CIBC has indefinitely extended their offer that provides extra value for their Aventura cardholders when redeeming points against travel that they book themselves. This option is different than booking flights via CIBC Rewards and utilizing the Aventura Reward Chart or redeeming points against any other travel booked with CIBC Rewards. The promotion falls into CIBC’s Shopping with points reward option where you can 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.
Shopping with points
With CIBC Rewards, 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 the CIBC Rewards Shopping with Points redemption, they 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.
The 50% discount
That brings us to this promotion – CIBC Rewards offers 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 3 points per dollar spent means your return is 1.25 to 3.75% per dollar spent.
You can potentially get better value redeeming for flights with the Aventura flight rewards chart but this option gives you much more flexibility as it is not limited to flights since you can also use it towards hotels, car rentals and so forth. So it’s definitely not a bad option to consider if you are an Aventura card holder and are looking at booking some travel that doesn’t fall into the reward chart option.
Key factor when using this redemption option and promotion
There is a key factor to note about the Shopping with Points redemption option. To utilize it and receive this discount when redeeming towards a travel purchase you must redeem your points while the charge is pending. If you wait until the charge posts you won’t be able to get the discount. This means you have a small window to complete the redemption and if you do want to use it, you need to keep an eye on your account via the mobile app or online banking so that you can redeem you rpoints once it shows up in your pending transactions. Here’s how CIBC explains it:
Select the travel purchase within your pending transactions and click Redeem with Points. For eligible purchases, the number of points required has automatically been reduced by 50%. Redeem 8,000 points for every $100 you’re paying off. It’s that easy.
Wrapping it up
With many of its competitors offering book any travel at any time redemption options with excellent value, it’s not wonder CIBC continually extends this promotion as they have to remain competitive. Granted, the redemption window with CIBC for this promotion is extremely small when you compare it to other cards giving you 90 days to 12 month after the charge posts to redeem at full value, but nonetheless at least the option is there. And who knows, maybe this is a sign of things to come with the Aventura program – will this lead to a more permanent and flexible travel rewards option in the program? We sure hope so!
And now that this offer has now been extended indefinitely, 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 has been increased to 45,000 points broken down as 15,000 points when you make your first purchase and 30,000 more points when spend $3,000 or more in the first 4 monthly statement periods.
The extension of this offer appears to have been first flagged by Milesopedia