Hey everyone, I’m wondering about switching gears with my travel rewards credit card. I’ve been with aeroplan for years and while I like how quickly I earn points and get discounted flights, I’m starting to feel limited with regards to where I can fly that’s still worth while. Staying in North America yields very light tax charges but Europe, Asia and South America costs big on taxes while still eating up a year or 2 worth of points accumulation. Anyone have any experience switching from aeroplan to another rewards program? Likes/dislikes of other programs out there? I’m open to any and all suggestions. Thanks in advance for your help!

it's the countries that matter for taxes. if you want to fly to asia fly to vietnam first, they have very low taxes.

Acie its not really, its mostly airline surcharge. air canada to Spain will be the same # of points but will be around 5x the $ cost compared to TAP

Kieran Corr Sanchez true that too. You'll have to play around with the airlines and the countries even the connecting countries to see the lowest taxes. I've seen flights to Vietnam for like 70 bucks taxes before

Acie yeah you honestly gotta dedicate a couple hours to it to get a good deal AND be flexible with dates. I've become a bit of a pro at it to tell the truth haha

I have both aeroplan and tdExpedia. To date I have not used any aeroplane miles and have had trouble just trying to book anything. The TD card I have been able to use once a year with no problem.

I find TDExpedia and Air Miles work well for flights. aeroplan for hotels/car rentals. You just have to check "actual" prices and compare before they clean out your points and charge you the same as an actual flight.

Leslie very true.

Leslie yes exactly that’s what I’ve noticed. Why would I surrender 60,000 points plus $630 in taxes to get to Ireland, when I can save my points and get to Ireland for $600-$700 anyways. Ireland is just one example but noticing lots other places I’ve searched is the same problem. Hotels and cars may be worth while tho so thanks for the tip!

Leslie yes! Exactly! I was looking at YYZ- JFK last year and they wanted like 2400 air miles + $250, when purchasing the flight outright was only $270

Visa First Class Travel card is great for points especially if you redeem them through TD for expedia. It's $120 a year but you do get fairly comprehensive travel insurance with it. Although it does not include flight delay insurance but most travel cards don't actually have fully comprehensive travel insurance anyhow, except for a few that cost much more in annual fees or have rewards that are less valuable

NEVER fly air canada on aeroplan rewards. TAP are a great way to get to Europe with very little tax.
Other good ones are Asiana, Eva and United and Air Brussels. The aeroplan website doesnt make it easy to find flights with these csrriers but they do exist. You just need to spend time. copa as well actually. Avoid AC, SAS, lufthansa

Kieran yep

Kieran May I ask why you suggest not to fly air canada with aeroplan rewards? Thanks!

air canada charges large fuel surcharges on their awards. If you use aeroplan points but are able to fly with United, Swiss,tap, Turkish etc etc the fees are almost nothing

Jeanette yep basically as Jackie said: you can easily pay $500-$700 in fuel charges on a return flight. Whats the point im even usinf miles to save a couple hundred quid.
Plenty Star Alliance airlines dont charge fuel surcharge

What is TAP?

Linda air Portugal

Linda the Portuguese airline.

Linda Portugal s airline

I really like RBC Avion. We just bought 4 plane tickets, but didn’t have enough points to cover all 4, so just paid the difference of what our points didn’t cover. They are flexible, and do have good customer service. It does have an annual fee, but it has good insurance coverage.

Barbara we’ve been using RBC Avion for years - they’re the easiest to use and very helpful unlike aeroplan which is almost impossible to take advantage of

Been trying to find a good points card to travel in North/central/South America mostly... any advice for a beginner??

I've heard Rbc westjet card is the best

RBC Avion and westjet MC are both excellent.

RBC Avion is great. They have a grid system which has pre established redemption levels for certain countries/continents.

Previously (5 years + ago) I put great effort into maximizing aeroplan participation. After various redemptions, I decided it wasn't worth the effort. Actually booking airfare via points ... was pointless. The best aeroplan point redemptions were the occasional clearance/discounted items on their web site. That took some effort. Ongoing monitoring was needed to benefit. I did get a few free items, a GPS, a camera... But, when factoring effort and paying more at aeroplan associated businesses, I simple decided, "nah."
I now use my bank's Travel Rewards Credit Card. Most banks have some version of this.
aeroplan is going through a major transformation right now, it was recently reacquired by air canada. Changes could be coming...

I've been using the TD Visa infinite for several years now, and just recently got the CIBC Aventura. I signed up for the Aventura card for the welcome bonus, and planning to cancel it after the first year. Just this morning, I signed into the CIBC Rewards site for the first time since registering. Maybe it takes some getting used to, but it seems harder to search for flights & redeem points through the CIBC Rewards site. I like the TD Visa site a lot because it's affiliated with expedia, and you're essentially using expedia to browse.

CIBC Aventura's flight booking process is not easy and their fare values are 30+% higher than the published fares. Plus if you cancel your trip, you don't get your points back- which is fair enough- you get the $ value of the ticket MINUS a $200 change fee- also fair enough. BUT to use the credit to re-book with the airline, you pay the difference in fare (that's reasonable) PLUS a $50 online booking fee. And not CAD$50 but USD$50. These are the facts from my experience with american airlines this week. IMHO points are not always worth the effort.

Elizabet wow. This is interesting. I was going to use my points towards a flight, but now considering to use it towards a hotel stay instead.

I have a aventura. I just find its easier to call and talk to someone.

Bee Always do your homework/ research so you can decide whether using points is worth it.

I only use low/ no tax airlines to Asia. Eva,Turkish Search aeroplan no tax awards

I`ve been wondering the same. My husband has a aeroplan Visa account. I have a westjet card and that worked well when my father was still alive, since we flew to Abbotsfords, BC every year and the $99 companion fare plus the westjet dollars came in handy. This year, I have to book a flight using the companion fare by September. I think I'm going to use it for our flight to Merida, Mexico, even though it's $299 for Mexico. I don't know what we're going to do about my husband's card. We want to go to the Galapagos, and he's got enough miles for us to fly to Ecuador - that would help since we would still have to pay for the flights to the islands. But I would prefer him to move to some other card. aeroplan sucks for flights to Europe.

We actually love aeroplan and have scored some amazing deals just by checking often and far in advance!! We just went return Hong Kong-Toronto on air canada flights in Sept - taxes were $350 all in for two tickets. We’re flying back from Florence to Toronto via Lisbon in July - 4 tickets for $250 all in on TAP (that one blew our minds!!)

Melissa ya definitely depends on where you go. I have gotten several flights to LA, San Fran, Vancouver, Hawaii from aeroplan for like $50. My friend flew to Japan for $50 as well. It works well for me cuz I go there the most.

Laura how did you get such cheap prices to go to LA? I have aeroplan but very new to travelling.

Tony just book at least a few months in advance. Taxes are cheap for thete

Melissa that's a lot of tax you're paying. Toronto to HK on EVA would have been less than 80 bucks for business and a much better product than AC. TAP is not bad for taxes but there are some better ones to Europe on Star Alliance, eg Turkish, Brussels

Depends on where you go and who you fly with. I have gotten great value out of aeroplan. I am going to Japan in March and it's costing me $102. You just have to play around and book as soon as you know your travel dates.

TD VISA Infinite for good signup bonus points that can be used for any travel. CIBC adventura visa infinite coz I love free lounge passes. Switch cards every year to take advantage of signup bonuses. See greedyrates.ca website for awesome tips

Td First class visa. I got $150 just for signing up

Ive had the scotiabank amex gold-the rewards program is flexible and good BUT I find a lot of places dont take amex so I do not use it enough to make it worth the fees. My husband has the westjet mastercard which has great rewards but obviously is limited to westjet so make sure they fly where you would want to go.

Rbc travel rewards doesnt limit me to where i can go

Laura Lee Murphy- Pacheco i 2nd RBC Avion -

I always book on Turkish, Singapore, and ANA and I've never had to pay more than $100/pp in taxes for long haul Biz in South America and Asia. Admittedly, North America and Europe is tough.

Shaleen same. Add EVA in there too. My favorite business class product

Anita Ng for some reason I've never been able to book Eva! But I want to go to Taiwan so hopefully soon!

If you like business class there's no better deal than aeroplan. If you book economy than any of the credit cards where points can be redeemed for dollars works.

Trade your aeroplan points for Costco Cash cards sell them to your friends or use them yourselves (and you have now cash to do anything)

I second the TD vida infinite! No blackout dates or limits. You just need to book through the TD expedia site
The yearly fee on the card is quite high but if you open a checking acct with TD and keep a $5000 min the fee is waived.

I've been using BMO World Elite as I like the benefits (insurance and lounge passes). However, they changed their point structure to taking longer to get to the free flights.

https://www.distantpoints.com/.../trip-of-a-lifetime...
Take a look at this post - you can get really good value from aeroplan if you know what you're doing!

I personally love my Scotiabank AMEX card. You can redeem points for all inclusive vacations, flights, hotels etc (plus stuff at stores like Best Buy) and it’s very easy to use. You get 1 point per dollar or 4 points per dollar if you use it on gas, entertainment or restaurants. They do have an annual fee of $99 for the Gold card but I use it whenever I can and then transfer money from my debit card over and in my experience it’s super worth it if you use that method. I’ve booked flights through their online travel company and it was so easy to use, plus it comes with travel/rental car insurance.

Joshua Tsai

I have several accounts (e.g, Scotia Rewards, TD Rewards, british airways Avios, AMEX Membership Rewards) but hands down the best of them all is Aeroplan... as long as you search for flights by segments and choose airlines that don’t charge fuel surcharges. The best deal of all are business class flights. The other reward programs have their place, but aeroplan can’t be beat if you know how to make it work. A few tips are to be found here: https://packinglighttravel.com/.../aeroplan-step-by-step.../

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I would use up your aeroplan points and then get a TD rewards card. I love how flexible using their points are - all on expedia which I find usually has the best and least expensive options, and your points translate to dollars so you can book the entire cost of your travel on points and not have to pay taxes or anything.

Compared bmo world elite to avion. And bmo has better travel insurance with Allianz. If you call either up, they can give you a breakdown of what’s covered.

But for flights, neither of them were good price wise. We book international flights separately as it’s much cheaper

I booked flights to Asia through aeroplan for only $80 in tax round trip!! Book far in advance and through EVA Air! I flew to Kuala Lumpur and out of Bangkok (connecting in Taipei both ways). Remember to check all major airports in Southeast Asia - it’s so easy and cheap to fly between them once you’re there!

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I have both BMO rewards and air miles, and BMO rewards is definitely better and quicker for racking up travel rewards