Hi Laura,

I'm a Canadian in Calgary and my wife and I use free credit card points to book Aeroplan/Star Alliance trips, so I can tell you about those. We save our AE points up until we have enough for a mini-RTW in F as that seems to give the best bang for the buck (plus its an amazing experience in trans-oceanic F that we would never get to experience otherwise).

Currently for AE points there are these free (for first year) cards:

Amex Gold Rewards – Free for first year. 15K free MR rewards that can be converted 1:1 to Aeroplan. Get one for the SO as well and they can transfer into your Aeroplan for 30K miles. You get double miles on some stuff as well. You need to spend $500 in 3 months to get these points.

SPG Amex – Free for first year. You get 10K SPG points. When you get 20K points in your account you can transfer them to Aeroplan and get an extra 5K miles for a total of 25K. You need to spend $1K in 3 months to get the 10K bonus.

Amex Business Gold - Free for first year that gets you 25K Aeroplan miles for $3K spend in 3 months (x2 if you include the SO).

Do some searching for more details on each. We churn these cards to keep getting miles (signup, spend, cancel before 1 year is up, repeat) for free. We also have CIBC Aerogold VISA Infinite that we've had for many years. We don't churn this one so that we have a card with a long credit history. Try not to look at the 50-75K points signup deals our American brothers and sisters get as you'll become very jealous very quickly.

As you are accumulating CC points, keep an eye out for the transfer promos. For example right now you get bonus points when you move points into AE. Keep working these deals and it doesn't take long to build up the miles. We move our spending between the various cards and find that we easily meet the points requirements with our normal spending patterns. Good luck!