BMO Rewards Technical Issue Update: You can now redeem 150 points towards $1 for any travel booked on your BMO Rewards cards!

On March 1st we posted about BMO Rewards having technical issues for any one looking to book flights with the BMO Rewards online booking platform. We wrote about it as we took issue with how BMO was handling it by asking their cardholders to go out and book any travel they wanted on their cards and then redeem 175 points towards every $1 of said travel charge. We called them out on this as here are their customers expecting to book travel and redeem at 150 points to $1 but due to the bank's booking platform issue they were asking them to redeem more points than originally planned. Well lo and behold it appears they listened to us as sometime between March 2nd and March 3rd BMO changed it for the better.

I last checked the BMO Rewards page sometime in the middle of the day on March 2nd to see if they had made any updates and they had not. They were still directing customers to redeem at 175 for $1 of travel and then when I checked the page again around 6pm MT on March 3rd there was a positive change.

Here is the disclaimer that was on BMO Rewards site up until sometime yesterday or even today (March 2nd or 3rd) and what we posted on March 1:

We are currently experiencing a technical issue that is impacting new flight bookings through our BMO Rewards travel website. We continue to work closely with the travel provider to get this resolved. We apologize for this inconvenience. In the meantime, you can book travel any way you like on your BMO credit card and enjoy a promotional rate for your eligible travel purchases using our current Pay with Points travel promotion, redeeming only 175 points for every $1 credit! Terms and conditions apply²⁸.

The BMO Rewards Call Centre is currently experiencing longer than usual wait times. We thank you in advance for your continued patience.

And when I checked the BMO Rewards site on March 3 in the evening this is the new disclaimer

We are currently experiencing a technical issue that is impacting new flight bookings through our BMO Rewards travel website. We continue to work closely with the travel provider to get this resolved. We apologize for this inconvenience. In the meantime, you can book travel any way you like on your BMO credit card and enjoy a promotional rate for your eligible travel purchases using our current Pay with Points travel promotion, redeeming only 150 points for every $1 credit! Terms and conditions apply²⁸.

The BMO Rewards Call Centre is currently experiencing longer than usual wait times. We thank you in advance for your continued patience.

* Bolding is mine

The bank has updated the original Pay with Points promotion for travel that was set to run to March 31st so that now cardholders can redeem 150 points for $1 towards any travel they pay for with their card instead of 175 to 1. This is the same preferred rate cardholders pay to book travel via BMO Rewards. They have also extended the promotion and made it valid for any travel booked between March 2 and September 30 on cards that earn BMO Rewards points. Those cards are:

If you booked travel before March 2nd I would believe you could or should be able to get the 175 for 1 rate that was part of the of old Pay with Points promotion but it wouldn't hurt to call BMO to see if they'll extend this new offer to you.

Wrapping it up

It looks like BMO read our post from earlier this week and took heed. We haven't painted the bank in the best light here on Rewards Canada over the past couple of years so it is nice to see them take this step. And this is a good step that even goes beyond what we asked for, we asked for 150 to 1 for flights but this updated promotion seems to be good for more than just that as they state 'eligible travel' which could mean hotels, car rentals etc. So, thank you to BMO for doing this for your customers and for saving me from doing another BMO, What are you doing? podcast.

Images via BMO