Get Amazon Prime (USA) tonight for $73USD!

Even if you currently have Amazon Prime in the States for whatever reason, you can get it for $73 a year!

If you have never had it, you have the least amount of work on your hands.  Click here to get the deal.

If you currently have Amazon Prime in the States, you can chat with them and ask them to please consider giving you the deal as you live in Canada and do not use the 2 day shipping option except on the rare occasion when you’re going there to the States to visit.  That was what I said.  They actually refunded me for my current Prime membership (after cancelling it) and then somehow made me eligible–and gave me the link through the chat system.  Choose “Amazon Video” and “Prime Video” as your issue to open up the option of the chatline.  That’s what I used.

Why get it?  If you are interested in getting an Amazon Echo device (Star Trek: The Next Generation’s computer system whereby you speak to it and it speaks back to you about a number of topics, including jokes, games, recipes, grocery lists, millions of songs from Prime music, etc.), it’s totally cool and you’ll need Prime to get the Echo to work.  They’re always adding new features to it!  You’ll also need to sign up for a service such as Unblock-US.com for $50CDN a year (or $4.99CDN a month–more expensive by the month) to allow the Echo and Prime music and Prime Video to work for you on your computer, some mobile devices, and your SMART TV.

You’ll want it if you go and vacation in the States or have a friend in the States to pick up items from–to ship packages there–and choose no-rush shipping for things that vary depending on what Amazon chooses to offer–$5.99 off Amazon grocery shipping (Prime Pantry) or $0.99 off videos for each order shipped (ship each one separately–they’ll put them together and give you credit for each order).

ACT FAST!  It ends at midnight!

25% BONUS Again For Switching Your AMEX Points to Avios!!

This is huge!  For some odd reason (only offered this deal several months back and before that it was over 2 years before they offered a bonus for converting), AMEX Canada has decided to sweeten the deal for converting your points to Aeroplan for a limited time:

From January 12, 2016 until March 28, 2016, get 25% more Avios when you transfer your Membership Rewards® points to Avios. Terms and conditions apply.

This means that you can buy business class tickets from YYZ-JFK (for example), a short haul flight on TAM Airlines (a REAL business class experience though admittedly a short one) for 14400 AMEX points (converts to 18K Avios) with lower taxes and great cancellation rules (more than 24 hours in advance) at the cost of the taxes  (which is STEEP from YYZ but still better than $90 per ticket if outside the 22 day window before your flight with Aeroplan).  The number of points to fly short haul on Avios goes up at the beginning of February 2016 so be sure to purchase any short haul flights that you plan on making with Avios within the next 330 days (AA’s open window for purchasing tickets that are available to Avios customers).  Tickets can be limited, leading to frustration as the Avios ticket system is totally illogical.  2 seats left that day for a flight in business class?  Purchase them?  Another one seat opens on a different flight, same day.  I’ve seen this and it’s insane.  No one at BA could explain the logic so you’re best off using this option on heavily used routes like YYZ-LGA (though then you’re stuck with cruddy AA Business Class)

Yet ANOTHER reason to have an AMEX Gold Rewards or Platinum rewards card!

HOT! Toronto to Osaka or Tokyo for $703CDN Return!

With an Air Canada flight along with JAL, you can now get a flight for as low as $703 (or less according to other websites) for travel between January and March 2016.  Go to the ITravel website, change the currency at the top right corner to CDN$, and try the dates that suit you.  Here’s one set of dates that got me $703CDN return, taxes included–Feb. 15 to the 25th to Tokyo.  ITravel included a price drop guarantee as well, but who are we kidding?  It won’t likely go lower!

SPG 20K Welcome Bonus is BACK!

Right now, AMEX is offering the personal SPG card with a 20K Welcome Bonus.  It’s usually 15K.  Click here for more info on the versatility of this amazing hotel/airline hybrid card!  Yes, there is a Marriott merger coming that will likely effect the program, and possibly not for the good–so lock in now with your points and use them before the word comes down that the program will be merged with Marriott–I’ll give you updates if you sign up for instant notifications or for the daily digest emails!  If you’ve already had this card before, you are NOT eligible for the bonus as AMEX changed its rules several months back (without giving ANY notice to Canadians) that customers may only obtain one welcome bonus for each AMEX personal (not business) product.

 

Get Free Miles With United Mileage!

United Mileage Plus, an excellent airline for points due to their not charging of fuel surcharges, including on flights that are exclusively Air Canada, are giving United Mileage Plus users 300 points to sign up and take their first survey, and then more points for every survey they take!

If you haven’t signed up yet to United Mileage Plus, you can do so by clicking the bottom of this link (same link as those who have a United Mileage number).  You can naturally earn miles with United when paying for flights with United or any of the Star Alliance partners, including Air Canada, as well as with car rental agencies, including bonus miles when booking your rentals through United’s website and using their discounts.  It may not be the cheapest car rentals though so you may want to look around before booking.  Also, booking hotels, cruises, and vacation packages through their website will earn you United miles.

An example, a flight from Toronto to Tel Aviv with Air Canada will put you back around 80K Aeroplan miles and about $775CDN due to fuel surcharges.  If you use your United miles to fly on the very same flight, your cost will be 85K United miles and less than $200 (quite honestly, I couldn’t find a direct flight at the lowest economy point level right now using United Miles, but AC connecting with Lufthansa for example (another fuel surcharge charger) only came to around $240USD, less if you fly Turkish or Ethiopian (just like with Aeroplan though), so flying with United Miles on Air Canada on a round trip ticket such as this one, would save you around $475 per ticket!  The point is you’d have a LOT more option since flying with so many of Air Canada’s partners will result in big fuel surcharges when using Aeroplan, your options on which carriers to use will expand to all of them with United!

To sign up for the “Opinion Miles Club” and start earning free miles, click here!

Multi-City Options with Aeroplan

Aeroplan has an option that many other airline point systems don’t offer.  Interested in flying somewhere like, for example, Israel?  That would cost you 80K points for a return trip–but why only go there?  For only 20K more points, you can fly anywhere with Aeroplan–so perhaps visiting South Africa is something you’ve always wanted to do?  Try this, assuming you’re starting from Toronto:

Toronto-New York (EWR) on Air Canada

New York-Tel Aviv on United or JFK to Joburg (start by going to South Africa first) on South African Airlines

Tel Aviv to Joburg  to Capetown (stay on board while they make a quick stop) via Istanbul on Turkish Airlines

Capetown to Addis Ababa back to Toronto on Ethiopian Airlines (though their planes on older–sort of like flying AA)

Why not take Air Canada more, for example, directly to Tel Aviv?  Fuel Surcharges are approximately $775 if it were a round trip ticket.

How to get extra Aeroplan points?  You get them from welcome bonuses with AMEX (one per consumer card per lifetime, unlimited welcome bonuses on business cards) through the links on this post, this post, or this post.

By avoiding Lufthansa, Austrian Air, and Air Canada on the Star Alliance, you’ll avoid the fuel surcharges that make the trip too expensive.  Of course, direct flights are the best, but if you book your flight waaay in advance, the more stopovers the better!  The chances that the flight times won’t change if booked, say 10 months in advance, are minimal, and if flight times change significantly, a flight is cancelled or even if the first leg is moved an hour or two earlier, making it inconvenient, you will hopefully get an Aeroplan agent who will be willing to change your flight entirely, including cutting back on the number of stopovers significantly, with additional charges tagged on to your ticket.  Flying Turkish Airlines is an excellent (and necessary) option if flying between Tel Aviv and Capetown.

For example, let’s say they decide they’ll fly you through London or Frankfurt for a more direct connection, both of which scream “FUEL SURCHARGES!!,” they won’t charge you any extra so you win!  You also won’t pay any charges for changes since they’re making the changes because of the “inconvenience” of flight changes.

I made this trip a couple of years back.  Coming back, originally, I was supposed to fly Capetown, Joburg, London (yes, I had to suck it up because of limited availability for my family of 4 + lap child at the time), Washington, Cleveland, Toronto.  Insane!  FOUR stopovers, which after two schedule changes, turned into Capetown, Joburg (I wanted to stop there anyways), London, Toronto!  No US stopovers!

I’ve been trying this morning, and hit lots of difficulties though.  The multi-city trip has an important rule–you CANNOT pass through the same city twice.  So for example, going Point A to B to C, you have a stopover between A & B, let’s call it A1.  You cannot pass through A1 at another point in the multi-city trip or it’s considered an invalid multi-city.

This is where calling Aeroplan just after 12pm weekdays (when Vancouver’s offices open and Montreal’s is open too (and perhaps Halifax?)) to get through quickest makes sense–they can check dates of availability for multi-city trips much faster than you can online.  Have your computer up and running, and try to book it the multi-city while talking to them to avoid the over the phone booking fees per ticket.  If not possible, tell them that–they may have the option of waiving the fee and if not, take it to a supervisor respectfully (can’t hurt to try).

 

 

7K RBC Rewards Points For Booking with your RBC card

RBC has a promotion now ’til Feb 29, 2016.  Book a stay with AirB&B (a website dedicated to staying in people’s residences around the world instead of a hotel) and if it’s your first time booking, you’ll receive an additional 7K RBC Rewards points besides the double points you’ll receive before March 1st for your booking (2 points per dollar spent).  If you have an Avion card, and transfer your points to Avios, that will mean a 50% bonus, giving you 10K Avios points when switching (though you need to have 10K RBC points (minimum) to switch to Avios so you’ll have to combine it with points you already have.  The 50% bonus upon conversion doesn’t seem to be available yet, but I’d be surprised if it did not become available my mid-November.  According to the terms and conditions, you may have to wait as long as 90 days to receive the 7K point bonus though (GRRR) though with other credit card companies, they just give timelines like that to cover their butts–it may show up very soon after the booking or after the stay is completed.  Still, that’s a free round trip to NYC from Toronto in economy (’til the Avios rates for short haul flights in N. America jumps from 9K to 15K on February 1)!

Here’s the link to make a booking with AirB&B.

AMEX’s Competitive Moves–Have yours yet?

As I wrote on a previous post, AMEX is planning on making a MUCH bigger footprint on the Canadian market–more merchants will be accepting AMEX, offering them lower merchant fees (apparently around the same as M/C & Visa), making the AMEX card MUCH more lucrative to have in one’s portfolio, including the SPG card, the best hybrid card for switching points to different airlines that is offered in Canada, along with the AMEX Gold & Platinum.

Until that day comes, AMEX Canada is trying other strategies to make its cards indispensable.  AMEX has been offering its customers Front Of The Line (which are usually expensive tickets to events that are prime seats before tickets go on sale to the putlic) as well as advanced screenings to movies with reasonably priced movie packages ($35 for 2 tickets, 2 popcorns, and 2 drinks + tax). Sorry I didn’t write about this one earlier for example–The Hunger Games, Mockingjay Part II previews with AMEX two days before it opens to the general public.  Only packages left are to the Cineplex Cinemas Scarborough at this point. Sign up to receive AMEX offers or like their Facebook page to find out about these types of offers.

AMEX is also offering Platinum personal and business card holders FREE Uber service from Laguardia Airport (NYC)!  They give you a promo code when you’re in the lap of luxury in their Centurion lounge there, that allows you 2 free rides from LaGuardia to anywhere in the 5 boroughs–you get credited on your statement for the ride!  It’s only ’til December 31, 2015 but that’s a great value!  Honestly, I doubt that the Canadian AMEX will give you this deal (which is why Canadians that have a US address that they can send a card to) should apply for a US AMEX card at the right time (when the welcome bonus is highest) and then transfer the points to their Canadian Membership Rewards points total at a conversion rate of around 25% (assuming the dollar is around 75 cents).  There is nothing in the terms and conditions that exclude CDN AMEX Platinum cards, but my experience is that it’s a given that CDN cards don’t count for such offers.  The offers that come with AMEX cards in the US are SOOOOO valuable that they easily offset the annual fee.  I expect that AMEX will publicly offer 100K US Membership Rewards points for a few days in early January as they’ve done previously.  I’ll post it on SD if I find out!

Remember, you can get the AMEX welcome bonus in Canada and the US more than once for BUSINESS cards, but not for personal ones anymore.

Price Mistake for Car Rentals from Costco?

Perhaps you’re looking for a car rental here in Canada?  Apparently, if you have a Costco membership, and use the CostcoTravel.ca website, they have incredible prices for rentals from Canadian airports.  I’ve had success with Vancouver airport.  Here’s an example I copied from Dan’s Deals for a one day rental from YYZ:

The Party Is Over

In the words of a friend who emailed me the bad news, British Airways is making a “minor” change to its reward flight pricing in North America–only one but a vital one for many–for years, BA Avios has only charged 4500 Avios points for a short haul flight within North America on AA, US Airways, TAM, and Alaskan Airlines.  Now that’s being upped to what Aeroplan charges for an economy flight–7500 points for a one-way flight.  The taxes are still lower than Aeroplan when starting out of Toronto for example, but it’s still a hit on those who’ve been collecting on converting AMEX points to Avios, considering Avios just made changes a few months back to MANY flight rewards but left this one untouched, this comes as a bit of a shock.

For more details, click here.  It only kick in on February 2, 2016, so book your flights before that date (IF you can find availability.