{"id":197349,"date":"2020-04-02T08:00:28","date_gmt":"2020-04-02T12:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nomadicmatt.com\/?p=197349"},"modified":"2024-10-23T22:19:28","modified_gmt":"2024-10-24T02:19:28","slug":"points-and-miles-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nomadicmatt.com\/travel-blogs\/points-and-miles-canada\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Earn Points and Miles in Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ricky<\/p>\n

Collecting points and miles<\/a> is one of the best ways to lower your travel costs. Flights, accommodation represent two of the biggest expenses travelers face so getting those to zero allows you to travel more for less. When money isn’t a worry, the world is your oyster. <\/p>\n

While I have tons of points and miles resources on this website for U.S. travelers, I get a lot of questions from Canadians about whether they can take advantage of points and miles too. And the answer is always yes! <\/p>\n

While the U.S. has the most deals and opportunities, Canada isn’t too far behind and is the second biggest points market in the world. <\/p>\n

To help you understand the Canadian points and miles world, I reached out to my friend and fellow travel blogger Ricky Zhang from Prince of Travel<\/a>. In this interview, he shares his tips and tricks.<\/p>\n

Nomadic Matt: Hey Ricky! Thanks for doing this! To begin, tell us about yourself.<\/strong>
\nRicky<\/strong>: I\u2019m based out of Montreal<\/a> and Toronto<\/a>, and I\u2019ve always loved to travel and get the best bang for my buck when doing so. For the past few years, I\u2019ve run the Prince of Travel<\/a> website, which is dedicated to helping my fellow Canadians maximize their frequent flyer miles and credit card points to travel the world at a fraction of the price.<\/p>\n

How did you get into the points and miles game?<\/strong>
\nI first became interested in points and loyalty programs back in 2013. As a university student in Canada<\/a>, I was making frequent trips back home to China<\/a> to visit my family and I was trying to figure out how I could get airport lounge access.<\/p>\n

It turns out that there was a little-known opportunity to earn top-tier Star Alliance Gold status very easily with the loyalty program of Aegean Airlines, the Greek national airline. I figured out that I could simply credit the miles from one or two of my round-trip flights to Aegean and I\u2019d end up with Star Alliance Gold, which would get me the lounge access I wanted. <\/p>\n

That led me to the online blogs and forums, where I quickly learned that credit card points \u2014 and specifically the signup bonuses \u2014 was the key to racking up the points and funding many trips around the world (often in business class or First Class) at a fraction of the price. <\/p>\n

From there, I was hooked and I’ve just continued honing my craft over the years!<\/p>\n

\"Ricky<\/p>\n

The U.S. is known for its awesome travel credit cards. How does Canada compare?<\/strong>
\nMany outside observers would probably guess that the Canadian travel credit card market is less lucrative than the US and, while that\u2019s true in some ways, there are also ways in which Canada is the more favorable place to be.<\/p>\n

The US has a wider range of travel credit cards, provides access to a greater number of airline and hotel programs, and also gives consumers larger quantities of signup bonuses (for example, 100,000-point bonuses are a regular occurrence whereas, in Canada, the single-highest signup bonus is 75,000 points). <\/p>\n

However, the US credit card issuers are also stricter about limiting the number of signup bonuses that a single individual can obtain (or imposing limits on how often you can obtain them), whereas the Canadian issuers haven\u2019t imposed such limits, making Canada much more favorable in terms of earning the signup bonuses repeatedly.<\/p>\n

Almost all the cards in Canada let you double- or triple-dip on the bonus (although the terms and conditions may not always say so). It’s easy for issuers to update their terms and conditions to say that you’re only eligible for a once-in-a-lifetime bonus, but much more challenging for them to actually enforce that from an IT perspective. <\/p>\n

In addition, there are ways for Canadians to apply for US credit cards as well, thus letting us play the game on both sides of the border! <\/p>\n

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Want to travel the world for free?<\/h5>\r\n

Download my free guide to points and miles and learn how to master the one thing all travel experts do to save money and get free flights and accommodation!<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n

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Enter your info below to get the guide sent to you right away:<\/p>\r\n

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