Points 3: Starwood Preferred Guest American Express Card

The problem with collecting Aeroplan miles is that millions of other Canadians do too. So when it comes time to redeem that flight on Air Canada or one of its Star Alliance partners, you're competing with a lot of other people for a few seats. Of course you can always pay more points for "extra access", but that could end up costing more than twice as much as a regular award.

However, few Canadians belong to the plans of the major U.S. airlines – American, Delta, United, and US Airways – so flights from Canadian cities are often readily available at the lowest rate, typically 25K points for a return economy class flight in North America.

That brings me to the Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) American Express card. Starwood is the chain that includes Sheraton and Westin hotels, among others, and SPG is their loyalty program. You earn 2 SPG points for every dollar spent at Starwood hotels (bonus offers let you earn faster) and free nights start at 2,000 points, with most hotels in the 7-10K range. For example, both the Sheraton Centre and Westin Harbour Castle in Toronto are 7K points for a free night.

The SPG Amex card earns 1 SPG point for every dollar spent. MBNA used to be Starwood's partner, and the card was no-fee, which was a terrific deal, but early this year they switched to Amex and now their card costs $120 a year. Given Amex's limited acceptance and the less generous insurance benefits, it's generally not as good a deal as the Aeroplan bank cards.

Except SPG has one really big advantage: you can trade its points one for one with almost any airline's. And if you swap 20K points, they give you a 5K bonus, resulting in 25K airline miles. This amounts to 1¼ miles for dollar spent. So if you have the annual spending to justify a $120 annual fee card, the 25% extra miles and ability to redeem with virtually any airline might make this card worthwhile to you.

You can apply online, there's a 10K point sign-up bonus, and you'll be automatically enrolled in the SPG program.

I accepted the card last spring because Amex waived the annual fee for former MBNA card holders for the first year. They also offered an 11K point sign-up bonus and my wife got a card too. We recently swapped 20K of those points for 25K American Airlines Advantage miles for free return flights from Palm Springs to Toronto.

I plan to cancel the card next year unless Amex lowers the annual fee (in the U.S. it's only $65 a year) or offers a hefty renewal bonus. Otherwise, it won't be worth it to me. I'll bring the Club Sobeys MasterCard out of mothballs and focus on earning free Aeroplan miles with it.

The SPG card enables you to benefit from membership in a host of airline plans. In Points 301 I'll explain why you should join the plan of every hotel chain you stay at as well.