SPECIAL TO THE STAR
Travel Rewards
Anyone with a wallet bursting with loyalty cards will not be surprised to learn that Canadians are among the world leaders when it comes to having - and using - the cards.
When American Express Canada launched its latest card last April (the Blue Sky credit card), the big surprise was that it was not really a loyalty card at all.
Modelled upon a card of the same name from the U.S. parent company, Amex Canada has positioned its Blue Sky offering as a new kind of travel rewards card One that enables holders to redeem travel-related points with any airline, hotel, cruise or car rental company.
Call it the anti-loyalty card!
"On this product, we haven't tied up with any particular retail provider or travel provider, and that was a deliberate choice because we wanted consumers to have the flexibility," says
Tracy Hendricks
, director of marketing at American Express Canada.
Flexibility and ease of redeeming reward points were the main attractions for
Andrew Medeiros
, a biology graduate student at
York University
, who found the Blue Sky card offered him a better way to cash in on expensive flights to the Canadian Arctic than rival travel rewards programs did. "I have already used it to redeem for travel; it's dirt easy," he says.
Medeiros earned just 600 Aeroplan miles on a
flight to
the Arctic
from
Winnipeg
, "which is nothing really," he explains. "When you are using the
American Express
(card), it is 1.25 per cent cash back, really."
So far, he has used the card to help pay for his honeymoon to
Mexico
last month. His main complaints are that he doesn't like the "funky" design on the Blue Sky card and has found that
American Express
is not as widely accepted as some other credit cards.
The Blue Sky card made its Canadian debut after a close examination of the program's track record in the U.S. and consumer research on this side of the border, Amex Canada says.
"We understood that customers want more choice about how they travel and the Blue Sky product allows you to manage your own travel plans, so you are not necessarily tied to a specific provider or (limited in) the way you conduct your travel," says Hendricks.
The program is relatively simple Card members can earn travel points daily through credit purchased at any
American Express
merchant. (In this, loyalty is a factor.) Points are earned at a rate of 1.25 per dollar of purchases;
worth of purchases results in
in travel credit.
Amex contends that it has the highest points-earn rate of any no-fee travel card in the market.
The travel points can be redeemed at any time for any type of travel purchase charged to the card and the points do not expire.
The Blue Sky card carries no annual fee, allows holders to carry a balance and offers 12,000 points to those who spend
on purchases within six months of signing on.
Card-holders can redeem points after they accumulate 10,000. Thereafter, they can do so every 5,000 points for
travel credits.
Blue Sky includes standard Amex cardholder benefits, such as "front- of-the-line" access to tickets for entertainment events, and the card also offers travel accident insurance.
Amex
Canada
maintains that the program appeals to a wide range of people.
"You might be a consumer who likes to go to a travel agent and book travel with them or you might be somebody who likes to use the Internet to find things out for yourself, such as the right hotel and right car rental," says Hendricks.
Points can be used on discount travel such as seat sales and last-minute vacation packages.
The Blue Sky card program has been in effect for six months. Amex says most customers are new to
American Express
, but fit the profile of the "slightly more affluent" customer the company aims to attract.
courtesy U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS TOURIST BOARD Blue Sky points
work with any airline, hotel, cruise or car rental company.
