I've read in Undercurrent that Thai boats (and probably others in SE Asia) are having major problems with getting genuine parts thank to counterfeits from you-know-where...
I hang out on scubaboard http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ima...geenduiker.gif

We are doing the Bilikiki (Solomons) after 3 days in Brisbane followed by a week at Uepi.

Managed to do my first Avios booking via Amex MR points for SYD-BNE return. Got 3 J on the inbound too!!! Nice to have a shower and food after 22hrs on AC33. Only 2J coming back but I'm hoping some sweet talk will get me a J ticket so we can all chill.:p

3J on AC33; now your dreaming. I have seen 4J; but this was once in an entire calendar year and most likely was a mistake.

Lucky! Pondering what I can do while in the South Pacific in Dec 2015/Jan 2016. Bagged myself QF F LAX-MEL then AKL-SIN-JFK in SQ Suites for a good 4 weeks. Most of the good stuff seems to fill up like 2 years in advance. :eek:

You misread, 3J for the SYD-BNE return short haul leg using Avios for Qantas . As for AC33/34, it's 1J, wife's seat, happy wife, happy life :D:D Besides it's her biz spending where most of the AP miles come from. I check daily for J seats on 33/34, not holding my breath. 595,000 for market fare!!!

tng11: We will be in Raja Ampat for 2 weeks over the 15/16 Xmas/NewYears. Leave YYZ 11pm on Wed, arrive resort 6pm Saturday. Ugh. YYZ-IST-CGK J on TK. After that it's express air (????) to Sorong then a 6hr boat ride to Misool.

F? Never flown in F. Lucky!!! Where are you looking at to dive over that time? The only place out of reach is the Tuamotus Islands near French Tahiti. Looks incredible but insanely expensive, especially given the US$. Indo is easy, cheap YQ and wicked diving with lot's of options. Only issues are weather, I normally wouldn't go so far over the Xmas holidays but RA isn't a place to dive over the summer months

BMO World Elite MC FYF
 

BMO World Elite Mastercard - FYF ($150 value) plus 30,000 welcome bonus until Apr 20 2015 plus Priority pass

http://www.bmo.com/credit-cards/bmo-...ite-mastercard

Assuming ,that all travel bookings have to be done thru BMO rewards centre , what are the actual prices compared to booking thru actual airline or hotel website. I did some searches and they look more or less the same .
But you have to sign in to the BMO Rewards to finalize and I do not know if they add other fees ( taxes , booking fees etc ) Does anyone have experience with them ?

Prices seem to be the same as other booking sites.

No extra booking fees or anything like that.

There was no booking fee
but there is a $30 cancel/change fee EVEN if it's 100% Refundable reservation (I think same as ExpediaForTD or Expedia in general)

I'd be careful on that


AMEX Travel Service, on the other hand, has no booking fee nor cancel fee
I've canceled 2 reservations in the last month, on 2 cards (Plat/Gold), no fees at all

can you still collect points ,such as Aeroplan on flights or Spg , Marriott on hotel bookings ? If yes that would be a pretty good card to have .
I have MC World Elite cash back card ( cibc ) but you can average only about 1.25 % cash back due to tier system .

This is correct, but the amex rate is not 2%.

I use both amex and BMO world elite, for different things. I don't think I have ever used amex points for travel, always transfer them out.

Up to now I've been reluctant to sign up for proprietary travel CCs like Avion, BMO World Elite and the like because it would take me more than 1 year to accumulate enough points to fly somewhere worthwhile, and I don't want to pay the AF for year 2.

But I guess if I look at it as a hotel CC then it's not so bad... say, with a $1000 spend per month on avg, I could end up with $540 (including signup bonus) to use on hotel. That might give me around 4 nights if I find a great rate. Not nearly as good as Marriott Visa or SPG Amex, but not all that bad either. If the Mrs and I both sign up it's even better.

How is BMO's booking engine for hotels? Anyone know if the rates are decent?

Not in my experience, and I am not surprised. 3rd party booking is always YMMV

My bookings at Towne Place Suites by Marriott had no points, but stay credit
I even had email with manager on this topic


The rates are okay, on par
but some cities, the selections are very limited

I find it humorous that this is what CIBC advertises on the card's page:

This card is pretty bad considering spend beyond 50k only gets you a 1% return

What kinda reservations have you cancelled? Flights?

I've cancelled a fully refundable hotel and was dinged with the fee.

Mine was a $70 funny refundable hotel
so I passed on the $25 cancel fee and just kept it, before I canceled my card


FAQ
https://www.bmorewards.com/en/public/faq.html

Just noticed one (1) MBNA card is back on GCR, but it is show $0 rebate:

http://www.greatcanadianrebates.ca/d...-PlatinumPlus/

Hopefully once MBNA is back on GCR, they will do a promo for $100 Rebates :D

Capital One Aspire Travel World MasterCard has been discontinued. I put a note on the Wiki.

What happens to people who have it?

Looks like it has been replaced by the Aspire Travel World Elite MasterCard:
http://www.capitalone.ca/credit-card...ards%2Fcompare

Same annual fee of $120 but only 10,000 bonus miles.:td:

We moved on from C1 Travel Aspire a while back but it was still on our radar for churn potential and low carry cost for the points. But lack of anniversary bonus really drives this card into the dirt and will completely drop it from our radar now

But it is still 2% travel cashback that can be redeemed for statement credit...multiple times

Folks, signed up the wife and myself for the Starwood Amex card. Question - would I meet the minimum $500 spend req if I were to buy a bunch of gift cards totalling that value? eg WalMart?

yes it will.

yup!
love the pics on your trip reports!

Hi there!

I had the BMO World Elite MC last year (got the 40,000 point bonus!).

Redeemed for a flight through the BMO rewards website. Easy process. It showed the total cost of the flight all-in, with a corresponding points value. (E.g. Flight was $562.50, points required 56, 250).

No booking fees, no hassle.

Didn't use the 4 PP lounge access since I have Plat AMEX.

Planning on churning this card again with the new FYF offer.

Do you need to have the full number of points for the travel item or can you apply the points you have if less and pay for the difference on the card?

Reading through the terms for the BMO offer, looks like hey are strict on churning but maybe the system is flawed... Worth a try at least, should still get first year free, maybe just no 30k points

1 BMO Rewards points that are awarded as a welcome bonus are only available to first time new BMO World Elite MasterCard cardholders and will not be awarded to current or former BMO World Elite MasterCard/BMO Rewards World Elite MasterCard cardholders who reinstate a closed account or subsequently open a new account. If a cardholder cancels their BMO World Elite MasterCard within 30 days of opening the account and the annual fee is refunded to the cardholder, the welcome bonus will also be cancelled. The BMO Rewards points which are awarded as a welcome bonus will be reflected on the first statement following the cardholder’s first purchase on the BMO World Elite MasterCard.

I gave Capital One a call as they said anyone who still has the credit card will continue to keep it so long as we do not cancel it.

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Which credit card is best to collect American Airlines aaadvantage miles? I know the RBC Infinite Avion can transfer to aaadvantage miles, any other cards that may be better?

Reason being is because I am a member if aaadvantage and a business owner. Today I just realized that I can pay Canada Revenue Agency using credit card which I had no idea! This can mean 500000 miles annually from just taxes alone!

You pay $500000 in taxes anually....and that too as a business owner....??..:confused:

Paying the CRA with a CC incurs a 2% fee IIRC.

HST can add up. add source deductions and 100 employee's and it will add up fast!

I just took a look, it's better than you think, for you personally, business wise 2% could add up but it's an expense. The points...it's up to you...

The better part is Plastiq is the provider. I just started paying Enbridge this way. If you have a Gold Biz card guess who is on the list of 2X suppliers? PLASTIQ!!!!!!!

[edit] It's only T2 Corp. tax returns. So much for THAT. Why no RC158 love?

If u don't have the full points, you can pay the difference. Same cash value on the difference, so you're not losing out on anything.

Hi sorry, total taxes I pay to CRA (including HST, payroll) is around 100-120K, not 500K. I also acknowledge the 2% surcharge when paying by credit card.

Nevertheless, back to my original question: Which card is best in Canada to collect AA Advantage miles besides the RBC Avion?

#1 is RBC Avion. I believe you get once a year 20% conversion bonuses to Amex.
#2 some people convert Aeroplan to AA via Esso Points to RBC Avion (not sure how it works, someone else can pipe in)
#3 Sign-up bonuses for SPG Amex card. Get 20k currently for both personal and biz version. Can be converted to AA at 1.25:1 when converting in 20k lots. Then for daily spend it's equivalent to 1.25AA miles per $ spend if you stick to converting in 20k lots only (i.e. SPG to AA).
#4 Get sign up bonuses for Amex cards. Convert to SPG at 0.5:1 and then to AA...works out to 0.625:1. Not a great ratio, but if you target first-year-fee cards such as the personal and business gold it's not bad. Biz gold 40k points for 5k of spending in three months = 20k SPG points = 25k AA points for "free".

For everyday spend it's either RBC Avion or the SPG Amex card. If you don't mind the $399 annual fee, the RBC Avion Prestige collects Avion points at 1.25x/$.

The other suggestions I made are mainly to take advantage of sign-up bonuses and to ultimately convert to AA points. They are not great conversion ratios, but if you really want to focus on AA then go that route.

I'm thinking along the same lines but...waiting to see if AA devalues the program. Seems they are about due. But since I'm mainly collecting flexible points currencies (MR, SPG)...I don't have all my eggs in one basket.

Another option, for 2015 only, is to transfer Aeroplan to US Airways Dividend Miles (USDM) for 100:84 ratio, and hope that USDM get "merged" into AA at 1:1 ratio

Max. yearly limit of transfer of 100K Aeroplan (=84K USDM), via points.com

What you can try to do is sign up for multiple credit cards and pay for your tax bills with each respective one to earn a bunch of sign up bonus points.

For example, you can sign up for the AMEX SPG. Pay some taxes with that, get the 20,000 sign up bonus. Then get one of the Avion RBC credit cards and get another slew of sign up bonuses (especially if you can get more than one of the Avion cards). I assume that you pay your taxes throughout the year, so you can change around the cards to take advantage of different sign up bonuses too.

Just curious. Anyone else sitting around on 100,000+ AMEX MR points just waiting for a transfer bonus?

Yup.