Keep your credit card at a different bank + MORE Jan 29th

(Blend Images – Peter Dressel/Getty Images)
If you occasionally forget to pay your credit card bill on time, you may want to read the fine print on your agreement. It turns out that most banks can actually deduct money from your accounts to cover money you owe on your credit card—without asking first. Typically, this deduction will only cover the minimum payment, which might just be $10. But theoretically, if you’re carrying a large balance of $10,000, all of sudden you could see hundreds of dollars removed from your chequing account without warning. There’s an easy fix for this dilemma, though: Get a credit card through a different bank. If your card is with Scotiabank, they can’t access your savings account at TD. An even better way to avoid this problem is to always pay your bill in full and on time.
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Yesterday was a bumpy day for the Canadian economy: StatsCan revised last year’s labour estimates, and it turns out that job growth was a third lower than expected. In the meantime, the price of oil dropped below US$45, and the loonie slid below 80 cents.
To the south, the Big News was No News: the Federal Treasury stayed the course on their pledge to be “patient” with rate hikes, keeping the rate at a record low of 0 to 0.25 per cent.
In company news, however, this week has been jam-packed. Tech Week continues: yesterday, Facebook reported earnings, South Korean electronics giant Samsung reported this morning, and Google and Amazon are also due later today. But there are plenty of reports from big global companies outside tech due today: this morning in Europe, Royal Dutch Shell was the first major world oil company to report fourth-quarter earnings (they announced more than US$15 billion in cuts), and companies from Ford to Visa to Time Warner Cable are also on the calendar…

Yesterday was a bumpy day for the Canadian economy: StatsCan revised last year’s labour estimates, and it turns out that job growth was a third lower than expected. In the meantime, the price of oil dropped below US$45, and the loonie slid below 80 cents.
To the south, the Big News was No News: the Federal Treasury stayed the course on their pledge to be “patient” with rate hikes, keeping the rate at a record low of 0 to 0.25 per cent.
In company news, however, this week has been jam-packed. Tech Week continues: yesterday, Facebook reported earnings, South Korean electronics giant Samsung reported this morning, and Google and Amazon are also due later today. But there are plenty of reports from big global companies outside tech due today: this morning in Europe, Royal Dutch Shell was the first major world oil company to report fourth-quarter earnings (they announced more than US$15 billion in cuts), and companies from Ford to Visa to Time Warner Cable are also on the calendar…

Total AIR MILES Reward Miles I have earnedin the past 12 months (2,000+ were fromSeptember on!)I have always stressed that you should focus only a few programs when developing and maintaining a loyalty rewards program portfolio. Since I posted our first ever article on Maximizing the Miles and Points you earn, back in 2005 I advised that you should only focus on one airline, one hotel and/or one shopping (credit card) program. To this day this still holds true for the vast majority of Canadians. Although I have now been telling some people that it is better to diversify and spread you earning and rewards out, this more so for people who are frequent travellers earning tens of thousands of miles or very high credit card spenders putting five figures on their cards each month. The reason for diversification is to shield yourself from program devaluations, why put all your eggs into one or two baskets only to have those baskets lose value over time. No matter what, the sooner you can use your rewards the more value you’ll get out of them…

Back in Calgary for this update! Thanks to American Express/Aeroplan/Air Canada for the great event in YYZ last night! News, Tips & Tricks The big news for today has already been covered in another post. The unfortunate changes to the British Airways Executive Club program will definitely be felt by many Canadians. Read all about here. Another Free Points Alert! I was going through a backlog of emails and found this offer for some free AIR MILES Rewards Miles. You can get 50 miles for downloading and installing the AIR MILES Connect online shopping tool (it installs into your browser). The offer ends January 31st so if you haven’t done this offer yet try it out. I did a similar offer sometime ago for Virgin Atlantic’s Flying Club which awarded me 250 miles for free in that program. This one of course has more relevance for most of you. Find out more here. Travel Deals Another Porter Airlines sale for you! Fares from $110! Book by Jan 30 for travel well into June! Find out more here…