Travel in Canada Grows Due to Weak Loonie + MORE Mar 8th

NEW YORK, N.Y. – In the American imagination, suburbs are places to buy a house and put down roots. But a growing percentage of suburbanites rent, according to a new study.
About 29 per cent of metropolitan-area suburbanites were renters in 2014, up from 23 per cent in 2006, according to a report being released Tuesday by New York University’s Furman Center real estate think-tank and the bank Capital One.
The finances of home ownership since the mortgage meltdown might be a lead reason for the change, but the cost of renting also is rising in most of the biggest metropolitan areas, the study found.
Adding to data showing a national rise in renters in the past decade, the report zooms in on the metropolitan areas encompassing the nation’s 11 most populous cities: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washington. For a national benchmark, the researchers also looked at all metropolitan areas encompassing a city of at least 50,000 people…

The low loonie hasn’t stopped Canadians from taking a well-deserved vacation – but we’ll be staying within the border to do so. A recent survey by Expedia finds many travellers are planning holidays on home soil to avoid hefty exchange rates, while others are taking shorter trips or forgoing a trip altogether. This is in addition to another survey from PC Financial which finds 59 per cent of would-be travellers say the weak dollar has impacted their travel plans, and that 63 per cent are considering a “staycation” this year to save money.
Tip: Offset your trip costs with big travel bonuses. Check out the best travel rewards credit cards in Canada>
Dealing with Slashed Spending Power
The loonie’s drop means the same holiday you took to the U.S. last year will now cost you about 30 per cent more. Prices may have remained the same in the destination you want to travel to, but you’ll need to spend more to get the same goods and services. According to Expedia, the top destinations booked on on the site between January and December 2015 were Toronto, Vancouver, Las Vegas, Calgary and Montreal…

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Thursday’s state dinner in Washington will allow Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Barack Obama to make a strong statement linking the environment and the economy, Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion says.
The economic downturn in Europe, Japan and China, as well as in the BRIC countries of Russia and Brazil, makes it imperative that Canada and the United States affirm their economic relationship in tandem with tackling climate change, Dion told The Canadian Press on Monday evening.
“There is a way to bring the economy and the environment together that both of them have identified as a priority,” Dion said in an interview.
“The exact way they will do it: you will discover it,” the minister added, saying that it’s “not a coincidence” that Environment Minister Catherine McKenna will be part of Trudeau’s official delegation at the White House on Thursday…

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Thursday’s state dinner in Washington will allow Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Barack Obama to make a strong statement linking the environment and the economy, Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion says.
The economic downturn in Europe, Japan and China, as well as in the BRIC countries of Russia and Brazil, makes it imperative that Canada and the United States affirm their economic relationship in tandem with tackling climate change, Dion told The Canadian Press on Monday evening.
“There is a way to bring the economy and the environment together that both of them have identified as a priority,” Dion said in an interview.
“The exact way they will do it: you will discover it,” the minister added, saying that it’s “not a coincidence” that Environment Minister Catherine McKenna will be part of Trudeau’s official delegation at the White House on Thursday…

Welcome to the next post in the Earning Stories series right here on Rewards Canada. For years we have provided you with the details on earning points and miles (both regular earning and bonus opportunities) and these stories show the actual offers in action. This earning story is for a rental we completed for our family and friends in Maui this past February. We rented a 7/8 passenger SUV for 10 days to get us around the beautiful island. I booked it using this promotion we had listed on Rewards Canada’s Aeroplan Bonus Miles page:There is another similar offer on our page that offered 2,500 bonus miles on a rental of 5+ days that we added to the site after I had already booked the SUV and when I tried to re-book with this new offer no 7-8 pax SUVs were available. The rate we originally paid was as good or better than the no bonus mile rates and I was also surprised to see that Hertz was cheaper than most other car rental companies for this type of vehicle which made booking this offer a no brainer! On top of that we were supposed to put into a Ford Explorer or similar vehicle but we got upgraded for free to an Infiniti QX80 with all the bells and whistles! The booking was simple via Hertz and I also provided my Hertz Gold Plus Rewards number so that we could use the typically shorter line for members at the OGG car rental counter…