Most major financial institutions offer a points reward system on one or more of their credit cards. Points are collected for dollars spent and are tied to either the institutions points rewards system or are affiliated with reward programs such as AIRMILES or Aeroplan. Some cards also offer cash dividends credited back to the card at various intervals throughout the year. I was interested in finding the best rewards card for collecting points to redeem for travel. There are a number of considerations to make when choosing a card:
I have researched VISA, Mastercard and American Express credit cards from Royal Bank, TD Canada Trust, Bank of Montreal and CIBC. After carefully looking at the variety of cards and even applying and trying to use mose of them, the best points rewards system, by far, turned out to be the CIBC Aventura Gold VISA card. Please note, this is NOT the CIBC Aerogold VISA card (which is affiliated with the Aeroplan Program)!
The following explains in a little further detail why the CIBC Aventura Gold VISA card was the best choice at the time.
Most points reward credit cards give you ONE point for each dollar spent. However, the points redemption structure varies from card to card. One card might require you to collect 20,000 points for a certain flight and another card might require you to collect 30,000 points for the same travel destination. It is important to carefully review how many points you will need for your desired travel destinations. Further, there may also be a certain dollar maximum for flights redeemed with points. With the Bank of Montreal Mosiak Mastercard - AIRMILES affiliated card - you collect one AIRMILE for every $40, $20 or $15 dollars you spend; card dependent. Of course the point redemption structure is quite different from those cards where you collect one point per dollar. The CIBC Aventura Gold VISA card has one of the most competitive point structures. For example, with a CIBC Aventura Gold VISA a regular ticket to Europe from the Westcoast in Canada requires 60,000 points. This means you need to spend $60,000 to redeem one flight. With the Bank of Montreal Mosiak AIRMILES Mastercard, you require anywhere from 6,500 to 10,500 points to fly to Europe; season dependent. Therefore, with the Bank of Montreal Mosiak AIRMILES Mastercard you need to spend anywhere from $97,500 to $157,500 to be able to redeem one flight to Europe! It is easy to see that collecting CIBC Aventura points is much more profitable than collecting AIRMILES!
Redeeming your points can be a nightmare with some of the cards. Commonly you can expect to first navigate through a maze of automated voice menus and then end up on hold for up to an hour! Even when you finally get through, some cards offer a limited selection of seats for reward point redemption, have black-out periods (although this is getting less common), are limited to certain airlines and require you to book months in advance. All this can make redeeming your points almost more of a hassle than it's worth! With CIBC Adventura, I have always been connected to a live travel consultant within minutes! CIBC Aventura is not tied to any specific airlines which means that you can virtually book on any airline. Further, there are no black-out periods or seat limitations. If there is a seat available on a flight, you can book it with CIBC Aventura!
How far in advance do you need to book with points? I have heard horror stories about certain cards where travel needed to be booked months in advance! The Bank of Montreal Mosiak AIRMILES Mastercard requires seven days or if you are a gold collector, two days advanced booking. With CIBC Aventura Gold VISA, you can literally book several hours in advance!
On most point reward systems, your travel is required to originate in North America. This is perfectly fine if you live in North America and plan your annual vacations to originate from your home. As far as I know, the CIBC Aerogold VISA which is affiliated with the Aeroplan reward system is the only reward system that allows you to book flights originating and ending at any destination, subject to availability. If you collect CIBC Aventura points, and you have a Aeroplan account, you can easily transfer Aventura points to Aeroplan points, allowing you more versatility in making flight arrangements.
When booking a flight with reward points, it is required that you pay the taxes. This would appear to be fairly straight forward. However, I have found significant discrepancies with the various cards. For example, on a flight from Vancouver to Montreal, with AIRMILES (Bank of Montreal Mosiak AIRMILES Mastercard) you are charged an average of about $140 per round-trip ticket. With CIBC Aventura, the taxes for the same ticket on the same carrier on the same day are less than $100!
Many of the cards offer a host of other rewards. Hotels, car rentals, entertainment passes and a wide selection of merchandise. As I was not as interested in redeeming points for anything but flights, I did not pay much attention to all the other rewards.
Annual fees on all of the reward cards are all around $100 annually.
[Posted August 2006]