Save up to 50% on Economy and Business Class award tickets from Toronto to Austria & Poland + MORE Feb 7th

TORONTO — Mortgage brokers say the borrower rejection rate from large banks and traditional monoline mortgage lenders has gone up as much as 20 per cent after Canada’s banking regulator imposed a new stress test for home buyers who don’t need mortgage insurance.
As a result, alternative lenders are seeing an uptick in business as brokers increasingly direct home buyers toward borrowing options that are beyond the reach of the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions’ newly enacted tighter lending requirements.
READ: Your mortgage is about to get more expensive
Clients who don’t meet the bar are turning to private lenders, mortgage investment corporations (MICs) and credit unions, which are provincially regulated and not required to implement the stress test, said Carmen Campagnaro, president of Pro Funds Mortgages in Burlington, Ont.
Campagnaro is one of the brokers who said rejected loan applications to traditional lenders have risen by 20 per cent since Jan…

As we do each month we bring you the latest set Miles & More “Meilenschnaeppchen” discounted mileage awards!  This month we see the continuation of economy class offers on LOT and something we haven’t seen in awhile, business class offers on Austrian!!These are good for travel on LOT until April 1 with bookings allowed until March 31 while Austrian is good for travel until March 31 and must be booked by Feb 28 You can redeem Miles & More miles for round trip economy class tickets on LOT from Toronto to Poland for only 30,000 miles. This is a 50% discount off the normal Economy Class award ticket price of 60,000 miles and LOT does not charge a lot for additional taxes and fees so this is an ideal redemption to look at!And for business class this month the options between Toronto and Austria on Austrian, the discount is a bit below 50% as you need to redeem 55,000 miles for round trip flights that normally cost 105,000 miles. As we mention every time they have the 50% off economy offer is that you could in theory get close to amount required to redeem for the tickets with grabbing a single credit card that has a $120 annual fee! How so? As we usually mention in this post you can boost your Miles & More account with the Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card from American Express…

Here are the Rewards Canada Top 5 Credit Card Sign Up offers for the month of February! This is not a ‘best’ credit card list like our Top Travel Rewards Credit Card rankings but instead a look at cards that have very good acquisition (sign up) offers. As always when choosing a card you should always take other factors into account other than the sign up bonus, but when most or all of these cards are first year free, they can and do pay off even when you grab them strictly for sign up rewards. In fact all of the cards on this list for September are first year free so you can try them out at no cost and decide later on if the card is right for you. All the while earning the sign up bonus which can be used to subsidize your travels!No change this month once again for the top 5 sign up offers for February – even with the BMO changes announced on January 15th this list focuses on the strength of the sign up offers and not so much on the day to day earn or other elements. Its pretty much about getting in on the offer and then most likely getting out once you use up the rewards from that sign up bonus…

Congratulations to Steve B of Winnipeg who won the 2 Maple Leaf Lounge passes in our giveaway from last week! Club Carlson, the loyalty program for Carlson Rezidor Hotels (think Radisson, Country Inns & Suites) has announced their 2018 hotel category changes. Five hotels in Canada (well Alberta) are changing and the good news is they are all going down a category! Globally there are over 120 hotels changing (either going up or down) and you can view that list here. Primera Air, the low cost European air carrier is expanding their service between Toronto and London Stansted. Bookings must be strong as the initially announced 3x weekly service starting May 19, which still stands but then as of August 24th that will move up 5x weekly service. (Source RoutesOnline). The airline, like most low cost carriers, does not have their own frequent flyer program or participate in other airlines programs but is ideal to be used with Canadian credit card proprietary programs, you can learn about them here and how to use them for airline like this…

Feb. 7, 2018: The average credit card interest rate smashed another record this week, climbing to an all-time high of 16.41 percent, according to the CreditCards.com Weekly Credit Card Rate Report.