Well folks if you don’t already know these techniques, I am prepared to give you this information for free in this post (I assume veteran RCers won’t need this as you have probably already done it) on how to get that free flight (or flights) excluding taxes and fees. It primarily revolves around credit card sign up bonuses from cards that either have no annual fee or where the first year fee is waived. The only ‘costs’ associated with this method are putting your everyday credit card spend onto these cards to meet the minimum requirements for getting the sign up bonus. Now if you don't think you can hit the minimum spend on the cards you don't have to apply for them all at once, you can take your time and apply for cards once you've hit each spend individually. All this means is that it will take a little longer to earn your fee flights.
* I state free in the title as I assume you would be spending this money anyways on these credit cards so you might as well be rewarded for it with free Aeroplan miles or Avios!
TD® Aeroplan® Visa Infinite* Card This card is offering a welcome bonus of up to 35,000 Aeroplan Miles all with no annual fee in the first year. You get 15,000 miles with the first purchase and double miles on all purchases within 90 days of account opening (max. 20,000 miles). Now the offer is promoted as up to 40,000 miles however the last 5,000 miles come with a cost of $50 for the additional card. You can apply for this card here.
Now you have at least 35,000 Aeroplan Miles at no cost to you other than spending on the card that you may have put on other cards.
If you already have had the above card you could also look at this card:
TD® Aeroplan® Visa Platinum Card
This card is offering a welcome bonus of up to 20,000 Aeroplan Miles all with no annual fee in the first year. You get 10,000 miles with the first purchase and double miles on all purchases within 90 days of account opening (max. 10,000 miles). Now the offer is promoted as up to 25,000 miles however the last 5,000 miles come with a cost of $50 for the additional card. You can apply for this card here.
Now you have at least 25,000 more Aeroplan Miles at no cost to you other than spending on the card that you may have put on other cards.
mbna Best Western Rewards MasterCard
You earn 20,000 points with the card with no annual fee after your first purchase You can apply for this card here.
These 20,000 Best Western Rewards Points can then be transferred to Aeroplan or Avios at a 5:1 basis (20,000 Best Western Rewards Points = 4,000 Aeroplan Miles or Avios)
There you go just with these offers you can earn up to 39,000 Aeroplan Miles or 4,000 British Airways Executive Club Avios. That's enough Aeroplan miles for two Aeroplan short haul award tickets within North America. On the Avios side that's enough for one British Airways Executive Club short haul (up to 650 miles) reward ticket in Economy Class on British Airways, Aer Lingus or Iberia in Europe.
Now do you want to keep any of these cards after the first year free is up? If the Aeroplan program works for you then the TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite Card is worth keeping. The Best Western card does not have an annual fee ever so that would be one to let go of and then apply for again in the future to get the bonus once again.
Related: Which credit card earns the most Aeroplan Miles?
You can also take advantage of other free Aeroplan mile offers that you can use to add even more miles to your account albeit not that many. I would recommend that you visit my Aeroplan and Avios Bonus opportunities pages regularly and look under the ‘other offers’ section for any and all free mileage offers that may come up. At time of updating these were the only 2 'free' Aeroplan Miles offer
- Earn up to 1,000 Free Aeroplan Miles when you subscribe to receive text messages from Aeroplan. Full details
- 1,000 Bonus Aeroplan Miles when you join the program and complete your first mileage earning transaction within 60 days. Join here!
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