Travel for Free: Barry’s Top 6 Tips on How to Game the Credit Card Reward System + MORE Apr 10th

To simply say I love credit cards is an understatement. Currently, I have more than 10 active cards, which is much more than the average person will ever need at once, but I use them all for a variety of reasons. When you know how to game the reward system and reap the benefits of different cards, the possibilities are endless, especially with regard to travel rewards.
I’ve flown to Hong Kong on points, and just recently, I stayed at the Marriott Amsterdam hotel for a week solely on credit card points. Now, imagine if I had to pay for that flight and hotel in cash; I would have spent more than $6,000. So you can see why I get so excited over using my credit cards.
Mind you, I’m pretty open about how I use my credit cards, and I likely spend a lot more on them in comparison to the average person. But as long as you’re careful about how and where you spend, here’s how any average Joe can take advantage of the system and reap all the benefits that credit cards have to offer.
Tip #1: Look out for sign-up bonuses
Without a doubt, sign-up bonuses are one of the best ways to travel for free…

Here are the Rewards Canada Top 5 Credit Card Sign Up offers for the month of April! This is not a ‘best’ credit card list like our Top Travel Rewards Credit Card rankings but instead a look at cards that have very good acquisition (sign up) offers. As always when choosing a card you should always take other factors into account other than the just sign up bonus, but when most or all of these cards are first year free, they can and do pay off even when you grab them strictly for the sign up rewards.  This month we’re back to adding one annual fee card into the mix along with four cards that offer first year free waivers.This month the list has the same cards as we saw in March although one card has seen a slight decrease in value, the BMO AIR MILES World Elite Mastercard. The card no longer offers the companion flight benefit we have seen for the past few months. There were other cards we consider this month such as the HSBC World Elite Mastercard since it is first year free and offers up a higher sign up bonus of up to 60,000 points but it has quite a large amount of spend required to get the full bonus…

Alaska Airlines is raising the mileage requirements for redeeming Mileage Plan miles on Icelandair flights as of April 15. Below are the old and new rates for redeeming between Canada and Europe on Icelandair. As you can see it is only Economy class being affected but that is where the majority of redemptions happen. As always compare cash pricing versus miles when booking – especially on a carrier like Icelandair who are known for lower economy class fares to begin with, in many cases you may be better off using cash and saving the miles for a different redemption that provides bigger cash savings. If you have linked your RBC credit card to your Petro-Points account check your inbox for this email offer of up to 5,000 bonus Petro-Points when buying fuel at Petro-Canada. There is a link in the email for you to load offer so be sure you don’t just read it, click through to register. Coming to you a little late with this Aeroplan offer. You can earn 4x Aeroplan miles for Costco.ca purchases until April 14…