Similar to a promotion that has BMO Rewards has been offering since December, CIBC is providing a discount for their Aventura cardholders when redeeming points against travel they book themselves. This is different than booking flights via CIBC Rewards and utilizing the Aventura Reward Chart or redeeming points against any travel booked with them. This is where you go out and buy travel with any provider like Air Canada, WestJet, Expedia etc. and then when the charge shows up on your account you redeem points against that charge.
With CIBC, their Shopping with Points redemption is essentially their cash back reward option for the Aventura cards. Like most proprietary credit card reward program that primarily have a travel rewards focus this cash back option typically represents a lower value than redeeming for travel. In the case of CIBC Rewards Shopping with Points redemptions start at 4,000 points for a $25 statement credit. Compare this to 4,000 points for a $40 to $80 value when you redeem for travel booked via CIBC Rewards so you can see in it’s non-promotional form the cash back option does not provide as much value.
That brings us to this promotion – CIBC Rewards is offering a 50% discount on the Shopping with Points redemptions when it is applied towards a non CIBC Rewards travel purchase. That means you would redeem 2,000 points for a $25 credit instead of 4,000 points. This gives you a 1.25 cents per point value instead of the 0.625 cents and that’s not a bad deal. Considering Aventura cards earn 1 to 2 points per dollar spent means your return is 1.25 to 2.5% per dollar spent. You can get better value redeeming for flights with the Aventura flight rewards chart but this option gives you more flexibility not to mention you can use it towards hotels, car rentals and so forth. So it’s definitely not a bad option to consider right now if you are an Aventura card holder and are looking at booking some travel that doesn’t fall into the reward chart option.
This offer is available until June 15, 2022 so even if you don’t have an Aventura card right you could easily apply for one and use the welcome bonus towards this redemption option. Currently the offer for the flagship card CIBC Aventura® Visa Infinite* Card is 40,000 points broken down as 20,000 points when you make your first purchase, 15,000 points when spend $1,000 or more per month for the first year and 5,000 points as an anniversary bonus. As this promotion is only available until June 15 you’d have that initial 20,000 points as $250 to use towards any travel.