Expedia’s climb in Canada has been remarkable. Fifteen years ago, Expedia.ca was just coming into existence. Most Canadians looking for hotels at the time used something called a land-line telephone at home to book hotels or even went without reservations and cruised the highways of Canada and the U.S., or the streets of Europe, looking for flashing vacancy signs in hotel windows. Now, Expedia.ca is the largest on-line travel service provider in the country and does $12 billion gross in business in Canada per year; a target they reached back in 2012. From zero hotel properties and zero airlines in Read more
loyalty programs
Welcome Rewards, the Hotels.com loyalty program, has just reached 10 million members and has redeemed more than one million free nights since its launch in 2008. In the program, customers can earn a free night at more than 100,000 hotels across the world for every 10 nights stayed, with no blackout dates. They issued a list today of where Canadians are using their points. And it’s mostly to stay close to home. Here’s the list of the top 10 redeemed destinations for Canadians in 2013: 1. Toronto, 2. Montreal, 3. Niagara Falls, 4. Edmonton, 5. Calgary, 6. New York City, Read more
Better deals on great trips. Special privileges for regular customers. And those three words many folks had been waiting to hear: “no expiry on points.” The folks at Aeroplan have made a dramatic overhaul of Canada’s favourite travel rewards system with the new Distinction program, which kicks in on Jan. 1, 2014 with a ton of new features. A lot of the headlines of late have centred on the fact that TD Bank will be taking over a good portion of the Aeroplan business currently done by the CIBC. It’s a change for some folks, for sure, but the bigger Read more
