Get 3000 Club Carlson Points For Almost Free!

Club Carlson, the hotel chain that includes the Radisson hotels, the Park Plaza, and Country Inn & Suites (honestly, I've never stayed in any of these properties before but diversifying is what it's all about, especially when the points are this easy to get).
They have a promotion right now whereby if you complete your first transaction with any of their "Extras Partners," they'll give you 300 Club Carlson points.  3000 points gets you one-third of the way towards a category 1 stay.
This includes EBay Buy It Now purchases--so you buy something cheap for 99 cents, such as watch batteries from somewhere in Asia for example, and you'll qualify for the 3K points.  The points get desposited 36 days after your purchase.
You'll need to download the Club Carlson App on your Android or Iphone, register and then use their app to go to EBay (for example) to complete an inexpensive purchase.
It's that easy!

How To Get 1500 IHG Points For Free

Not a member of IHG (Intercontinental Hotels Group)?  That's the hotel chain that includes the Intercontinental, Crowne Plaza, Indigo, and Holiday Inn.
On previous posts, I rave about the IHG Point Breaks that come out every 3 months (next one is coming VERY soon), and with it you can stay at an IHG property for only 5K IHG points, which translates to around $30USD per night if you buy points through a back door in their online system.
BUT you must have IHG points before you can buy them.
So here's how you do it.
IHG is trying to get you to sign up with them (if you haven't already) and are willing to give you 500 Iberia Avios points (Spanish airline affiliated without British Airways Avios) if you already have an Iberia account.  That doesn't get you much, but if you decline, there's a loophole in their terms and conditions.
Sign up for an IHG account and decline giving your Iberia info when you register, and you'll still get 1500 IHG points!  So theoretically, if you register here and join IHG but decline to make Avios your "preferred alliance," and you sign up before December 31st, you'll have 1500 IHG points!

Air Canada AND Westjet Seat Sale

Air Canada has a seat sale ending tomorrow evening (October 25) while Westjet's sale ends Thursday evening.
Book before it's too late! 
Westjet's blackout dates apply to flights within the Canada and the US but not to Europe, Mexico or the Caribbean.  The blackout dates are: December 20-24, 26-31, 2017 and January 1-7, 2018.
Air Canada's seat sale doesn't seem to have blackout dates, but tickets during typical blacked out periods are high.
You can fly out of YYZ to NYC on Westjet for as little as $183 out and $82 back, while with Air Canada, you're looking at $151 out and $103 back.
You may want to split up your flight, one way with AC out and Westjet back, depending of course on whether you have luggage to check in and have status with one, the other or both, and of course, availability at cheap rates when you're flying out.

'Til 8pm, get 2000 Marriott Points For Free!

Link your Marriott account to other social media and get bonus points for it!
All week different opportunities have arisen but here's the newest!
Link your Twitter to Marriott and get 250 Marriott points by clicking here.  Use the same link to connect to Instagram for another 250 and another 250 to Facebook!
If you
Link here by 8pmEDT to get another 1000 Marriott points!

Rocketmiles--How To Get 1K Airline Points Free AND Thousands MORE Free Airline Points!

Rocketmiles is a website that allows you to book hotels and acquire airline points through doing so.  There are about 59 airline point systems, as well as Amazon gift cards and Uber points--you can choose to have your points go to any of the airlines through Rocketmiles.
Sign up using your email address, pick your dates and location, see how many points you can get for any one property, and make your booking.  After your stay is complete, you'll earn the points!
Use this link to get started and get a free 1K points for your choice of airline miles after your first stay is complete!

Sunwing 50% Off Second Seat Sale--Is It Worth It?

Since last week (and for THREE more days--ends October 20th), Sunwing has been having a sale--buy one flight only ticket with Sunwing and get the second base fare at 50% off.  Click here to go to the Sunwing page.
It's not a bad deal in fact, especially if you're looking to book a vacation during peak times and haven't done so yet.
Only problem is they're a charter, only fly out once a day, and depending on the route, may only fly out a few times a week at most.  That means, if they end up cancelling a flight, they won't rebook you until the next time they fly and you're stuck wherever the cancelled flight occurred.  If you have a deadline and must be somewhere, I'd never fly a charter airline.
Unlike a regular airline, charter airliners like Air Transat and Sunwing in Canada, and Spirit and Frontier in the US will not do what needs to be done to get you to your destination in good time--regular airlines will either get you out on the next flight with that airline or will fly you out with a competitor to get you to where you're going.
So if you have flexibility in your schedule, you may want to take your chances; otherwise stay away from charter airlines!!

Toronto to Lima For As Low as $380 CDN Taxes In!

Flying from Toronto to Lima has never been cheaper (perhaps)!  Depending on how flexible you are, you can get tickets on select dates from October to March from $380 taxes in!  You need to fly Delta and make two stops along the journey though, but if that's "too much" for you, Aeromexico has flight for around $476, and Air Canada for $544!

Here's a link for flights from February 27-March 8th on a Google Flight search.  Click on the date to have a monthly calendar open that gives you the prices daily for departure and return.

THREE HOURS LEFT To Acquire The Highest Welcome Bonus PLUS A 30% Bonus Transfer to United Miles, Free Week Stay At A Marriott!

THIS IS AN UPDATED VERSION AS OF JUST BEFORE 9PM, WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 18TH.

United Airlines is offering a 30% bonus (up to 25K bonus United miles) for transferring points from most hotel point programs to theirs until November 30th!  Choice Privilege points (eww) and Club Carlson are at a different rate, but SPG (Starwood Preferred Guests) transfers to United will give you the best rate I've ever seen.

You can apply for the 25K SPG Welcome bonus for either the AMEX SPG personal card or SPG Business card by clicking on the pics above.  Spend $1500 in 3 months and earn a welcome bonus of 25K points--the deal ends in THREE days (October 18th)!

United Airline points are a very valuable commodity as United doesn't charge fuel surcharges, so you can get intercontinental flights, such as Toronto to Tel-Aviv on Air Canada, using United miles without paying fuel surcharges, saving you around $750 per ticket (I've seen a surcharge as high as $775 for that destination).

If you can accumulate as much as 90K SPG points before November 30th, you can call the Marriott Miles & Nights program at 1-800-321-7396 and transfer them into 270K Marriott miles and then from that they can turn them into 157K United Miles (up to 30% bonus up to 25K United miles --regularly you'd get 132K United miles) and a category 1-5, 7 night stay certificate at a Marriott good for 1 year from issue.  You can extend it once for one more year.  That means you are saving 150K Marriott (50K SPG) miles if you would use the certificate at a category 5 hotel.  This includes Residence Inns and TownePlace Suites with full kitchens as well as any of the other Marriott properties around the world.  We still don't know if and when Marriott will allow their certificates to be used interchangeably with SPGs, at least up to a certain category number.  As SPG points are triple in value to Marriott and can be exchanged easily at no cost after merging your Marriott and SPG account online.  Some agents at Marriott will allow you to turn the certificate into 45K Marriott (15K SPG) but that's only if you get the right agent, REALLY don't think you'll use the certificate, and book a hotel with it and then cancel--then they may agree to it.

Even if you don't have 90K SPG, perhaps you could...since you can also combine your SPG points with a spouse or whoever shares the same address as you). If all you and a fellow address sharer have Marriott points and you first switch them to SPG, then you can combine them in that way.

You can also switch SPG to United at a 30% bonus without getting a certificate at smaller amounts than that.  Call them and tell them how many you'd like to transfer, but the magic number of 90K SPG points are what get you the certificate bonus!

Is The New AMEX Cobalt Worth It?

The New AMEX Cobalt credit card is a unique card.  It charges a MONTHLY fee of $10 instead of an annual fee, a first in the industry.
It's currently offering up to 40K Membership Reward (MR) points.  Spend $1500 in the first three months and receive 10K points.  They expect you to spend $500 a month to receive a bonus of 2500 MR points each month for the first year.  It offers more 5 points per dollar for restaurant, bars, and cafe transactions, double points on travel and transit, and 1 point for all other transactions.
If you are interested in a card that is uniform, in giving the same reward, no matter what the transaction, this card is complex and not the card for you.  To think, you need to watch your spending every month for a full year to get the full welcome bonus?
I'm not a fan of this new product.  It's hard enough to find merchants that accept AMEX, much less be watching your spending so carefully...
IF you are looking for the two best points systems AND best welcome bonuses around, see my next post by clicking here.