The Platinum Card from American Express just became more valuable for your future travels + MORE Apr 16th

 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 new Amex Offers promotion came out yesterday and personally we received this one on the American Express Cobalt Card and it is one we have seen before for other cards and that is bonus points for mobile service providers. Time to swith the payment method for our mobile phones for the next three months! Let us know if you happened to receive it as well but on a different Amex card! The offer is as follows:Earn 4 bonus Membership Rewards® points for every dollar in qualifying purchases using your registered Card at eligible mobile service providers in Canada between 15/04/2021 and 15/07/2021. Limit 1,500 bonus points. You can find this offer and other Amex offers in our Guide to American Express Canada ‘Amex Offers’ — Not sure if many of you will want to take advantage of these new offers but perhaps essential travel may be in the cards as there are a couple more stay bonuses for Marriott Hotels here in Canada…

As American Express ads from the 1970s onward suggest, it’s the card many of us don’t leave home without, and with good reason—many reasons, in fact. Amex offers some of the highest-earning and most-perk-filled credit cards around, regularly landing it on the annual rankings of the best credit cards in Canada. As well, it’s the only credit-card company that issues its own cards, rather than going through a bank. And while Amex isn’t accepted as widely as Visa and Mastercard, it is taken at virtually all major retail and food chains, particularly in major Canadian cities. Which card is right for you? Here, we break down the top five American Express credit cards by category to help you decide.
The best American Express credit cards in Canada

Card
Rewards / Features
Annual fee

American Express Cobalt
(get more details)*

5 pts/$1 on groceries & dining
2 pts/$1 on travel, gas & transit
1 pt/$1 on everything else
1 pt = 1% / up to 1.75% in travel rewards

$120

SimplyCash Preferred
(get more details)*

2% cash back on all purchases

$99

SimplyCash
(get more details)*

1…

If you didn’t see the news from earlier this week about Plaza Premium lounges leaving the Priority Pass and LoungeKey lounge access networks. I recommend that you read that first (read it here) and then continue on with this post to see how this move just boosted the value of the Platinum Card from American Express. Plaza Premium is a Hong Kong based provider that has a significant presence in Canada with 13 lounges and should all of those lounges here leave the above noted programs, it will be a major loss. If this does end up being the case it only leaves eight lounges that Priority Pass and LoungeKey members can access for free or at a discounted rate. We should know over the next few months which lounges will stay and which will leave those programs as the date set for them to leave is July 1. For most Canadians their Priority Pass membership and access comes from credit cards that offer it as a benefit and for LoungeKey that access is strictly a World and World Elite Mastercard benefit so all those cardholders are affected…

 There is only one no annual fee hotel credit card in Canada and that is the MBNA Best Western Mastercard®. This card has been around for quite sometime now and has survived the turmoil seen in our market for hotel loyalty program co-brand credit cards. Just a few years ago we had no less than half a dozen hotel card to choose from but that has now dwindled down to two – well actually three if you include the business version of the Marriott Bonvoy American Express card. Both the Best Western and Marriott cards have definitely fit a niche in the Canadian market which have helped them outlast all the other hotel cards we seen come and go and the Best Western fills that no annual fee, road warrior, not looking for luxury travel niche perfectly. In fact this card has ranked in the top three in our annual rankings in the no annual fee travel rewards card segment so there is something to attest to here. OverviewThe MBNA Best Western Mastercard is the only publicly available credit card in Canada that you can earn Best Western Rewards points with…

Nothing may be more important than automation when it comes to reaching your savings goals. No matter how hard they try, most people cannot save consistently if doing so requires a manual process. Moka is a revolutionary app, the first of its kind in Canada when it originally launched as Mylo, that not only automates your savings, it does so in such a way that you’ll hardly even notice.
Like Acorns in the U.S., Moka links to your primary debit and/or credit card and rounds up all of your purchases to the next dollar. It then withdraws the ‘spare change’ and invests it inside a low-cost ETF portfolio you set up when you open the account.
What makes Moka especially unique is that it’s designed with your specific savings goals in mind. As I’ll explain in more detail later, Moka wants to know what you’re saving for, and they’ll help you create a plan to make it happen. I found the concept so unique that I thought I’d test it out myself by opening my own account.
Update: MOGO Acquires Moka Financial 
In March of 2021, MOGO, the digital payments and fintech company, announced that it would acquire 100% of Moka Financial Technologies for $64 million…