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Deciding what type of loyalty rewards you want to earn can feel complicated given that there are so many choices out there.
Often, one of the easiest options is to choose whichever program is offered by your main bank, or to choose a program that gives you points you can easily use in your day-to-day life — but are these programs actually worthwhile?
In this head-to-head, we’ll compare CIBC’s Aventura and Scotiabank’s Scene+, two of these convenient bank rewards programs, to see which offers the most value and flexibility, and to see how both can help you take stunning trips around the world.
Both the CIBC Aventura program and Scotiabank Scene+ program are travel focused and also offer multiple ways to redeem and enjoy your points. To determine which program is best, we’ll compare the following key program areas:
There are multiple ways to earn points with each of these programs, so let’s see which one makes it easiest to build up your account balance.
You can earn Aventura points with the following CIBC credit cards:
These cards have earn rates starting from 1 point per $2 spent, all the way up to 3 points per $1 spent, depending on which card you hold.
On the other side of this comparison, you can earn Scene+ points with the following Scotiabank credit cards:
Here you see a nice mix of both Visa and American Express options, which offer earning rates starting at 1 Scene+ point per $1 spent and going up to as much as 6 Scene+ points per $1 spent.
As we can see, both programs offer cards that can be accessed and enjoyed by all types of spenders.
Each program gives you options that require no annual fee and no (or minimal) minimum income requirements, premium options with high annual fees but which offer considerable benefits packages, and a whole range of cards in between.
Additionally, most of cards available through each program also have welcome offers of points to help you start building up your account balance quickly.
Beyond earning points with eligible credit cards, you can also build up your Scene+ points balance by simply holding a membership card with the program and scanning it when you make eligible purchases.
Scene+ membership is free to join (you can easily sign up on the program’s website), and this is a great way to earn these points at participating merchants like Sobeys and Cineplex.Scene+ members and credit card holders can also earn more points through the following methods:
Comparatively, on the other side of this head-to-head, CIBC Aventura points can only be earned with one of the Aventura family of cards.
After you’ve earned a nice pile of points, then comes the fun part!
Both the CIBC Aventura and the Scotiabank Scene+ program offer multiple ways to redeem your points, such as:
With both the CIBC Aventura program and the Scotiabank Scene+ program, one of the absolute best ways to redeem your points is for travel.
The CIBC Aventura program offers a couple different ways to redeem your points for travel.
The first, and most valuable, travel option is to redeem your Aventura points for a round-trip economy flight using the CIBC Aventura Flight Rewards Chart. This option has the potential to get you a value of up 2.3 cents per Aventura point.
When you use this chart for your redemption, you redeem your points to cover the base fare of your flight, up to a tiered maximum cost based on where you’re flying to/from.
The second way you can use your Aventura points to save on travel is through CIBC by Expedia, which lets you book travel through their travel portal and then redeem your points for 1 cent each to cover your flight, hotel, car rental, and more.
You can also get that same value per point by taking advantage of the Aventura redemption promotion, redeeming your points to your pending transaction in the travel category to get a statement credit.
Finally, you can choose to redeem your points for a gift card from a travel merchant (e.g., Air Canada).
On the other side of this comparison, you can use your Scene+ points to book travel through Scene+ by Expedia. Similarly to CIBC’s option, this travel booking portal lets you make reservations as you normally would and then redeem your Scene+ points for 1 cent each to cover the cost.
Additionally, with Scene+, you can use the program’s “Points for Travel” feature, which lets you save on travel by redeeming your Scene+ points for eligible travel purchases made on the card within the last 12 months, also for a value of 1 cent per point.
This option is particularly convenient to help you save money on smaller boutique hotels, Airbnbs, car rentals, and other travel expenses that you can’t cover with hotel and airline loyalty points.
One of Scene+’s most well-known redemption option is the ability to instantly redeem your accumulated points for savings at eligible grocery stores, restaurants, and entertainment centres.
In this category, Scene+ collectors can redeem 1,000 points for $10 off at Sobeys, IGA, Cineplex, Rec Room, Swiss Chalet, East Side Mario’s and more.
CIBC Aventura does not offer an equivalent redemption option.
Another way to use both your Aventura points and Scene+ points is to redeem them for merchandise and/or gift cards.
However, neither of these options represents the best value for your points, so we recommend you choose these redemptions only if you have no plans to ever use the points in other more valuable ways.
In terms of redeeming for merchandise, only CIBC Aventura lets you peruse a catalogue of items that you can acquire with your points.
However, given that it’s impossible to know exactly what any given item would cost in cash, we can’t really confirm a value for these redemptions.
That said, to give an example, our recent search showed us a Breville Nespresso Pixie Espresso machine available for as few as 27,300 Aventura points, with the item typically retailing for around $240.
This gives us a value of 0.88 cents per point for this particular merchandise redemption.
In terms of redeeming points for gift cards, let’s compare the same option from both programs:
Redeeming your points to cover the cost of credit card purchases or to add to your retirement fund is yet another way that you can use both Aventura points and Scene+ points.
In addition to the ability to earn and redeem points, both the CIBC Aventura program and the Scotiabank Scene+ program offer holders of their credit cards an array of other perks.Now, the exact perks you’ll receive depends on which credit card you choose to keep in your wallet, but in general you can find the following benefits across the respective families of cards:
Benefits that you can enjoy with the CIBC Aventura family of credit cards include:
Depending on which Scotiabank credit card you have, you can potentially have the following perks:
Here we are at the end of our head-to-head, and we now need to decide if one of these two programs is better than the other.
After comparing the CIBC Aventura program and the Scotiabank Scene+ program, what we’ve found is that each program offers a solid amount of value for the right person, and that the best program is whichever one suits your spending style and redemption desires the most.
If you’re most inclined towards getting good value and saving money on a flight, you may prefer the CIBC Aventura program, which gives you access to the Aventura Flight Rewards Chart and good opportunities to save on travel.
Alternatively, if you’ve your eyes on a no-FX credit card that offers strong travel perks, or you like the idea of saving on your day-to-day expenses like groceries, the Scotiabank Scene+ program may be the better option.
Conveniently, both programs are easy to access, so you should have no trouble enjoying whichever one is best for you.
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