A new year brings the perfect opportunity to assess whether your objectives have been achieved in the world of points and rewards, and to redefine them if necessary.

Check where you stand with your points (or cashback) balance according to your aspirations. Is the credit card in your wallet best suited for your needs?

Read our Milesopedia list of the best credit cards in Canada, which will help you choose the best credit cards for your goals!

Are you heading in the right direction for 2025? Tools are available to help you organize your personal finances and calculate your rewards.

Don’t forget, Milesopedia’s credit card comparator is always there to help you find the best credit card.

Spend some time at the beginning of the year to plan and optimize your future spending. This is the time to see if everything is going well or if you need to revise your strategy, especially for expenses like groceries!

To inspire you with new goals, here are a few from our Beginner’s Guide.

Depending on your financial situation, your goal and rewards programs, here are the best credit card options for 2025:

• Beginner level : Which credit card(s) should I take out?
• Intermediate level: Which credit card(s) should I take out?
• Expert level: Which credit card(s) should I take out?

In general, airline or hotel program status is earned between January 1 and December 31 of each year. If a certain level has been reached or exceeded during that year, the status is extended to the following year. Otherwise, it is lost.

Everything starts again from scratch on January 1, 2025. What will your status be in 2025? How much do you value it?

If you’ve achieved status recently, have you selected your benefits for the year (with Aeroplan and Marriott Bonvoy, for example)?

Starting in 2025, there’s a new feature for members with Aeroplan status, as they will be able to enjoy their status until January 31, 2025. This will give them an extra month to enjoy their travel benefits throughout the holiday season and the month of January. Their new status will take effect on February 1, 2025.

For example, a 35K member who has only met the requirements to be a 25K in 2025 will have their 35K benefits until January 31, 2025, and then will have his 25K status obtained as of February 1, 2025.

Do you want to stick to just one airline or hotel chain? Or do you want to be free to choose any option?

The question is whether paying several hundred or thousand dollars is worth it to get upgrades, skip the line, or receive free breakfasts.

Let’s hope that Marriott Bonvoy resurrects its highly advantageous promotion, such as double elite nights, to speed up the transition to a higher status.

As a reminder, here are some examples of how to obtain a different status:

Transfer your points only when you need them. You never know when there’ll be a great promotion to transfer points between programs and get even more out of it!

For example, in 2024, there were promotions of:

• 30% bonus when you transfer American Express Membership Rewards points to Marriott Bonvoy (around May and in November);
• 30% bonus points by converting RBC Avion points into Avios (around October and November);
• 15% bonus points by transferring RBC Avion points to AAdvantage (month of August);

These promotions can also be used for orphan points, which are about to expire anyway or which you don’t intend to use in the original program. So you can also:

• Transfer points between Marriott Bonvoy and Aeroplan (for Aeroplan members only);
• Transfer RBC Avion points to other airline programs at any time;

In 2024, there were some changes and developments in the world of loyalty programs and credit cards:

• Transition from the much-loved HSBC World Elite Mastercard to the RBC Avion Visa Infinite;
• AIR MILES miles can now be transferred between Cash and Dream accounts;
• New credit card terms and conditions Aeroplan;
• Pharmasave with AIR MILES;
• Partnership between Marriott Bonvoy and MGM and even Qatar Airways;
• Finnair and Avios;
• SAS joins SkyTeam;
• The low-cost airline French Bee will be flying Montreal-Paris.

In 2025, we expect Air Transat to announce a loyalty program!

Take the time to get to know the new programs at the grocery store and what they have to offer:

• Scene+ has flexible points that can be used to pay for groceries or reimburse travel expenses;
• The Moi program now lets you collect and use Moi points at Super C, Première Moisson, Metro, Jean Coutu and Brunet, in Quebec and in Ontario.

Resolve to use shopping portals! Take advantage of these easily earned points to increase your points balance or cash back.

All you have to do is to go through one of these shopping portals and use their link BEFORE making the purchase on your favourite store’s website. The most popular ones are:

• Aeroplan eStore (to collect more points);
• airmilesshops.ca (to collect more AIR MILES miles);
• and Rakuten (to accumulate more cash back or Scene+ points).

What’s more, you’ll get a double boost when there are promotions with even better multipliers. I’m thinking especially of long weekends, Amazon Prime days, Black Friday, certain celebrations (Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, etc.) and vacations.

And finally, keep an eye on the online offers from programs such as AIR MILES, American Express, Scene+, and Avion Rewards. These can help you save year-round on all kinds of purchases you were planning to make anyway.

An offer can be:

• XX credit on the purchase of $XX at a specific store;
• Bonus points or miles when you charge a minimum amount to your credit card (groceries, entertainment, gas, etc.);

Even if you don’t expect to use them, I’d recommend activating these offers. You never know when it might come in handy, and it only costs a click.

Happy New Year 2025!