Why doesnt it work in Canada?
Not as many card offers or what?
NOTE -- below is my experience with AEROPLAN, because of my business travel, I already had over 60,000 points that I wanted to use, if I topped up with more points. I am now at nearly 120,000 points and still having trouble -- exchanges to united and others are often at a 4:1 rate, which sucks. Other have had some success with AVION points, and the Westjet companion ticket looks pretty good if you know in advance what you will use it on (similar to AlaskaAir).
AMEX card with many points -- has the option to redeem for travel or for cash, and for reasons below, I will take that bonus as Cash, thanks.
----------------------------------
I have been trying to book travel for a couple of years now, with all my points, and it just never makes sense. When I can get a flight, the fuel surcharges add up, so it is only a 20% discount off the best price available that day. Which means, that the total vacation is still too much money, so we take a car trip instead. Travel with just one other person, on non-holiday weeks (e.g., a Vegas trip) would be much easier (except i don't want to go to Vegas).
EXAMPLE -- I want to fly from Vancouver to Toronto with my family of 4. This is the domestic route with the greatest number of flights each day from my home airport. Wanted to fly anytime from end of June through August, or Spring Break 2018. I looked it up today:
-- ZERO flights at the standard points level are available in the summer, from today until October 2017. The inflated points levels are not really worth looking at except to burn up points.
-- March 2018 is available for spring break to book 4 seats.
-- Cost fuel charges is $200 per person.
-- Best cost flight on Kayak.com for same dates is $202 per person "SAME CARRIER; SAME DATES". Lowest cost competitor is actually cheaper by $2 per person. Note, usually there is a $200-$300 per person savings, but having to book so far out means that the seat sales are easy to find right now.
Cost comparison to a Cash back card
BASIS: Travel Card with annual fee waived and 15,000 to 25,000 bonus points (hard to find cards with more, but they exist, usually AMEX with its built in limits for hacking), plus earning another 10,000 points through card use or light-weight churning x 4 cards... $40,000 in spending (hacking).
Cash back cards would generate $800 for this amount of spending. A bit more if the 4% grocery cards are also used in the month.
So -- Save $0 to $800 on flights...using travel hacking.... versus get $800+ cash back
For me, the chance to save that extra $0-$800 that I can MAYBE use, one day, if I jump through the right hoops, versus similar CASH that I can definitely use now makes a difference to me.
---------------------
Here is the kicker -- that family trip to Toronto that starts at ($800) in fuel surcharges plus transportation costs at location ($100 for buses / transfers), plus basic accommodation ($750 min), plus basic meals and passes ($1000),Total is ($2650) looks very expensive compared to a 1 week hotel/camping trip ($1200 total), in terms of total cash out of pocket for vacation.
--------------------
i do get incidental free hotels and cars now and then, but only up to 2 nights per year, solely because of business travel (not related to credit card points) that I use, with their preferred customer clubs, as I don't travel hack for them specifically. These are great, although places to use them are limited.