San Diego is a destination attracting more and more tourists, especially families!
Until now, to get there from Montreal, it was necessary to have a connecting flight in Toronto or an American city.
From now on, it will be possible to go there on a direct flight with Air Transat!
The direct flight will connect San Diego from Montreal from June 15th until October 28th, 3 times a week next summer.
With children, we will avoid the return flight on Sunday which is a red-eye flight, arriving on Monday morning in Montreal!
Air Transat is not part of a loyalty program like Aeroplan (at least, until its takeover by Air Canada is finalized).
So, to save on Air Transat flights, you will have to use travel points, as explained in this strategy!
You’ll find below some examples of points redemption to save money for Air Transat flights with 3 loyalty programs and their credit cards.
To use your BMO Rewards points, you need to book your flight directly on the BMO Rewards reservation platform. Fares are identical to those you’d find at other online agencies.
Here’s a simulation for a round-trip ticket from June 17 to 23, 2020:
The flight from Montreal to San Diego costs $446.91.
By using 41,000 BMO points earned through the BMO Ascend World Elite Mastercard®* welcome bonus:
… you can save $292.74 and pay only $154.17 for this round trip from Montreal to San Diego! What’s more, when you pay with the BMO Ascend World Elite Mastercard, you benefit from all its travel insurance!
Not bad for a card that:
For information, the value of BMO points is fixed: $0.0071/point. To learn more about the BMO Rewards program, visit this page.
To earn BMO Rewards points, here are the two cards available (one that does not require a minimum income and has a 20,000 points welcome bonus):
If you want to have the freedom to book your flight with your preferred online agency, American Express membership rewards points are for you.
All you have to do is make a flight booking on the website of your choice. Personally, I always prefer to book directly on the airline’s website: in case of a problem, we avoid an intermediary.
For example, here is a booking made directly with Air Transat and charged to my American Express Cobaltᵐᶜ Card:
In the case of the $447 flight to San Diego, up to 44,700 membership rewards points would have been required to completely offset the cost of the flight.
Or you could just redeem 10,000 points to save $100.
The American Express Cobaltᵐᶜ Card is undoubtedly your favorite credit card! Its points accumulation is exceptional for many everyday purchases like groceries or restaurants: 5 points / dollar (that’s a 5% return when you use your points against travel purchases like this plane ticket with Air Transat!).
Finally, the Scotia Rewards program is also very interesting: you can apply your points directly to the purchase of an Air Transat ticket charged to your card.
The redemption ratio is simple: 10,000 bonus points = $100.
Here are a few cards that are part of the Scotia Rewards program.
With a card like Scotiabank Gold American Express® Card, you currently can get:
This is great news for passengers in the Montreal area! And as you may have seen, even if Air Transat is not part of a loyalty program like Aeroplan, it doesn’t avoid you from saving money with points!
And did you know that you could also save a lot of money on your stay in San Diego, whether in a hotel… or an airbnb!
For more information, check out our two strategies to save money:
Savings are here:
