Best Canadian Credit Cards for Miles and Points

The info regarding the Amex Business Gold Rewards Card is incorrect. You need to spend $3,000 for the 25k points. $500 spend is for the smaller bonus (15k) with the personal card.

Seems like a hastily cobbled together afterthought of an article. No analysis of spend category bonuses, benefits of each card, and you’re missing the heavyweight champ of Canadian cards, the CIBC Aerogold.

Also, a lot of these cards have rebates if you go through greatcanadianrebates.ca. The Amex Gold, for example, pays out $60. Of course, TPG isn’t getting a referral credit then, but still.

The SPG is either 20K if you are referred (as someone has written below) or 15K and first year free right now (check out FlyerTalk or RedFlagDeals)

Good to know- I’ll add the rebate site.. I don’t care about missing referrals if theres a better deal elsewhere!

Thanks- I’ll update

A couple of tips, RBC lets you switch back and forth between the Avion card and their cheaper Rewards gold cards which earn “RBC reward points”. However if you ever switch back to Avion in the future (to catch another sign up bonus), the RBC rewards points you’ve earned switch with it. So I’d collect the points under the “free” program, and redeem them under Avion. I still have an upcoming trip with Cathay thanks to a BA point transfer, unfortunately that train has long departed.

The Capital One World Aspire has been higher. I got a 50k sign-up last summer thanks to a red flag deals promo with the card. But the points are 1cent at best as long as you spend the “perfect” amount of points, or have an over $600 travel purchase and the points to cover it. Not a card I devote any spending towards.

Also referral bonuses do exist for the SPG amex for 20k instead of 15 as another poster already mentioned. I’m also totally willing to refer.

That said there aren’t any massive bonuses, and they seemed to have remained quite steady in Canada.

here is the Alaska card. I had it last year,but cancelled on the anniversary.
My plan is to re apply in 8/9 months or so.

http://www.alaskaair.com/content/deals/mileage-plan/visa-signature-promo.aspx

@Melissa Hogan

You can get reasonable redemption rates with the Air Miles, but, relatively speaking you’re getting a lot less value then if you were to use a different point system.

For example, if you spent $20,000 on the SPG Amex, you can transfer that to numerous programs at 1:1 ratios. With the 5000 bonus with a 20,000 transfer, you’d get 25,000 points. That’s enough for a roundtrip flight between Canada and anywhere in the mainland US.

Now, with Air Miles, that $20,000 would get you somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 air miles (depending on if you have the credit card or not), as the earning rates are 1 per $10 to $20 spent.

Let’s say you get 2000 air miles. Sure, that can get you a trip to New York from Toronto (at 1400 air miles), but it cannot get you to, say, New Orleans (3,000 air miles). The equivalent spend would net enough starpoints to get you that trip to new orleans.

More to the point, there’s way less flexibility in air miles. You must leave from a Canadian city. Whereas if you transfer other points over, you can transfer them to whichever program works best. Flying out of Buffalo might make way more sense to many Southern Ontario dwellers, or out of DTW for Western Ontario.

And, just to be aware, you can even get some great deals. To use starpoints, again, as an example: if you transferred 20,000 to American Airlines (=25,000 AAdvantage miles after the bonus), you could get one roundtrip ticket to New York from Toronto.

Now consider instead transferring 20,000 Starpoints to LAN. LAN is a oneworld member, and it transfers at a great 1:2 ratio. So 20,000 starpoints actually nets you 50,000 LANpass KMs. With their lowest tier awards you can book seats on American (if there are sAAver awards available–the same ones that would be 25,000 in AAdvantage miles) at 12,000 roundtrip. So for those 20,000 you could actually get 4 roundtrip tickets to New York.

Also a good option would be transferring to Avios, as British Airways might be easier to book on than LAN. At 1:1 you can transfer 20,000 to 25,000 Avios. At 9,000 Avios per roundtrip between Toronto and New York, that get’s you nearly 3 roundtrips. Not bad.

Also, one note to everyone about the Alaska Airlines card. I don’t think they’re taking new members at the moment. When TD acquired MBNA, they acquired all but 3 of it’s card portfolio. Of the 3 cards that still belong to BofA Canada are the Shopper’s Optimum, the MLB Card, and the Alaska Airlines card. I do not know when or if a new issuer will take over the cards. As it stands, MBNA is still servicing them, but TD does not have the rights to issue new ones.

I second the Alaska Card. The $99 annual companion ticket is great because you can use it for first class tickets, too. A huge deal for trips from Western Canada to Hawaii or Mexico in First (well, once you get down to Seattle… single class cabins on the Horizon flights).

How about the Capital One Priority Club (Holiday Inn) card? 40k-60k bonus to signup, $120 annual fee. Gives you back 2 pts:$1 spent, or 5 pts:$1 spent at Priority Club properties (Holiday Inn, IC, etc).

Amex Gold Rewards Card now is offering 20k bonus points (instead of 15k) if you apply through this link: https://www.americanexpress.com/canada/en/mgm/mgmeeApplynow.cgi?mgmerCard=goldCard&CPID=999999371&MGM_URN=AAAAEgIPEhEUAw%3D%3D