Update: DEAD! Don’t miss it if this becomes alive again. Sign up for deal notification alerts here!
Update 2: The current signup and spending threshold bonus for the Canadian Starwood Mastercard is slated to expire on 08/31! Be sure to sign up before then to take advantage of the current offer!
Update: Some interesting things to point out from tipster up North:
-You only need to spend $40CAD in a Starwood hotel to qualify for the first stay bonus. So if you have a cash and points stay where the cash portion is at least $40 and charge it to your Starwood MBNA card you will get a 5,000 Starpoint bonus. You can also qualify by adding other incidentals to your hotel bill even on an award stay as long as they hit $40CAD.
-You are able to have more than one Starwood MBNA card and they can credit all to the same Starwood account, so that if you reach $30,000CAD in annual spending you can switch to the 2nd card, as the 5,000 Starpoint threshold bonuses for hitting 10K in spending ends once you hit $30,000 in a year on a card.
Originally posted on 03/09/09:
Starwood Canada MBNA Credit Card Linky
Canadians rejoice-You too can collect Starwood points via credit card spending, plus there is no annual fee for the Canadian Starwood credit card.
The Canadian version of the Starwood credit card is a Mastercard and offers 5,000 Starpoints after your first purchase.
You earn 1 Starpoint for every 2 Canadian dollars spent, and there are threshold spend bonuses. You get a bonus 5,000 Starpoints for every $10,000 CAD in spending, up to 15,000 Starpoints for threshold spending annually.
You will also get a bonus 5,000 Starpoints after your first stay in a Starwood hotel. (Would be interesting to know if a purchase from the hotel bar would qualify as well…)
Besides for the obvious appeal of being able to transfer Starpoints into miles of dozens of airlines at favorable ratios, there are also some great values at Canadian hotels.
Take the Westin Harbour Castle in downtown Toronto. (Side note: I have the best memories of this hotel as a 10 year old getting the autographs of the ’95 World Series bound Indians that I described a couple years ago in a post titled “Manny being Manny.” I believe that most visiting teams still stay at this hotel) A random date check (06/07) on spg.com shows a rate of $279. Using points, which have no capacity controls, it is available for 7,000 Starpoints, or a value of about 4 cents per Starpoint. Better yet, it is also available using Cash & Points for just 2,800 Starpoints and $45, or a value of a whopping 8.4 cents per Starpoint! It would take a solid Nights & Flights Starpoint redemption to beat that kind of valuation!
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15 Comments On "North Of The Border Starwood Envy? Get The Canadian Starwood Mastercard From MBNA!"
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the conversion of starwood points to airline bonus of 5000 miles still apply with this credit card?
is it possible to open this credit card in US?
howabout if i signed up with the canadian card to avoid the annual fee, but used the card for purchases in the US. whaddya say?
@Danny:
Yes, all the points earned with this card will be deposited into your Starwood account, in which the same rules apply as if you had earned the points via the American Starwood AMEX.
@FR’ed:
If you figure out a way to get it please post it!
@canadian:
You could also avoid the AMEX annual fee by opening a new card every year…but yes, that would work I suppose.
Please do not forget that Canadian credit cards used in the USA gets charged a percentage of commission for the currency exchange involved in the purchase.
Hey Dan.
I stayed at the Westin Harbor Castle on my Wedding night and checked in together with the Chicago White Sox!!!! I guesss we both have special memories involving baseball at this hotel!! 🙂
i applied for the card, the only problem is that the response is 30 day and by mail!! o well i guess it is worth it
anyone has any experience, how much time it takes to transfer starwood points to lanpass kms?
thanx
@mike
yes, one time it took like 5 days, another time it took like 2 and a half weeks. It’s very hard to know with them! Good luck
hey dan, can you also open a business credit card like the american starwood card?
What about for Austraians? Are we able to sign up for nay of them, considering we dont have Social numbers?
Seems we dont have the ability to take advantage of most of the offers put up…..
ok an update, i got the card, and was able to do some spending the first month for work. so i spent about 15G, that gave me 5,000 first purchase, 5,000 for spending 10G and another 7,500 for every two dollars, so all in all i jusy got 17,500 SPG’s!!
not bad! o and they started me off with a 10G limit and it says on the application that the limit can go as high as 100,000
(1) Is this do-able without being Canadian, having a Canadian address, etc.? Do you lose out at all if all your spending is in American dollars, in America? (2) Does it cover the things we’re used to here, like collision insurance for rental cars?
hey guys i tried to apply for this card
and it happens to be that mbna canada is extremely strict
so if you are trying to get this as a first credit card
you will most probably get denied
so only do this if you have good credit in canada
and you have not had any late payments or delinquency in the last 6 YEARS yes i wrote six whole years
Is there a visa or mastercrd associated with Starwood Preferred guest program?