Today we feature Michael, who is an economics major with a passion for finance management and helping you find your way through the intricate modern financial system. He also enjoys travelling and pursuing amateur photography in free time.
The longer this pandemic (COVID-19) drags on, the more some people may be wondering whether they should take a pause with earning airline miles or hotel points. So what’s the alternative? Cash Back?
If you are thinking about constructing a cash back portfolio, there are some options to work with in Canada. I am going to provide a general strategy.
Right off the bat, so that the title is not misleading… not in Canada. But this news was reported by a Canadian networt. A news report by CTV a few days ago went over my head about the governments using hotels to quarantine COVID-19 infected people to ease hospitals.
Chicago uses hotels for quarantine to ease hospital demand
Some Places Around the World
Pointshogger reader, Danielle Lauzon, from Fintel Connect, sent us a very relevant question: “Is this the time for a new credit card?” We will respond to this with a short and long answer below. Thank you for taking the time to reach out to us Danielle!
Question
Is it the time for a new credit card?
Short Answer: No
Let’s get the elephant out of the room first, NO, it is not the time to get a new credit card if you cannot pay your balance in full.
Hey Everyone,
I hope that everyone is safe at home. We are writing this post in a letter format hoping that it feels a little more personable.
With the travel industry coming to a virtual halt and daily spending needed to be cut down, we want to put together a suggestion box. We would like to know what topics you would like to read about during this COVID-19 crisis. I think that we already covered what strategies to take during this time with the following posts:
We created a tab on the menu bar for the most recent COVID-19 updates on as many relevant loyalty programs that affect Canadians.
Since the page will be continually updated, you may not see a snap shot of the information at a specific point in time. Every now and then I may post the snap shot of that day in the regular blog posts. The reason I do this is to give everyone a comment platform to help us update the list as much as possible. The hope is to have a one stop shop for all relevant programs that affect your situation with quick hyperlink access. The links provided below are direct to the COVID page on each respective website.
This is a significant revamp from my last update which was more focused on when to call into the loyalty companies. This post is focused more on the cancellation policies.
There are probably a lot of topics that I will be introducing in this post that probably merit a more full blown post. If there is something that you would like me to elaborate on, please let us know in the comment section below.
Depending on which country you live in, seems like this COVID-19 lockdown may drag on longer than we might hope. So in the meantime, does it even more any sense to keep earning frequent flyer miles and hotels points? Should we really just switch to a more predictable cash back rewards option or other retail programs?
Pointshogger reader asked a great question in the comment section of our post: [STICKY] Loyalty Program COVID-19 ONGOING Updates:
“Hi Matt – do you think a frequent flyer program like Aeroplan is at risk of going bankrupt due to it’s relationship with Air Canada as a result of the CV-19 pandemic?”
This is actually a question that I have been thinking about. But I felt the topic was too controversial to write about. But since someone asked, it gave me the confidence to attempt to answer!
With so much negativity out there about the coronavirus, I will try my best to keep things positive. When things are down, I can tell you that one thing I do right away is to plan a strategy to anticipate the changes that can occur.
With travel coming almost to a halt for at least the short term, the question of what my strategy should be going forward has been on my mind non-stop over the past few weeks. I touched on this topic a couple of day ago when I tried to answer the question about whether it makes more sense to switch to a cash back portfolio when it comes to earning rewards. I would like to dig a little deeper into this topic.
It’s been a while since I last posted, part of it was because of my busy schedule, but a bigger part of it is that I have had trouble finding a topic to write about. The reason I had trouble finding a topic to write about is because I am personally re-thinking my travel strategy. Which brought me back to when Pointshogger was founded. I have always said that Pointshogger is about “maximising rewards for Canadians”. What does that really mean?