Should You Use a Balance Transfer to Help Pay Credit Card Debt? + MORE Jan 9th

Our “What you actually have to spend to get some of the best credit card welcome bonus offers” feature was updated today. We’ve added the CIBC Aventura Visa Infinite Privilege Card to the list. It’s 50,000 point sign up bonus is pretty decent but you do have spend $12,000 on the card to get that bonus that is worth up to $1,000 in travel (up to $501 after taking the annual fee into account). The easiest bonuses to achieve continue to be the WestJet RBC World Elite Mastercard and MBNA Best Western Rewards Mastercard. Visit the feature here Cathay Pacific Asia Miles added the option to redeem miles online for flights on LATAM, Malaysia Airlines and S7 Airlines in December. You can now search availability and book Asia Miles award tickets on these airlines via the Asia Miles website rather than having to call into their service center. (Source Cathay Pacific)Aeroplan’s eStore is offering bonus miles for online shopping at select fitness and wellness retailers. The offers are for up to 5x miles and runs until January 19…

Many Canadians have high credit card debt. The prospect of paying off those balances can seem overwhelming. So, when a 0% balance transfer offer comes to your attention, it might be tempting. But how does a balance transfer work exactly? It can be an effective way to pay off debt, if used in combination with other sound financial strategies to stop the bills from rising again.
What Is a Balance Transfer?
When you carry a credit card balance, you pay a high amount in interest and fees every month. If you have multiple cards to keep track of, you may feel like you are forever transferring money to cover off the monthly payments. It can feel like two steps forward and one step back each month. A balance transfer lets you put all of your debt onto one card, which can make you feel more comfortable managing your debt. But more critically, balance transfer offers often give you an opportunity to pay your debt down with a much lower, or even 0% interest rate.
You can apply for a new credit card that offers a balance transfer option…

Here are the Rewards Canada Top 5 Credit Card Sign Up offers for the month of January 2020! 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 (welcome/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 some 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 actually only see one first year free card on the list! No change this month from December although we should give an honorable mention to the CIBC Aventura Visa Infinite Privilege Card as it can push a decent value of over $500 but don’t play your redemptions right and you could end of with a value of only $1. Also note that we are early in the month and some offers are slated to change in the next couple of weeks so keep an eye out for those. In general we should see some really great offers in 2020 thanks to the new Air Canada Aeroplan program launch…

Air Transat launched a new seat sale today offering savings on  their flights to Europe, the South, the United States or within Canada. The seat sale fares must be booked by January 22 and are good for travel from February 1 to October 31, 2020. Fares start at $89 one way for short flights within Canada, $304 to Florida and up from there for flights further south or to Europe.Learn more about the sale and book the fares here! Here are some examples of the fares that are available: While Air Transat does not have their own loyalty program at this time (it may change if and when Air Canada’s purchase of the company is approved) you can utilize any number of credit cards to earn points and miles on these flights. Cards like the American Express Cobalt Card and The Platinum Card from American Express earn 2x points on travel purchases. You can also look at utilizing any number of proprietary credit card reward programs to redeem points and miles for these flights. Learn more about redeeming for flights like these here…