Road to Rio paved by dental surgery
By charging everything to his Visa, college student saved enough reward points to surprise girlfriend
Birthday cake wasn’t good enough for Shannon King’s 22nd birthday, so her boyfriend surprised her with a trip to Rio de Janeiro’s tropical rainforests, white sand beaches and the mountain topped with a 40metre Christ the Redeemer statue.
King and boyfriend Corey Anderson, 21, had spoken of travelling to Rio many times.
But living on a limited budget, the cash-strapped student didn’t have the finances to afford such a lavish gift. So he spent two years diligently collecting points on his CIBC Aeroplan Gold card, including an agonizing $4,000 dental surgery charge that topped up his loyalty account by 7,200 points.
“It was something I teased her with because it all sounded ludicrous. So when we actually ended up going, she was so shocked,” Anderson says. “It’s actually a decent birthday present and she figured it would never happen. It was a matter of proving that anything is possible. I always tell her the sky is the limit, you can’t dream too big.”
During their week in Rio in June, they strolled along Copacabana’s beaches and visited the mountain of Corcovado, crowned by the aweinspiring statue of Christ.
The couple had just recently met at Confederation College in Thunder Bay and would spend the summer apart.
King left to work at a winery in South Africa immediately after Rio and returned in early September for the new semester.
Before she left, Anderson encouraged her to join him in his point-collecting passion, which he inherited from his grandfather. “I knew, after we went to Rio, she would be flying with a number of airlines through Star Alliance to South Africa. So I said, ‘That’s a lot of points, please do not pass that up!’ ”
Anderson replaced his debit card with his Visa when he was 19. He charges everything, including textbooks, food and, instead of buying bus tickets at $2.60, he charges his monthly bus pass on the credit card. He also uses his card while travelling to accumulate points.
However, he budgets carefully and pays his card balance off monthly to avoid high interest charges.
Anderson is very strategic and participates in Aeroplan promo- tions for additional points. He also admits to scavenging for hidden points inside product boxes. “I go crazy when it comes to collecting boxes. You look for points after purchasing a product, peel the box open and there’s a little code on the inside that’s always really hard to read,” he says. “It’s quite incredible the things they make you do for points. It seems silly to even worry about collecting 20 points at a time, but I figured they all add up and, over time, the lost reward would be 15,000.”