20% bonus petro-points when linking bcaa membership

despite having lost sears as a transfer partner, i still really like the petro-points program because of what it can mean in terms of cathay pacific's asia miles. remember that 10 petro-points = 1 asia mile. also remember that for general in-store spending (including gift cards), you get 20 petro-points per dollar spent.

during my hiatus, they teamed up with the british columbia automobile association (bcaa, affiliated with caa/aaa). if you login to your petro-points account and enter your bcaa number, you will get 20% more petro-points. so whereas buying a $50 starbucks card would previously earn 1000 petro-points (or 100 asia miles), it will now earn 1200 petro-points (or 120 asia miles).

 

it's nothing huge, but every little bit counts. and it would be a shame to not be earning these extra points if one were a bcaa member anyway.

free 100 aeroplan points

in my inbox on july 21, aeroplan is soon to be launching a new text message service. like with the airmiles program, if you provide your mobile phone number, they will text you various offers from their sponsors. with the airmiles program, i've seen texts giving out 25 free airmiles for simply visiting a marlin travel agency, for example.

if you sign up before september 15, 2014, you will get 100 aeroplan points for free and an entry to win 50,000 aeroplan points. simply text your aeroplan number to 27767 and confirm. data/text fees may apply.

this is an excellent way to keep your aeroplan account active if you're struggling to meet the one-transaction-per-year rule.

asiana club's mileage redemptions aren't too bad

i use asiana's asiana club as my star alliance frequent flyer program of choice. i do this because it makes star gold status easily attainable at 40,000 miles over two years. most frequent flyer programs offer star gold status at 50,000 miles per year. the downside is that the benefits pretty much stop at star gold status. but if the alternative is star silver, or worse, nothing, then i'd rather take this.

it's often said that the cost of award redemption on asiana is quite high. it's harder to earn miles on (i.e., lack of generous bonus miles for top tier members compared to the american based programs), and the redemption options themselves are quite pricey.

they used to have a distance based award chart for star alliance partners, but this has now changed to zones as of june 5, 2014. i was browsing through the potential options and found that some are actually quite good for a north american traveler.

• trips to hawaii cost 35,000 in economy and just 55,000 in business (compared to 45,000 and 80,000 on air canada, respectively).
• trips to northeast asia and southeast asia in business class are 120,000 and 135,000 miles, respectively (compared to 150,000 and 155,000 miles on air canada, respectively)
• trips to europe are 50,000 and 80,000 in economy and business class, respectively (compared to 60,000-75,000 and 90,000-105,000 miles on air canada, respectively)

on top of these slight savings, there are incredible opportunities for stopovers with asiana. the rules, as per their website, state that you may have up to 8 segments in your entire itinerary (e.g., YVR-SIN via LAX and HKG count as 4 segments). you are also allowed to have up to 7 stopovers greater than 24 hours. the old rules stated that you could only have one stopover per country, which greatly limited the utility of the stopover rule. however, that rule appears to have disappeared.

other benefits include 50% miles for one-way trips, and, as of june 5, 2014, the ability to book some reward flights online.

it makes me feel better that the miles that i've accumulated for the sake of star alliance status aren't going to be of a poor value after all!

and back from a hiatus: no longer a pivot visa user, changes to the sears mastercard

i'm back from a hiatus. this was the royal college exam year for me, and so who knew that it would take this much effort to pass an exam? but it's over and done now, with only good results. as of this summer, i'll be my own independent physician in practice.

there are a few things that i noticed in the last couple of months (among many). but some of the unique propositions that i've written about have changed for me.

1) pivot visa by petro canada is now too hard to use
i've had to stop using this because of the inability to buy reloadable cards. i've tried to use my scotia bank gold american express (4% cash back at gas stations), and invariably, the attendants would turn me down. common reasons were: "oh, our machine is broken today" (some people might push the issue, but i don't), "oh, let me call our authorization centre ... oh, we are still on hold ...", and probably the most truthful, "we don't accept credit cards for those kinds of purchases." i respect that.

but because i can't reload the card anymore using the american express, there is no longer any value in keeping the reloadable visa card. i've paid $10 to buy the card and $59.95 for the annual option, but luckily, i was able to more than break even.

2) sears and petro-canada are no longer partners
i logged into my petro-points account recently and found out that sears points and petro-points are no longer transferable.

it kind of makes sense given sears' difficulty in canada. i don't normally care for sears points except that i have their sears financial no-forex, no-fee mastercard. it was an amazing opportunity where $1 spent on the card earned 12 petro-canada points, which could then be turned into 1.2 asia miles. i have yet to find a card that is this generous. but sadly, it's no longer an option. had i known, i would have transferred my points out before the deadline, but i missed the announcement. if there was an announcement.

given the difficulty in redeeming sears points in store (namely because the stores are disappearing quickly), i think the best recommendation for no-forex, no-fee cards is now the chase amazon 1% cash back card. the original discussion was here, but is now in need of an update.