BMO World Elite MasterCard being enhanced as of September 1st! + MORE Aug 22nd

As I mentioned yesterday, watch for changes to come to a few Canadian credit card this September and here is the first of them that we are going to bring you.A pretty strong card in its own right that came 5th place in the “Travel Points Credit Card with annual fee” category in our 2013 Top Travel Rewards Credit Card rankings, the BMO World Elite MasterCard is getting a slight revamping as of September 1st. Thanks to Rewards Canada reader Michael D. for passing along this information from a letter he received:Just got a letter from BMO that Effective September 1 … the redemption rate will now be 2% for every dollar vs 1.9%. Also they are giving free additional cards. Also you will now get 2 BMO points for ever dollar to make it easier to understand the redemption. 100 BMO points will = $1These aren’t huge changes but the fact that they are all good is huge given the negative news from many programs over the past few months!Free additional cards is a great new feature considering the primary card costs $150 (this is now exactly the same as another top card, the American Express Gold Rewards Card)The redemption rate moves to 2% from 1…

Most of today’s information and news has come to you already in separate posts but here is a summary: News, Tips & Tricks Air Canada Altitude has been devalued again. See all the details in our post here. Also stay tuned for a post from an Air Canada Elite member to hear his thoughts on the changes. BMO is updating their World Elite MasterCard, find our more here. And not too many new bonus offers for Canadians (we had more on FFB but three are not available to us) including the Cathay Pacific flight offer mentioned earlier today and a pretty decent offer from Alaska Airlines if you fly them frequently via Seattle or Portland to cities like Los Angeles, Dallas and more. Also worth mentioning is the third bonus offer listed below for Etihad flights as I want to note that you don’t have to be a big corporation to join BusinessConnect and take advantage of the bonus miles. You can even be a Sole Propietorship (or pretend to be one and use your SIN as your business number…

Photo credit: Getty Images
Poor McDonald’s. The fast-food megalith gets its share of warranted criticism – as is the case for low employee wages – but it also gets unfairly picked on for many social ills, with obesity being the big one (no pun intended). It’s at the point where, at least in the Western psyche, the chain is synonymous with poor health and being overweight.
Case in point: The Guardian had some fun-with-numbers last month in regards to how many McDonald’s restaurants are in each country. Some of the findings were pretty cool, such as the measure of outlets per capita. Monaco and Andorra are actually first and second, respectively, in terms of how many Mickey D’s they have per person. But, if such small countries aren’t counted, the results look more like what we’d expect: the United States and Canada are respectively first and second.
The authors of the report instinctively attempted to prove that the prevalence of McDonald’s could be tied to different countries’ obesity rates, as reported by the World Health Organization, but they weren’t as successful as they expected to be…

Many grads recall their university or college years as some of the best of their lives. They may also remember them as the most expensive; funds can be scarily low when tuition, books, dorm rooms and meal plans must be paid for.
Money management is key during those years; students need to employ strategy to stretch their savings as far as possible. But those saving strategies shouldn’t go out the window once exams have finished and a steady paycheque is on the horizon. Here are five student financial tips that everyone should heed.
Cut Down On Swiping
Relying on your credit card is the easiest way to spend beyond your means. Students often learn this the hard way, wracking up thousands of dollars of credit card debt that, when combined with student loans, leave them floundering after graduation. According to recent research by TD Canada Trust, 31 per cent of students and recent grads wished they had been more responsible with their credit card while at school. Thirty eight per cent of Gen Y-ers report having debts from credit cards, lines of credit and loans…