Financial illiteracy costs everyone, especially seniors + MORE Sep 20th

Big day here on Rewards Canada with the launch of the 3rd annual Canada’s Choice portion of our Top Travel Rewards Credit Card feature. It looks like it is gaining steam every year! Two years ago we only had 700 some odd votes, last year we had 180 in the first 5 hours and over 3,000 total and if the first 5 hours this year are any indication it will be even bigger as we more than doubled the responses in that short 5 hour time frame with nearly 400 votes at the time of posting this. Have your say in the results this year by voting at rewardscanada.ca/vote News, Tips & Tricks Cathay Pacific Asia Miles is making two changes to their program as of October 8th. One is positive and the other is negative. First the positive news is that as of that date if you fly on discount economy tickets booked into S, N or Q classes you will earn 25% of the mileage in Asia Miles whereas right now those fares earn 0. The bad news is that Asia Miles will charge $25 or 1,000 Miles each time a confirmed award flight date or flight number is changed (per flight sector per passenger, with the same itinerary, same airline, and same ticket expiry date…

It’s that time again!Back in June we released our annual rankings of Canada’s Top Travel Rewards Credit Cards, and for the third year in a row we are now asking you Canada to vote for your favourite Travel Rewards Credit and Charge cards!Voting is now open for the 75+  cards in the five major travel rewards credit card categories. Most new cards that have come onto the market are included and we’ve made the survey one page in length instead of five so it is easier to find the cards you like in each category.So make sure you let your voice be heard and head on over to Canada’s Choice – Vote for Canada’s Top Travel Rewards Credit Cards 2013 and place your vote!

An article from the Urban Institute profiled a young woman who “gave up on her local bank five years ago” and now relies exclusively on storefront cheque cashing companies (such as payday loan companies). Her “bank account” is a pre-paid or re-loadable debit card. She admits that she sees no need to ever use a bank again. These less traditional money stores are more accessible to her and offer lower service fees than do traditional banks. This approach takes living paycheque-to-paycheque to a whole new level. Unfortunately, based on the information provided in the article, these non-traditional money exchanges and lenders are increasingly used, by low income earners and surprisingly also used by those earning $50,000 annually.
Living paycheque-to-paycheque provides no cushion or contingency for life’s surprises. Not only are there no savings to rely upon, but future opportunities are limited because no credit history is built. Alternative income sources such as pawn shops can only be tapped into as long as the flow of personal salable goods is available for pawning…