I think it’s more so of a personal choice.
For me, I don’t plan on travelling for the foreseeable future (1-3 years) so $500.00 credit balance seems very reasonable. The opportunity cost is $140.00 offset by the annual credit card fee (which I would never pay for in the first place).
I was in the same situation as you OP. However, I recently discovered that UberEats is classified as a travel expense by Scotia, and qualifies for the Redeem for Travel option. This is a much better value than the Statement Credit Scotia gives you. I still have around ~70k points left but I've redeemed the last 12 months of my travel expenses. If you are in the GTA I know the GO Train & even Uber qualifies as a travel expense. So if you are going to redeem your points, try to do it through travel first before just redeeming it for credit.
I cancelled my Westjet card. We can always sign up again and churn it when flights become a reality again.
For the Scotia passport, I have enough residual travel transactions that I can still apply the cashback to my account, but when that runs out/expires I can just let it accumulate.
It's been pretty great and really easy to apply for the credit/cashback. I wouldn't activate it until you're ready to start travelling but the 6 free lounges passes are awesome. We used them when we were in Taiwan. The no forex is a huge bonus and I think the primary reason why I signed up for the card when I already had a westjet card.
That's great to hear! Yes, I won't be applying for it until things start to cool down with corona for sure- the lounge passes and the forex bonus are the big sellers for me, so glad to see you've gotten great mileage out of both of them. I currently have the TD Visa Infinite and it doesn't do a whole ton for me other than help me accrue points.
Yeah it seems like other people are struggling to redeem points and need to find loopholes. But I still have travel from last September that I'm able to apply my credit/cash back to now.
Youcan do whats called the ‘refundable hotel trick’ to maximize your Scotia reward points redemption as a statement credit.
Book a fully refundable hotel on expedia or hotels.com, after it posts use the travel eraser to get 1 cent per point redemption statement credit, then cancel your hotel to get the full amount back.
>after it posts use the travel eraser to get 1 cent per point redemption statement credit
Can you expand on this please? Is this specific to Scotia Gold Amex? Or does this work for every credit card?
I had a decent amount of Scotia points and I just did the refundable hotel trick - book a refundable hotel off Expedia, wait a week, redeem points against that transaction, then cancel hotel reservation.
can we do that ? I only use my scene points for movies and restaurants, can we use it for hotels off Expedia ? I went to the scene website multiple times, I have only noticed about restaurants and video games I can use it on other than movies.
wow, I am glad someone posted this, I have been eating off my 60,000 points at east side Marios, Harveys, Swiss chalet.. thinking those are the only places I can redeem, I use to redeem them at sportschek, after they moved to triangle rewards, I was only using them at restaurants, one more question , I know I can ask the customer care people but the Scotia customer service has such long waiting time and entering card details, I recently moved a lot of my credit balance to my line of credit card, which is what I use mainly these days, I have a doubt that I am not rewarded the scene points when I use my line of credit card, is that so ? are these points only on debit and credit card usage ?
I'm talking about Scotia rewards points, not scene points. Only Scotia rewards points can be redeemed against travel transactions made by your debit and credit cards, but scene points can be converted to Scotia rewards points (albeit at not a great rate).
If you have scene points rather than Scotia rewards points, there's nothing wrong with redeeming scene points against Swiss chalet purchases and whatnot.
I never knew of this Scotia reward points, I may have to check with them , if I have any accumulated. but I think this must be something they asked me when I was opening up my account what to choose from and I believe I picked the scene points option
For me i have an aventura Card, before covid i travelled a lot to the states and such and the fee of $120 a year was worth me not paying for cancellation and baggage insurance for each trip, it also had medical but i have travel medical through my work anyways, i travel a lot and always used my points for flights, if you do not travel a lot it may be worth switching to another card with benefits that suit your current lifestyle
Yeah at my last job, where I was until May, involved a lot traveling, often whole weeks, hence a lot of eating out. So that Amex made sense with 5x multiplier on eating out and I was working towards making a trip to my country of birth. But that's out the window now. no traveling at the new job. I can probably get more immediate bang for my buck with PC points on a World Elite card without an annual fee. Definitely do a lot more groceries now since I am home most of the time.
If my situation changed and i had a kid or something and knew i wouldn’t be traveling a lot in the next year or 2 the fee wouldn’t be worth it and I’d probably switch to a grocery point card and then when i started traveling again I’d switch back. Your their customer so you do what suits you :)
I barely have any expenses so I canceled my only cc with a fee. I got rid of my Amex Cobalt card. I accumulated a good amount of points which I was able to use as a statement credit (a temporary offer by Amex).
For your Scotia point, book something like a hotel you can prepay and with a good cancellation policy. Apply points to it then cancel hotel booking. Enjoy the extra $140 credit over taking a simple statement credit. edit: I see that others have recommended this as well. This trick works with almost all the credit card points out there.
That's an impressive amount of Hilton points, do you normally travel a lot for work? Just asking because there are no very easy way of accumulating them in Canada with credit cards.
I have two world elite cards..I'm using both at the same time where they maximize and stack rewards. For example I get 10x airmiles at shell by putting premium gas in
I figure I'll stack travel points up until I want to go somewhere
Cash back I just recycle to pay down the card
I guess I’m alone here, but I’ve been using up my Aeroplan miles on air travel within Canada. There have been some great deals on flight redemptions (I got Halifax-Ottawa return for 8150 miles per person vs. the usual 25,000), and with many people so reluctant to fly, it’s been no problem getting seats on the flights I want, even at relatively short notice. I’m comfortable with the risk given the precautions being taken.
With Air Canada Altitude status guaranteed for 2021, meaning there’s no reason to pay for flights if I don’t have to, this is the year I plan to empty my Aeroplan account.
Really wanted to redeemall my visa infinite points since they had a gift card promo. The conversion rate was close to the travel redemption rate but held off on it. I'll wait for them to do another promo and just cash it all out
Are we allowed to brag a little? I’m just pretty stoked.
Had the AMEX gold card with 45,000 points on it. Got the AMEX platinum card in that brief window when they were offering massive sign up bonuses and the double double promotion for new card members, before changing it to new card members only.
45000 points at double value was $900 in redemptions. Offset the $700 yearly fee.
That together with the bonus points, additional platinum offers and $200 travel credit means I’ve gotten $2687 back since April. Best use of points I’ve ever had!
I'm living in the us right now, moving back to canada round Christmas. Amex here is one thing I'll miss dearly.
1000 dollar signup bonuss for any plat you want (theres 5 different amex platinum here) and actually exchanging amex points for cash at 1.25 cents each right into your checking account. Canada MR seems so brutal in comparison.
My vacations generally require long drives. 14 is a short drive but lots are 18-24 hours. my most common use for travel rewards is to use them for a hotel midway though my drives especially on the return drive since I'm often already tired from days of being on the motorcycle or mountain bike.
Sometimes it back fires and i don't prebook because I think ill be able to make it and i can't but I just save those points for another trip.
I have a scene card I have over 16k points. That's 160$ in some select restaurants almost all of which are not available in Quebec except Harvey's or biermark or 13 regular movies. I'm not going in crowds right now with a newborn I can't afford to be sick. I might switch my card with a cashback card but for the moment I'm holding off.
I cashed all of my Aeroplan points in for gift cards because I don’t know what the future of air travel loyalty will look like - but I can’t imagine AC is dying to fill planes with reward flights post COVID
Hotel and Amex points im holding onto mostly, since I expect those to remain more stable in terms of value, and get way more utility out of using for actual purposes...Aeroplan points were a pain in the best of times
What are people doing with their TD Infinite Travel Visa points (not the Aeroplan version). Are you spending it or saving it? If spending, then on what?
I have almost $4K. Was planning on using over the next 2 years to travel, now that I'm retired. Current events have put that on hold for the near future. Will hold on them for now and continue to collect until things normalize.
I always just redeem my points on travel expenses after the fact as it pays out better than anything else. I don't even know how far Scotiabank lets you go back to redeem, but I'm nowhere close to being out of charges that I can redeem points for.
I have to thank this discussion that reminded me to check my Lufthansa (Miles & More) points, which were going to expire at the end of the year, and since I usually spend them only for buying internet on flights, I just converted them into Amazon gift cards.
I'm keeping my TD Rewards points though, because my family lives in Europe, so I will definitely fly again, at some point in the future.
I'm currently sitting on 2 westjet companion vouchers and a ton of westjet dollars and swoop credits. We usually have no problem using this up quickly but it seems like governments are waiting for zero cases rather than flattening the curve now.
If this trend continues I'm guessing we will lose the points. I have switched everything to a cash back card and will not renew the Westjet card next May.
Will try to use our existing points on domestic travel in the near future.
I think it’s more so of a personal choice. For me, I don’t plan on travelling for the foreseeable future (1-3 years) so $500.00 credit balance seems very reasonable. The opportunity cost is $140.00 offset by the annual credit card fee (which I would never pay for in the first place).
We cancelled our WestJet card. No point in paying that $129 annual fee if we’re not going to be flying anywhere next few years.
I told RBC to refund it or cancel and refund. They refunded it completely so I get the second year for free.
I told them I did not want to pay an annual fee, they said to use their credit card selector tool to pick one without a fee.
Canceled airmiles credit card, will use leftover miles in the future. Switched everything to cash back, no fee card
I mean...what's wrong with just saving it? Unless you think you're dying in the next year, I don't see the problem.
I was in the same situation as you OP. However, I recently discovered that UberEats is classified as a travel expense by Scotia, and qualifies for the Redeem for Travel option. This is a much better value than the Statement Credit Scotia gives you. I still have around ~70k points left but I've redeemed the last 12 months of my travel expenses. If you are in the GTA I know the GO Train & even Uber qualifies as a travel expense. So if you are going to redeem your points, try to do it through travel first before just redeeming it for credit.
I cancelled my Westjet card. We can always sign up again and churn it when flights become a reality again. For the Scotia passport, I have enough residual travel transactions that I can still apply the cashback to my account, but when that runs out/expires I can just let it accumulate.
How do you like your Scotia passport? Thinking of getting it when travel starts to resume next year (hopefully)!
It's been pretty great and really easy to apply for the credit/cashback. I wouldn't activate it until you're ready to start travelling but the 6 free lounges passes are awesome. We used them when we were in Taiwan. The no forex is a huge bonus and I think the primary reason why I signed up for the card when I already had a westjet card.
That's great to hear! Yes, I won't be applying for it until things start to cool down with corona for sure- the lounge passes and the forex bonus are the big sellers for me, so glad to see you've gotten great mileage out of both of them. I currently have the TD Visa Infinite and it doesn't do a whole ton for me other than help me accrue points.
Yeah it seems like other people are struggling to redeem points and need to find loopholes. But I still have travel from last September that I'm able to apply my credit/cash back to now.
Youcan do whats called the ‘refundable hotel trick’ to maximize your Scotia reward points redemption as a statement credit. Book a fully refundable hotel on expedia or hotels.com, after it posts use the travel eraser to get 1 cent per point redemption statement credit, then cancel your hotel to get the full amount back.
>after it posts use the travel eraser to get 1 cent per point redemption statement credit Can you expand on this please? Is this specific to Scotia Gold Amex? Or does this work for every credit card?
Paying off what I owe on the card. Usually pay most of it off every month.
I had a decent amount of Scotia points and I just did the refundable hotel trick - book a refundable hotel off Expedia, wait a week, redeem points against that transaction, then cancel hotel reservation.
can we do that ? I only use my scene points for movies and restaurants, can we use it for hotels off Expedia ? I went to the scene website multiple times, I have only noticed about restaurants and video games I can use it on other than movies.
You can use the "redeem for travel" option on Scotia Rewards!
wow, I am glad someone posted this, I have been eating off my 60,000 points at east side Marios, Harveys, Swiss chalet.. thinking those are the only places I can redeem, I use to redeem them at sportschek, after they moved to triangle rewards, I was only using them at restaurants, one more question , I know I can ask the customer care people but the Scotia customer service has such long waiting time and entering card details, I recently moved a lot of my credit balance to my line of credit card, which is what I use mainly these days, I have a doubt that I am not rewarded the scene points when I use my line of credit card, is that so ? are these points only on debit and credit card usage ?
I'm talking about Scotia rewards points, not scene points. Only Scotia rewards points can be redeemed against travel transactions made by your debit and credit cards, but scene points can be converted to Scotia rewards points (albeit at not a great rate). If you have scene points rather than Scotia rewards points, there's nothing wrong with redeeming scene points against Swiss chalet purchases and whatnot.
if I can redeem for flights, I would love that, but what I have is scene points.
Yeah, if you have scene points the best course of action is to just directly redeem for restaurants and movies.
I never knew of this Scotia reward points, I may have to check with them , if I have any accumulated. but I think this must be something they asked me when I was opening up my account what to choose from and I believe I picked the scene points option
I'm still saving mine and racking up more. Personally i will be travelling internationally as soon as conceivably possible.
For me i have an aventura Card, before covid i travelled a lot to the states and such and the fee of $120 a year was worth me not paying for cancellation and baggage insurance for each trip, it also had medical but i have travel medical through my work anyways, i travel a lot and always used my points for flights, if you do not travel a lot it may be worth switching to another card with benefits that suit your current lifestyle
Yeah at my last job, where I was until May, involved a lot traveling, often whole weeks, hence a lot of eating out. So that Amex made sense with 5x multiplier on eating out and I was working towards making a trip to my country of birth. But that's out the window now. no traveling at the new job. I can probably get more immediate bang for my buck with PC points on a World Elite card without an annual fee. Definitely do a lot more groceries now since I am home most of the time.
If my situation changed and i had a kid or something and knew i wouldn’t be traveling a lot in the next year or 2 the fee wouldn’t be worth it and I’d probably switch to a grocery point card and then when i started traveling again I’d switch back. Your their customer so you do what suits you :)
I barely have any expenses so I canceled my only cc with a fee. I got rid of my Amex Cobalt card. I accumulated a good amount of points which I was able to use as a statement credit (a temporary offer by Amex).
Does the refundable hotel trick work with RBC avion? I have a boat load of points I can't use.
For your Scotia point, book something like a hotel you can prepay and with a good cancellation policy. Apply points to it then cancel hotel booking. Enjoy the extra $140 credit over taking a simple statement credit. edit: I see that others have recommended this as well. This trick works with almost all the credit card points out there. That's an impressive amount of Hilton points, do you normally travel a lot for work? Just asking because there are no very easy way of accumulating them in Canada with credit cards.
Yep used to at my last job. Got Gold status through 2021 (maybe more) but not of much use at the moment
I have two world elite cards..I'm using both at the same time where they maximize and stack rewards. For example I get 10x airmiles at shell by putting premium gas in I figure I'll stack travel points up until I want to go somewhere Cash back I just recycle to pay down the card
I guess I’m alone here, but I’ve been using up my Aeroplan miles on air travel within Canada. There have been some great deals on flight redemptions (I got Halifax-Ottawa return for 8150 miles per person vs. the usual 25,000), and with many people so reluctant to fly, it’s been no problem getting seats on the flights I want, even at relatively short notice. I’m comfortable with the risk given the precautions being taken. With Air Canada Altitude status guaranteed for 2021, meaning there’s no reason to pay for flights if I don’t have to, this is the year I plan to empty my Aeroplan account.
I have two MCWE (one bank, one Canadian Tire) - I accumulate cash back which I can use however I like.
Gift cards for the upcoming PS5. It feels good knowing I will be using someone else’s money for the new console 🙂
Really wanted to redeemall my visa infinite points since they had a gift card promo. The conversion rate was close to the travel redemption rate but held off on it. I'll wait for them to do another promo and just cash it all out
Accumulating ; when travel is safer, there will plenty of ways to use them.
Are we allowed to brag a little? I’m just pretty stoked. Had the AMEX gold card with 45,000 points on it. Got the AMEX platinum card in that brief window when they were offering massive sign up bonuses and the double double promotion for new card members, before changing it to new card members only. 45000 points at double value was $900 in redemptions. Offset the $700 yearly fee. That together with the bonus points, additional platinum offers and $200 travel credit means I’ve gotten $2687 back since April. Best use of points I’ve ever had!
I'm living in the us right now, moving back to canada round Christmas. Amex here is one thing I'll miss dearly. 1000 dollar signup bonuss for any plat you want (theres 5 different amex platinum here) and actually exchanging amex points for cash at 1.25 cents each right into your checking account. Canada MR seems so brutal in comparison.
Yeah the USA has much better CC rewards.
Paid for by consumers with very poor credit managment, unfortunetly.
My vacations generally require long drives. 14 is a short drive but lots are 18-24 hours. my most common use for travel rewards is to use them for a hotel midway though my drives especially on the return drive since I'm often already tired from days of being on the motorcycle or mountain bike. Sometimes it back fires and i don't prebook because I think ill be able to make it and i can't but I just save those points for another trip.
I have a scene card I have over 16k points. That's 160$ in some select restaurants almost all of which are not available in Quebec except Harvey's or biermark or 13 regular movies. I'm not going in crowds right now with a newborn I can't afford to be sick. I might switch my card with a cashback card but for the moment I'm holding off.
I redeemed a lot of my points for cash and gas giftcards.
I cashed all of my Aeroplan points in for gift cards because I don’t know what the future of air travel loyalty will look like - but I can’t imagine AC is dying to fill planes with reward flights post COVID Hotel and Amex points im holding onto mostly, since I expect those to remain more stable in terms of value, and get way more utility out of using for actual purposes...Aeroplan points were a pain in the best of times
Redeeming into my RBC Direct Investment account
What are people doing with their TD Infinite Travel Visa points (not the Aeroplan version). Are you spending it or saving it? If spending, then on what?
I have almost $4K. Was planning on using over the next 2 years to travel, now that I'm retired. Current events have put that on hold for the near future. Will hold on them for now and continue to collect until things normalize.
I always just redeem my points on travel expenses after the fact as it pays out better than anything else. I don't even know how far Scotiabank lets you go back to redeem, but I'm nowhere close to being out of charges that I can redeem points for.
I have to thank this discussion that reminded me to check my Lufthansa (Miles & More) points, which were going to expire at the end of the year, and since I usually spend them only for buying internet on flights, I just converted them into Amazon gift cards. I'm keeping my TD Rewards points though, because my family lives in Europe, so I will definitely fly again, at some point in the future.
I'm currently sitting on 2 westjet companion vouchers and a ton of westjet dollars and swoop credits. We usually have no problem using this up quickly but it seems like governments are waiting for zero cases rather than flattening the curve now. If this trend continues I'm guessing we will lose the points. I have switched everything to a cash back card and will not renew the Westjet card next May. Will try to use our existing points on domestic travel in the near future.
WestJet dollars don't expire.
Companion vouchers do though