Fiji Airways launching flights to Vancouver!

A new direct route to the South Pacific is coming our way as Fiji Airways has announced new service between Vancouver and Nadi! The new 2x weekly flights operating on Mondays and Fridays are set to launch on November 25, 2022. 

Changes coming to several National Bank of Canada Mastercards - we'll have another 5x points card on our hands!

National Bank of Canada has announced some changes that will be coming to their Platinum and World Elite Mastercards as of September 1. Both cards will see revised earn rates and some slight changes to the insurance provided on them. While the World Elite Mastercard will also see its annual travel credits benefit changed as well.

London Drugs will be revamping their LDExtras program and Star Alliance gains their first non-airline partner - Deutsche Bahn

Here's your Rewards Canada update! Your near daily dose of loyalty program, credit card and travel news, bonuses, deals and more.

LDExtras, the loyalty program for London Drugs will be undergoing its first revamp soon! Thanks to our reader Tony L. for alerting us to the announcement from the Western Canadian retailer. There aren't a lot of details surrounding the change just yet other than the Beauty Rewards portion of the program will be discontinued as of July 31 and the new program will be even easier. Click here to learn more. 

Enter the Dragon: DragonPass is now the dominant lounge access program in Canada

July is upon us and that means both Mastercard and Visa Canada are now officially utilizing DragonPass as their business class lounge access provider. Earlier this year Rewards Canada was first to break the news of this unexpected switch for both brands. Mastercard began making the switch throughout April and May while Visa officially launched with DragonPass on July 1st. Recently I had the pleasure of speaking with DragonPass' Andrew Harrison-Chinn about the programs for both issuers and what Canadians can expect from them in the near future.

Seven new confirmed 5x points multipliers for the Amex Cobalt Card and earn an amazing 50x More Rewards Points on Sandman Hotel stays

Here's your Rewards Canada Daily update! Your near daily dose of loyalty program, credit card and travel news, bonuses, deals and more.

We had another good update to our American Express Cobalt Card Confirmed Multiplier Locations today thanks to our reader James A.  Here are the locations he supplied that are all 5x points:

Big bonus in Burlington: 10,000 bonus points per stay at The Pearle Hotel & Spa, Autograph Collection

 

The Pearle Hotel & Spa, Autograph Collection is one of the newer hotels Marriott has in Canada having only opened in late 2021 and right now you can earn a big bonus for staying there. The highly rated hotel in Burlington is offering 10,000 bonus points for stays that include any night Sunday to Wednesday until the end of the month.

The revamped Scotiabank Platinum American Express Card is here with a 60,000 point welcome bonus

 
The revamped Scotiabank Platinum American Express Card debuted on July 1st along with a new best ever welcome bonus offer! The card's revamp takes place in the earn rates, benefits and insurance offered. It is now has a flat earn rate across all spending, no foreign transaction fees and now offers mobile device insurance. 

Earning Stories: Completing a quintuple dip for purchasing gas at Shell

You'll often hear points and miles enthusiasts and those that write about the industry make reference to dipping. That is double dip, triple dip and so on. What this refers to is earning multiple points, miles or other incentives for a single purchase or action. For most transactions the double dip is most common. It is your base earn in the loyalty program (the first dip), and then earning on your credit card for that purchase (the second dip). However, add in any bonuses or other promotions and that can grow to a triple or quadruple dip or even higher. Recently a combination of standard offers and limited time promotions allowed me to complete a quintuple dip when fueling up for gas at Shell!

Achieving the quintuple dip

How did I achieve a quintuple dip? Well it took three standard offers and two limited time promotions to do so. The standard offers were the base AIR MILES earn, the base credit card earn and the discount that Shell offers to CAA members. Then, to round out the big time dip there was a bonus miles offer from Shell and an Amex Offers promotion to receive statement credits for making purchases at Shell.

Dip 1: Base AIR MILES Earn

The base earn rate for Bronze fuel at Shell is one AIR MILES Reward Miles for every 20L purchased. Seeing that I purchased right around $60 worth of gas that amounted to just over 30 litres for one base mile earned.

Dip 2: Bonus AIR MILES Earn

AIR MILES sends out monthly emails to earn bonus miles at Shell for that month and you have to click the link to opt-in. I always opt-in even though I'm not really a Shell guy but I always opt-in just in case I do stop at Shell for gas. I'm glad I did opt-in as it allowed me to earn 50 bonus AIR MILES on this purchase. (This 50 was part of total 75 bonus mile offer in place, the first 25 were earned the week before)

The base earn rate plus the monthly bonus

 

Dip 3: CAA Discount

The third dip is not points earning but rather a discount for bringing in yet another program. If you are a CAA member you can enjoy 3 cents off per litre at participating Shell stations. I have my CAA membership # set up in the Shell App so the discount is automatically applied by utilizing Shell EasyPay.

Image courtesy of the CAA

Dip 4: Points earned on the Platinum Card

My four visits to Shell during the month of June were all paid for with my Platinum Card from American Express. These visits earned the base 1 point per dollar spent that the card offers. Normally I pay for gas with my American Express Cobalt Card or American Express Gold Rewards Card since both of them offer 2 points per dollar on gas but for those four ~$60 purchases it was worth it to forego the 240 or so extra points I would have earned for the $20 in savings provided by the 5th dip!

Dip 5: Statement credits earned on the Platinum Card 

Up until June 30 there was an Amex Offers promotion where you could earn a $5 statement credit on a $60 purchase from Shell and you could earn it up to 4 times. I only received it on my Platinum Card so as you have already learned, that is why I used it for these purchases.

To ensure I maximized this offer from American Express and Shell I actually made sure to only buy around $60 of gas each time so that I could make it to Shell more often. My SUV has a 100L tank so I purchased less than half a tank on June 10 and about the same on June 11 so that I could earn the credit twice instead of only once had I filled the tank completely on the 10th:

And that is how I achieved a quintuple at Shell for the June 10 purchases. The other three purchases were all quadruple dips since they didn't earn any bonus AIR MILES Reward Miles.

The value of the Quintuple Dip in numbers:

• Dip 1 - $0.105
• Dip 2 - $5.25
• Dip 3 - $1.00
• Dip 4 - $0.60
• Dip 5 - $5.00

The total value is nearly $12 on a $60 purchase. Not bad at all! And that's taking into account the minimum value for American Express Membership Rewards points of 1 cent per point. In all honesty I will most likely redeem them for 4 to 6 cents a piece (or more) which would put my total return around $15. 

Wrapping it up

One of the reasons behind American Express having Amex Offers is to encourage cardmembers to use their cards at places they may not regularly shop at. And it works. I'm normally a Petro-Canada person out of convenience plus I do like the value I get out of Petro-Points when redeeming for car wash cards. However for most of June I switched to Shell to earn those $5 statement credits and everything else earned was icing on the cake. Now I didn't go out of my way to go to find a Shell but strategically stopped at their stations when I could. For July, it will be back to Petro-Canada and what perfect timing as they are offering triple Petro-Points for fuel purchases this month!

Amex Offers: Spend $50 at lululemon and receive a $50 statement credit (2 times)

 A new Amex Offers for lululemon came out this past Friday! This one is pretty amazing in that if you strategically buy lululemon items for $50 (I know that's tough with this store but it is possible) you essentially get those items for free as a $50 spend gets you a $50 statement credit. You can do this once for the remainder of 2022 and then once in the first half of 2023. Personally I received the offer on my Platinum Card

TD Aeroplan cardholders: Earn 2 bonus points per dollar spent on foreign exchange purchases

For the next two months TD Aeroplan cardholders well 2 bonus points per dollar spent on foreign exchange purchases. That is, 2 bonus points on any purchases that are not in C$. So whether you are shopping online from outside of Canada or travelling outside our borders you earn those 2 bonus Aeroplan points.