All I can say is wow! Here is a bonus offer that may be a once in a lifetime offer. More Rewards, the little program from out west from the Overwaitea Food Group has dropped a bomb of an offer for booking travel via More Rewards Travel called Great Canadian Escape. All More Rewards members (free to join if you are not a member) will earn 50 to 60 times the points on flights, hotels, car rentals, activities – really any travel possible that can be booked with them so long as that travel is in Canada! If you are not familiar with More Rewards you may be wondering what those 50 to 60x points are actually worth? Read on the find out.
With the More Rewards program you typically earn 1 More Rewards Point per C$1 (not including taxes) spent via More Rewards Travel. With this promotion you will earn 50 points per $1 spent. More Rewards Points are valued at 0.428 cents a piece when redeemed for travel which translates to a 21.4% return on each dollar you spend! That’s pretty awesome! And if you are looking to stay at a Sandman Hotel the program has taken their current 10x points for bookings at this chain and added it to the 50x points for a total of 60x points for a return of 25.68%!
Here’s an example of a Sandman Hotel booking:
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| The price on More Rewards Travel |
This hotel is $126 before taxes and fees so you would earn 7,560 points (at 60x points) that are worth $32.36 towards a future travel booking.
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| The price on Sandman Hotels website |
The same hotel booked via Sandman Hotels is the exact same price! So why wouldn’t you book via More Rewards Travel?!?
Now, More Rewards has an enhanced partnership with Sandman so you may think that’s why the pricing is the same. Well here’s the Fairmont Pacific Rim in Vancouver:
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| Prices from Fairmont.com |
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| Prices from More Rewards Travel |
Pricing is the same when you book via More Rewards Travel – yes you will not earn your ALL Accor Live Limitless points since you aren’t booking direct with Fairmont but in this case you’d be earning 21,950 More Rewards Points per night worth almost $94 towards future travel. For this three night stay you’d earn nearly $300 towards your next travel booking.
This offer isn’t just for hotels – like we mentioned at the start of this post this is for any travel booked via More Rewards Travel. This includes flights like the following example of flying between Toronto and Vancouver in August:
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| Here’s the flight via More Rewards |
For this flight booking you would earn 14,100 More Rewards points worth $60 towards future travel. This fare is an Air Canada Basic economy fare so it would also earn 10% Aeroplan points but no Status Qualifying Miles/Dollars/Segments. Unlike hotels (where you won’t earn the hotel’s points & elite qualifying points) when you book flights with a third party travel agency you can earn points, miles, dollars etc. so long as it is a mileage earning fare (ie not the most basic economy fare with WestJet)
Then on top of all the points that More Rewards is awarding with this bonus you’ll still earn the points from your credit card for the actual payment! And since More Rewards Travel is a full fledged travel agency you’ll want to use a card that has a travel purchases category bonus like the following cards:
- HSBC World Elite Mastercard – 6 points per dollar on travel bookings
- American Express Cobalt™ Card – 2 points per dollar on travel bookings
- Platinum Card from American Express – 2 points per dollar on travel bookings
- TD® Aeroplan® Visa Infinite Privilege* Card – 1.5 Aeroplan points per dollar
- BMO World Elite Mastercard – 3 points per dollar on travel bookings
- RBC Avion Visa Infinite Card – 1.25 points per dollar on travel bookings
- Scotiabank Passport Visa Infinite card – new applicants who get the card can earn 5X Scotia Rewards points on Travel for the first 3 months (up to $2,500 in total travel purchases)
Even better, if you use the HSBC, American Express and Scotia cards you can even redeem points from those programs against this and all More Rewards travel charges! Let’s take the Sandman Hotels Calgary example. You spend $141 on the hotel room and pay for it with the American Express Cobalt Card. Once the charge shows up on your Amex account you can redeem points against it (up to 12 months afterwards in fact!). Say you have 20,000 points in your Membership Rewards account you could redeem 14,100 points to cover the $141. So now your hotel stay is absolutely free and you’ve earned 282 Membership Rewards points for the purchase and also earned 7,560 More Rewards points worth $32.36! Sometimes I really wonder why people don’t utilize travel rewards and credit card reward programs??
Wrapping it up
This is an unprecedented bonus offer from More Rewards that all Canadians should take a look at before booking any domestic travel. It’s a big return that we haven’t seen from them before – well, they have had 25x on all travel before and 50x on Sandman previously but not 50x and 60x! You might be asking what can I use those More Rewards points for, well you can then redeem the points for any future travels you book via More Rewards Travel including flights, hotels, car rentals and more. Pretty much exactly the same type of travel you would be booking right now to earn these bonus points. One more note with More Rewards is that you can do partial redemptions, so if you have $50 worth of points and book a $350 flight you can redeem those $50 in points and pay $300 in cash to cover the entire cost.
This offer is good for bookings made by the end of September 7th for travel until October 31st.