Jan 12 Update: Increased sign up bonus for the Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card from American Express, United Elite Status Match + MORE Jan 13th

The great offer of up to 25,000 Aeroplan Miles and First Year Free on the TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite card that we saw up until mid-December is back!This is great news for the Canadian consumer and travellers alike who don’t have this card yet or took it out from their portfolio as the latest offer for their TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite card is one you should definitely look at! The offer is for 15,000 Aeroplan Miles when you are approved for the card followed by another 10,000 when you reach $1,000 in spending within the first 90 days of having the card. All with the first year free! Which means you get those 25,000 Aeroplan miles for free (not to mention the additional miles you earn on your spending) and you can always choose to keep or get rid of the card before that first year is up and keep those miles. You can find out more about this offer and apply for the card here.What will those 25,000 Miles get you? Those 25,000 Miles will get you one long haul ound trip economy class ticket within North America (taxes and fees excluded of course) or a one short haul trip with 10,000 miles to spare!Rewards Canada Tip: Tie this in with other first year free offers and you can earn yourself 100,000 Aeroplan Miles for free right now! See here on how you can achieve this.

BERLIN – Germany says that in 2014 it achieved its first balanced budget since 1969, a year earlier than planned, thanks to low interest rates, higher tax revenue and other factors.
The Finance Ministry said in a statement Tuesday that historically low interest rates meant that Germany paid less on previous credit, and overall spending was a billion euros less than budgeted, at 295.5 billion euros ($348.8 billion).
Meantime, tax revenues were 2.6 billion euros higher than budgeted. In addition, a December court ruling forced utility companies to pay the government 2.3 billion euros as part of a tax on the fuel used to produce nuclear power.
Germany had previously planned on new net borrowing of 6.5 billion euros in 2014 and a balanced budget in 2015.
The post Germany achieves balanced budget, a key to Merkel’s platform, a year ahead of plan appeared first on Canadian Business.

Buy a house. Don’t buy a house. Soft landing. Crash landing. As we start the new year, the question on everyone’s mind is: What can we expect from Canada’s housing market?
Once again, experts agree that housing affordability is stretched, historically low interest rates will rise, and housing prices will drop. Rewind 365 days and you could be reading a forecast for 2014. But this time the experts agree: prices really will fall and it’s got everything to do with the recovery of the global economy.
Now, if the global economy were a ballgame we wouldn’t be in the World Series. Oil prices are depressed and Europe is still struggling with its credit crunch. But things are slowly improving in the U.S. and within Canada, and the important teams are still in the game: our employment rate is stable, oil prices are not (yet) low enough to cause real concern, and exports have picked up as the value of our dollar has dropped. All this leads most economists to believe we’ll see slightly higher bond and mortgage rates and a nation-wide cooling of the housing market over the next couple of years…

Welcome to our second week of updates for 2015! News, Tips & Tricks There is a new increased sign up bonus for the Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card from American Express. The regular sign up bonus of 10,000 Starpoints has been increased to 20,000. This card has been ranked the #1 Hotel Credit Card in Canada for years on end here on Rewards Canada. Find out more or apply for the card here. • Earn 1 Starpoint for every $1 in purchases charged to the Card• Enjoy a Free Weekend Night Award when you reach $40,000 in purchases each year• Experience Starwood Gold Preferred Guest status when you reach $30,000 in purchases each year• Redeem Starpoints for Free Nights with no blackout dates at over 1,100 of the world’s most desired hotels in nearly 100 countries• Use Starpoints for flights on over 350 airlines with no blackout dates with SPG Flights• Experience once-in-a-lifetime events with SPG Moments• Get Front Of The Line®* access to tickets for some of the most popular concerts, theatre and special events• Annual interest rate 19…

Are your credit card rewards in for a cutback?
Last November, it was announced that Canada would be the latest nation to cap credit card interchange fees. The fees, which are behind-the-scene charges paid by merchants to credit card issuers every time a card is used in a transaction, will be capped at an average of 1.5 per cent for five years, to go into effect this coming April.
The reduction is meant to benefit both retailers, who will pay less for the ability to offer credit card payment, and consumers who will theoretically enjoy lower prices passed down from retailers’ savings.
However, the precedent set in other countries with fee caps paints a different picture: interchange fee reduction efforts have been criticized in both Australia and Spain for resulting in reduced credit card benefits and higher fees. And, as the deadline approaches to implement the changes in Canada, questions arise as to whether cardholders here will see their rewards credit card offerings shrink in size and quality…