Everything You Need to Know About Card-Linked Offers

In the world of points and miles, we are constantly thinking about what card to use to get the most return on our spending. Whether that be reaching for the American Express Cobalt card to get 5 points per dollar on dining and groceries or the Canadian Tire World Elite Mastercard to get 1% back on all of our bills, at the end of the day, we’re trying to maximize value. 

Here’s a question: What’s better than getting points and miles back from a purchase? The answer is not having to spend as much money in the first place! That’s where card-linked offers come in. Whether this is your first time hearing about card-linked offers or if you’ve already utilized them a few times, let’s take a deep dive into how we can save money the next time we shop!

What Are Card-Linked Offers?

Card-linked offers are promotions that are attached to your credit card, allowing you to earn a lump sum of cash back or increased point-earning rates at certain retailers. 

The beauty of card-linked offers is that there are no additional promo codes or coupons that you need to provide at checkout – simply activate the offer on your credit card, use that card as your payment method when you make an eligible transaction, and you’ll save money (or earn more points) with your purchase. 

The card-link offers that you receive will be a mixture of general offers available to cardholders and personalized offers based on your spending habits. Thus, it is not uncommon to hear that cards that do not get a lot of spending on them do not receive as many (or even any) offers. 

Here’s how card-linked offers generally work:

1. View your offers when you log in to your credit card account. This will usually be a tab in the menu bar or when you click on your actual credit card account. 
2. Activate the offers that interest you. There is also no harm or cost to activate all of the offers. You never know what you might need one day! 
3. Use your card to shop at the retailer specified in the card-linked offer. 
4. Wait for the cashback to post in your account as a lump sum credit or increased points earning rates to post into your account. 

Now that we have the basics down, let’s take a look at the financial institutions in Canada where cardholders can benefit from these offers.

What Canadian Financial Institutions Have Card-Linked Offers?

American Express

By far the most generous credit card issuer in Canada for card-linked offers is American Express. American Express calls its card-linked offers program Amex Offers. These offers typically award a statement credit, but there have been some offers that award additional Membership Rewards points.

Cardholders can find their available Amex Offers by scrolling down past their recent transactions on desktop or by using the dedicated tab at the bottom of the mobile app. 

My closet, shamelessly, is 95% lululemon, and I think American Express has picked up on that. Thus, they gave me an offer for $10 back if I spent $100 or more. Fortunately or unfortunately (depending on how you look at it), it is not hard to spend $100 at lululemon, so I can get that $10 back pretty easily! So let’s click “Register your card” to claim this offer.

Once you register, you’ll get a green bar at the top confirming your registration, as well as the terms and conditions of the offer. In the terms and conditions, you will often find information about whether the purchase needs to be made in-store or online. You should also take note of the expiry date of the offer.

I can confirm that the offer is loaded on my card by clicking the “Registered to Card” tab. Now, all I need to do is spend $100 at lululemon, which I was going to do anyway, and wait for the $10 to post to my account. It’s kind of like free money!

You can also track your lifetime earnings with Amex Offers and make sure your previous offers have been posted to your account by viewing the “Statement Credits” tab.

Amex Offers are super straightforward to use, and it is absolutely worth checking your cards regularly to see if there are any offers that can help you save on an upcoming purchase.

Royal Bank of Canada (RBC)

The next biggest player in the card-linked offers space in Canada is RBC with their RBC Offers program. Similar to American Express, when these offers are loaded onto your account, you’ll earn a statement credit or bonus RBC Avion Points when you use your RBC credit card to pay.

To access your choices of RBC Offers, click on the “Offers for You” tab in your menu when you log in on your desktop or mobile app. Then you can look at and add offers that intrigue you.

RBC Offers can be just as rewarding as Amex Offers. Apple is definitely one of their strongest offers – be sure to look at your offers around late-August or September if you’re in the market for a new laptop, phone, tablet, etc.

Scotiabank

Scotiabank’s version of card-linked offers is Scene+ Offers. Using your Scene+ earning credit card, such as the Scotiabank Gold American Express card or Scotiabank Passport Visa Infinite card, you can earn extra Scene+ points with your purchases with these offers!

To get access to Scene+ offers, log in to your Scotiabank account and click on the Scene+ tab. You will see a tab called “Your Scene+ Offers” which will redirect you to a Scene+ page. Alternatively, you can log in to your Scene+ account and click on “Offers.”

You will see quite a few offers available for you to expedite your Scene+ points earning rates at certain retailers. From my experience, these offers are automatically loaded onto your accounts, which makes our lives easier.

Scotiabank also issues three credit cards that are part of the American Express network, presenting another opportunity for card-linked offers. Unique to the Scotiabank Platinum American Express card, the Scotiabank Gold American Express card, and the Scotiabank American Express card are Scotiabank American Express Connect Offers.

These work similarly to the Amex Offers discussed above, but are only available on these cards. Cardholders will need to register for each offer they are interested in by providing their cardholder details.

While the choices of offers are a bit more limited, one fan-favorite time and time again is Shop Small, which earns you a $5 statement credit at select retailers when using your card. You would be surprised what counts as Shop Small – I have had no issue maximizing this card-linked offer every time it comes around!

Other Canadian Financial Institutions

American Express, RBC, and Scotiabank are the main players for card-linked offers in Canada.

Smaller institutions like Neo Financial and KOHO have small card-linked offer programs. However, their choices for credit cards and merchants with offers can’t be compared with the likes of Amex and RBC. If you happen to have a card from Neo or KOHO, it doesn’t hurt to search once in a while! 

In terms of the other Big 5 banks in Canada, there really isn’t anything out there worthwhile. BMO has Air Miles Deals, while TD and CIBC have no card-linked offers at all. Your best bet is to regularly check your American Express, RBC, and Scotiabank cards to see if any new offers pique your interest.

What U.S. Financial Institutions Have Card-Linked Offers?

As with many things in the world of credit cards, points, and miles, our US neighbours have a much larger breadth of options in terms of card-linked offers. Let’s take a look at the ones that we can take advantage of!

American Express US

Much like its Canadian counterpart, American Express US is the strongest player in the card-linked offer space. You can find these Amex US Offers in the same location as the Canadian site – either on the bottom menu bar on the app or just under recent transactions if you are using your computer.

You’ll notice right off the bat the sheer number of Amex Offers available to you. While often you get a handful in Canada, you will routinely get 100+ offers if you have an American Express US card. The types of offers will differ between the cards you have as well. 

As I only have the American Express Hilton Honors Aspire card (US), American Express Hilton Honors Surpass card (US), and the no-fee American Express Hilton Honors card (US), I will usually see Hilton offers. Conversely, if you were to have a Marriott Bonvoy co-branded card, you might see Marriott Bonvoy offers instead.

Chase

Chase is one of my favorite credit card issuers and their card-linked offers are just as strong as its competitors. While many Chase Offers are geared towards US-based retailers, there are still some gems that can be used in Canada, especially for travel-related purchases. 

For example, this Chase Offer for Marriott Hotels awards 10% cash back when you spend $100 or more. This is a great offer that can be used for outstanding value, and if you read the terms, you’ll see that you can get a maximum of $80 back on a hotel stay that you needed to pay for anyway!

Capital One

The Capital One Venture X Rewards card has been my favorite card for over a year now and I find myself reaching for it whenever I am traveling. Capital One Offers give bonus Capital One Miles at certain retailers when you use your Venture X for purchases.

To activate one of these Capital One Offers, you will have to click on the retailer that you want to shop with and use the generated link to make your purchase. This is very similar to using a shopping portal! If the offer also says in-store, you will be able to activate the offer and attach it to your Venture X.

While many retailers are US-specific, you will find great travel offers with Marriott Bonvoy, Hilton, Expedia, Avis, Vrbo, and more!

The Value I’ve Received from Card-Linked Offers

I’ll admit that I am not very on top of adding card-linked offers to my cards – it’s hard to keep track of what cards have which offers (more on this later)! However, I have had some great uses for card-linked offers in the past. 

A great card-linked offer that I took advantage of recently was Spend $2,500+ on airline tickets and earn $250 back. This saved us 10% on our airfare, and because it is a statement credit, we still got the full points-earning rate for the tickets!

Similarly, 8% back on a hotel booking through Hotels.com was another Amex Offer that we took advantage of! It’s great to be able to save money when traveling, but also still earn the full amount of points for the cost of the hotel stay!

Sometimes you can save a significant amount of money through card-linked offers, and other times it may only be a few dollars. However, not utilizing these offers is akin to leaving money on the table, so don’t miss out.

Automating Card-Linked Offers

If you are deep into the points, miles and credit card game, you likely have many credit cards to keep track of. Thus, it can be difficult to track all of the possible card-linked offers that are available to you across your many credit cards. The good news is that there are a few apps and services in the space that will activate all of your card-linked offers for you without you having to do anything! 

Popular credit card tracking apps, such as CardPointers, AwardWallet, and MaxRewards, can automatically activate all card offers that are available on your card for issuers such as American Express and Chase. The caveat to this is that you have to log in to your financial institution account within the app and link it to your credit card. While this seems secure, many people have different tolerances to the information that you share. 

Personally, I don’t use any of these card tracking and automation apps for a few reasons. The first, and probably the biggest factor: I’m not entirely comfortable sharing my banking information with these apps. While they should be secure, with their encryption and safety features, personally, it is not within my comfort level. 

The second is that I might not be making the most of my card-linked offers. Most offers require a certain amount of spending to activate the offer. I would be really annoyed if the offer triggers at $100, but I only spent $99! Some offers also pay back a percentage of the purchase. 

Take the Chase Offer for Marriott Bonvoy that we showed above: it pays 10% back on an eligible purchase. Thus, to maximize what I get back from the offer, I want a larger purchase. So instead of using it on a $100 hotel stay, I would rather save it for a larger purchase later on to get more money back! With automation, you might be underutilizing your card-linked offers.

Conclusion

Card-linked offers are a great way to save money and earn extra points on purchases you were going to make anyway! Before you shop, make sure you comb through your card-linked offers to make sure you are maximizing every opportunity to save money!