Amidst all the publicity AIR MILES has been receiving over the past month, and pretty much all of it not so good, there is some good news that came out of the program yesterday. Canada’s largest loyalty program has teamed up with PointsHound to launch the new AIR MILES Travel Hub. If you have followed Rewards Canada for sometime now you should be aware of PointsHound. They are a third party hotel booking site that awards miles for hotel stays with numerous airline and other loyalty programs. While there is no sign of PointsHound when you go to the AIR MILES Travel Hub as they have private labelled it you can expect it to work the exactly same as PointsHound.com.
The AIR MILES Travel Hub booking platform allows AIR MILES Collectors to book stays at more
than 150,000 hotels and all-inclusive resorts around the world. As always with third party booking options there are pros and cons to booking with them. The pros are that you can earn miles at hotels that you may not normally earn any miles or points at (ie independent boutique hotels) and you can earn miles at hotels that are not normally associated with that loyalty program (ie a chain that does not partner with AIR MILES). The cons are that you may not be getting the best price (always compare with sites like Trivago, Expedia etc.), you may not earn hotel points or elite qualification (many hotel programs do not award points for booking via OTA’s and third party sites) and you may not receive hotel elite status perks like late check out, upgrades etc. So while this is a welcome addition to the program be sure to go through all the pros and cons before you choose to book via the AIR MILES Travel Hub. You can learn more and access the hub at travelhub.airmiles.ca
An example of the miles you could earn booking via the AIR MILES Travel Hub (Toronto Sep 14-15):
