think for anyone who stays in sheraton/westin/hilton/marriott quality hotels, the SPG amex is the best card. It offers frequent flier point flexibility, but you actually don't even need it, since the points are very valuable. I routinely get 3 cents per point or better on my hotel redemptions using their "cash and points" feature in Starwood branded hotels.

[Frequitude]

I'm cancelling my CIBC Aerogold card. Cashed in all my points this week for a $500 Future Shop gift card to buy an iPad.

Moving to a combination of the RBC Infinite Avion (up for debate) and the MBNA cash back card. 3% on gas a groceries, 1% on everything else.

edit: MBNA has no annual fee too. It crushes the CIBC Dividend card or any cash back card out there...at least it did last time I checked.