How does credit card debt affect a mortgage application? + MORE Apr 7th

 Spencer at Straight to the Points sent out an alert about business class tickets for up to 4 people being available on Turkish Airlines and since the airline is a Star Alliance member you can use your Aeroplan points to redeem for these flights. Availability is showing from September 2021 through to February 2022 for flights to Istanbul and beyond. Aeroplan charges 70,000 points each way for partner award flights in business class plus the $39 partner award booking fee.Editors Note: Rewards Canada does not encourage non-essential travel at this time but as part of our mission of delivering a wide breadth of loyalty program news, bonuses and tips on earning and redeeming we do want to present options for our readers who may be interested is such news as this and for planning for future travel!Here are some examples of the current availability:Toronto – Istanbul for 2 – round trip in business classToronto – Istanbul for 4 – one way in business classToronto – Bodrum for 2 – one way in business class One can hope that by late fall and/or winter travel will have opened more, that is more so on the Canadian side when you return from somewhere outside of the country so that you can utilize a redemption like this…

If you’re shopping around for a mortgage, you probably already know that lenders ask for a ton of financial information before determining how much you can borrow. That list includes your household income, down payment amount and how much you owe—including credit card debt, car payments and unsecured personal.
With debt being so common these days—the average Canadian consumer carried a credit card balance of $4,245 at the end of last year, according to TransUnion—you might be wondering how, exactly, outstanding credit card debt might affect your mortgage eligibility, and whether it’s something you should be worried about. Here’s what you need to know.
How credit card debt can hurt (or help) a mortgage application
If you have a relatively small credit card balance and diligently make your minimum payments on time, that debt is unlikely to have any effect at all on your mortgage application. But a history of overdue payments or a large credit card balance—especially when combined with other forms of debt—often reduces the amount you can borrow for a home purchase, and it might even disqualify you for a mortgage altogether…

Here’s your Rewards Canada Daily update! Your daily dose (or near daily dose) of loyalty program, credit card and travel news, bonuses, deals and more.  Another hotel that we listed in our New Marriott Hotel openings for 2021 opened up recently. The Fairfield Inn & Suites Salmon Arm in B.C.’s interior officially opened on March 19. This location seemed to open up with little fanfare as there isn’t even an grand opening bonus points or rate offer. It does seem as the hotel is performing a soft opening right now. The hotel is a Category 3 property (Standard award night: 17,500 points // Off peak: 15,000 // Peak: 20,000) which means you can use your Marriott Bonvoy American Express Card annual free night award here. Learn more about Marriott’s new hotel openings in Canada here.Image via Marriott— Another Amex Offers offer came out over the past week. This one appears to only be available tor American Express® Aeroplan®* Reserve Cards. Register your card and shop online or in-store* at participating Sobeys (including Safeway, Foodland, and FreshCo), Metro (including Food Basics), Longos, and Save-On-Foods locations in Canada and receive up to $150 in statement credits by 31/07/2021…

 When we talk about returns on credit card spending it is usually in the fashion of a percent return for each dollar you have spent on a card. Percent returns help us gauge and compare cards against each other as they are so many variables in how cards in the Canadian market earn points and how those points can be redeemed. This means you can’t really compare a point earned on this card with a point earned on that card without looking at the big picture. For example, our second most popular article of 2021 to this date compares earning 5x points on the American Express Cobalt Card versus earning 5x points on the BMO Eclipse Visa Infinite Card and how they don’t equal each other despite having the same earn rate. So that brings us to what makes a good return on credit card spending? Here the phrase ‘good return’ can have different meaning for different people. If you are just starting out in the credit card world (ie a student) you may only be able to get cards that provide a 0…