The end of the year is approaching and we wanted to give you one last reminder of year-end tasks for travel rewards enthusiasts. While many travel benefits are linked to the date you get a card for example, there are some deadlines that are tied to the calendar year.
Here are 3 tasks to complete before the end of 2021.
1. January webinar
Not a really urgent task, but we’ve got a ton of more advanced-level content planned for 2022 that will give you a lot of value and help take you to the upper stage of your travel rewards journey.
In the meantime, we want as many people as possible to understand the basics before then.
So we’re going to do another free travel rewards webinar in January. The date is not yet set, but you can reserve your spot right away, as we limit them to be able to answer everyone’s questions live.
2. Offers and promos
This is more of a regular task, either at the end of every month — or even a little less regularly.
It’s obviously not as rewarding as the hundreds of dollars you should get regularly from welcome bonuses, but the various promos and offers can help you earn more rewards.
For example, there are:
Most importantly, there are several Amex Offers that expire tonight for many American Express cardholders, we did an article about that yesterday.
We’ll be covering all of these different types of promos more regularly throughout 2022 with the new member of our rewards content team, stay tuned (and please refer any travel rewards enthusiast you might know to our job posting for another rewards writer).
3. Elite status
The elite status programs that reward the most loyal travelers are mostly calendar-year based, so if this applies to you, there are a few things to check.
This is the case for the 2 most popular rewards programs in Canada:
- Marriott Bonvoy for hotels (easy to get elite status)
- Air Canada Aeroplan for flights (more expensive to get elite status)
Marriott Bonvoy
For Marriott, if you have the Marriott Bonvoy American Express Card that absolutely all travelers should have, you have Silver Elite status as a benefit of the card.
It renews automatically, so you don’t have to do anything per se (unless you’ve achieved Platinum Elite status through the shortcut offered in 2021 — in which case, you have to choose your annual benefits by January 7, 2022).
But if you’re lucky enough to have a travel companion who has obviously got their own Marriott Bonvoy American Express Card, maybe there are points left in their account. Every calendar year, you can pool 100,000 points into another account for free.
So, since it’s really convenient to have everything in the same account, especially if you want to reach the higher elite statuses, you have to do the pooling before the end of the year.
Unfortunately, to do the point pooling, you have to call Marriott Bonvoy on the phone like it’s 2003.
Air Canada Aeroplan
If you are lucky enough to have flights paid for by your employer (or unfortunate enough to pay way too much money for your flights), you may have elite status with Air Canada Aeroplan.
If so, your eUpgrades expire on January 15th 2022, but if you have the American Express Aeroplan Reserve Card you have 50 eUpgrades that will automatically rollover to 2022, it’s one of the many card benefits.
You may also have lounges passes that expire on December 31 as I do (email us your info if you are flying Star Alliance today), but there is no way to rollover these passes unfortunately. We’ll have much more info about the cards with free lounge access very soon.
And our ultimate guide to Aeroplan is one of the first content pieces coming in 2022, as it is the can’t miss rewards program for Canadian travelers.
Want to get more content to learn how to earn free travel?
Summary
Here’s a reminder of some of the travel rewards tasks that need to be completed before the end of 2021. We’re going to have a lot more content in 2022 for those who want to earn a lot of free travel!
What would you like to know about these tasks? Tell us in the comments below.
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Featured image: Room at the AC Hotel Veracruz (photo credit: Marriott)
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Can you pool nights too to gain elite status quicker or only the points can be transfered from one account to the other? Thanks’
Hi, only the points unfortunately.
Hey! My husband has a mariott bonvoy card with me as an additional cardholder, can I still apply for a card with me as a primary cardholder and then pool the points?
Yes absolutely, that’s what you should definitely do to get the welcome bonus twice 😉