What We did Next in our Credit Card Journey

We realized that the credit cards we were using weren't the best ones to collect points with.

We also realized that we already had quite a few credit cards; 7 in total, which were again the:

1. TD Canada Trust Classic Travel VISA Card.

2. RBC VISA Avion card,

3. RBC Platinum VISA Avion Business card,

4. RBC Cash Back Mastercard,

5. RBC Royal Bank US VISA Gold card

6. CIBC Costco Mastercard and the

7. RBC Bank US VISA Signature Black Card,

But they weren't the best credit cards to have.

This led us, as we mentioned in our first article; Where Our Points Journey Began, to switch our TD Canada Trust Travel VISA card for the TD® Aeroplan® Visa Infinite Privilege credit card, as we learnt collecting Aeroplan points are among the best and most versatile points you can have to put towards flights.

And Aeroplan points are what we now wanted to collect over Reward points that banks offer, because reward points can only be used through usually the banks own travel portal, and the points are usually only redeemable for 1 cent per point (CPP).

Whereas with Aeroplan points, you can redeem them for flights all over the world through Air Canada, which is part of Star Alliance, and your points can go much further, sometimes up to 10 cents per point towards a flight.

For example, here's a flight I just found today, March 8th, 2024 from Chicago to Istanbul (one-way, non-stop) on February 3, 2025; in business class, using point.me (a great award travel search engine):

And then searched on Air Canada to confirm and book using Aeroplan points:

This flight if you paid cash would cost $4,041.30 USD, approx. $5,450.32 CDN (as you can see below on Turkish Airlines website.

By using Aeroplan points, it only costs me 70,000 points + $77 in fees. That's a value of 7.8 cents per point ($5,450.32/70,000). Much better then 1 CPP you'd get redeeming rewards on TD's travel portal.

You can also convert American Express Membership Rewards to Aeroplan points if you didn't have Aeroplan points, which is why I love having and using American Express credit cards, as their Membership Reward (MR) points can transfer to so many different airline and hotel partners (but that's a deep dive for another article).

Now, when deciding which TD Aeroplan credit card to pick, we obviously went for the one with the most bonuses, and the Infinite Privilege had plenty of them.

For starters it had a welcome bonus of 20,000 Aeroplan points (just for getting the card), another 60,000 Aeroplan points once you spent $7,500 within 180 days of account opening, and a one-time anniversary bonus of 35,000 Aeroplan points when you spend $15,000 within 12 months of Account opening

The last huge bonus this card offered; the potential to get an Annual Worldwide Companion Pass after spending more than $25,000 on net purchases (less any returns and credits) in the 12 months prior to card renewal date.

Now this is a big spend to achieve, especially when your trying to meet other spending requirements, such as $500 a month for the American Express Cobalt, which we now had in our credit card portfolio, among others as well going forward (stay tuned).

This is why you need to also spread out your acquiring of credit cards, because of these minimum spends you need to hit.

The TD credit card requires you to spend $7,500 over 6 months, which is $1,250/month; the Cobalt is $500/month; that already brings you total monthly spend to $1,750. This is why you need to make sure your able to hit these spends to get these bonuses, otherwise its all for nothing.

I knew that I would be able to hit the minimum spend easily for this card, and even hit the spend needed for the companion pass as a result of the spending my real estate investing business does. Therefore I decided to charge all the businesses costs going forward to this credit card, which would include the insurance costs needed for the properties, the accountant's fees due each year, legal fees incurred throughout the year, and any other costs the company incurred where I could charge the expenses to the credit card.

Game planning is huge when collecting miles and points. It's why I mentioned and shared in my article; Adding Player 2 to Your Credit Card Game, my spreadsheet I use to plan and track all my cards, and what I'm using them for, so that I can make sure I meet the minimum spends to hit the bonuses, grow my points exponentially, and travel more for less!