Once again the guys at Flyertalk are on top of the latest info. They pointed out this week that the CIBC Aerogold Visa is now going to be offering 1.5 Aeroplan miles per dollar spent on groceries, gas, and drug stores. You can find the post from Flyertalk here and info from the CIBC website here.

This is a great improvement for everyday users of this card for collecting Aeroplan points. I currently use the CIBC Aventura card for business and the MBNA SPG Mastercard for personal use but I have been thinking about switching my Aventura back to Aerogold. Now I may switch back to the Aerogold for everyday spending and the MBNA SPG card for business.

It looks like Aeroplan is becoming very agressive with their partnerships. Just recently they also announced that Uniprix is also becoming an Aeroplan partner.

These are good times for Aeroplan collectors.

Flyaway Weblog has an interesting post this week about handling your finances abroad. You can find the post here. I have previously written a post on a similar topic called Accessing money while travelling.

The main point here is that when you need to change money while travelling, check the exchange rate that is used and the service fees that are charged. Sometimes you will get a better exchange rate but have to pay a large service fee which ends up nullifying the better rate.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that all exchanges are the same- that thinking can cost you a lot of money. As I mentioned in my other post, I changed the exact same amount of money in two different locations in Scotland and there was a 20 dollar(10 pound) difference. The first place charged me 4% more than the second. On a single transaction maybe this is not a lot, but over several transactions in can add up.