Use free card services to monitor your credit in wake of Equifax breach + MORE Oct 5th

WestJet has jumped into the gift card game! You can now purchase WestJet Gift Cards to give to your friends or family or use yourself for WestJet flights. The cards come in both Plastic Gift Cards and eGift Cards. You can learn more about and purchase the cards here. Start at $25 CAD up to $2,000 CAD per card Are purchased through a secured transaction Can be combined with a credit card when redeeming for a flight purchase Are redeemable on westJet.com or through travel agentsWe’ve added another new airline partner to our book travel page! You can now book Brussels Airlines via the page for their flights between Toronto and Brussels and beyond! Posts since our last update: Top 5 Credit Card Sign Up offers for October Here are the Rewards Canada Top 5 Credit Card Sign Up offers for the month of October! This is not…Hotel Review: The Ritz-Carlton Rancho Mirage A mid August stay in the Palm Springs area is not for everyone. I believe only one day of…Travel Deals Lufthansa has launched a Thanksgiving sale with flights departing from Canada to Europe from as low as $788…

For credit scoring purposes we remain single perpetually, but couples can boost each other’s credit by adding each other as authorized users to accounts in good standing

Canadians rattled by the massive Equifax data breach may turn to credit monitoring and anti-identify theft services for peace of mind, but in most cases they’ll be paying more for what is presently available for little or no cost, according to experts.
Consumers can already contact the two main credit bureaus, Equifax and TransUnion, by mail, fax or telephone to receive a physical copy of their credit report, or access it online, usually for a fee. The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada recommends requesting from one bureau, then waiting six months before ordering from the other.
READ: Equifax revises number of Canadians affected by hack
It also warns that fraudsters may offer free credit scores in an attempt to share your personal information —adding to the complexity of the existing web of credit monitoring services.
However, amid an increasing number of high-profile cyberattacks in recent years, Equifax, TransUnion and some Canadian banks and fintechs have introduced identity theft protection and credit monitoring services…

A mid August stay in the Palm Springs area is not for everyone. I believe only one day of our trip was below 40C and that day was 39. The highest we got on our trip was 47C. It’s because of these temps that the Palm Springs area has its low season during the summer and that means you can get hotels that normally run $500 or more per night during the winter season for much less than that. Such was the case with our trip to Palm Springs this past August where we averaged about $250 per night for a hotel that when I checked today for February stays is close to $600 per night. We’ve gone to the California desert a few times and on this trip we wanted to try somewhere new. After some searching we decided on The Ritz-Carlton Rancho Mirage  a relatively new hotel to the area that was built in 2014 and I ended up booking it for us via the Fine Hotels and Resorts benefit that comes with The Platinum Card from  American Express. The price via FHR was slightly higher than booking directly with Marriott/Ritz however when you take into account the FHR benefits of a $100 food and beverage credit plus daily breakfast for 2 which they simply deducted $70 from the hotel bill each time we ate on site and the rate ended up being cheaper than booking direct…

With recent data breaches at Equifax and elsewhere, card issuers offer options that can help guard against errors and fraud