The Bonuses

First off, you get the usual $120 annual fee waived for the first year. You also get 35,000 Aventura points as a signup bonus – 20,000 points on your first purchase and an extra 15,000 points after spending $1,500 on the card within the first four months.

The signup bonus is 35,000 Aventura points in total, and according to the below Aventura Airline Rewards Chart, you can redeem that towards an $800 airline ticket in the “Canada and U.S. (long-haul)” category!

It's not really worth redeeming Aventura points for anything but airline travel, since the redemption rate is quite poor. The good news is that CIBC often puts on promotions allowing you to redeem certain routes for a discounted number of points, so even if you don't have immediate travel plans, the Aventura points are useful to keep around.

Most of the times these days I book award tickets for my travels, but everybody runs into situations where they need to pay cash for a ticket, and having the 35,000 Aventura points lying around to offset the cost is quite useful indeed.

(Oh and, it's my understanding that while CIBC Rewards says you must redeem for round-trip tickets, you can also use Aventura points for open-jaw tickets. That might make them useful for positioning flights at the start and end of long award trips.)

Is the bonus on this card a world-beater? No. But if you've already signed up for the better offers out there, then the CIBC Aventura for Business can be a neat and tidy card to keep the bonuses flowing.

Earning Rewards

This is a card that you want to get for its signup bonuses, rather than for its return on everyday spending. That's because Aventura points are hardly the most useful points you can earn, and there are much more desirable rewards currencies you should aim to earn instead. 

But for what it's worth, you'll get 2 Aventura points per dollar spent on travel booked via the CIBC Travel Rewards Centre, 1.5 Aventura points per dollar spent on gas purchases, as well as travel purchases outside of booking directly with CIBC, and 1 Aventura point per dollar spent on all other purchases.

There really isn't any circumstance under which I'd recommend using this card for your spending – it's really one of those cards where you get the signup bonus and then put it away for safekeeping. The one exception is that when you use your $120 travel credit, you will have to put the remainder of that travel purchase on this card.

Insurance Coverage

The insurance on the CIBC Aventura Visa Card for Business is quite competitive, though it lacks the emergency out-of-province medical insurance that makes the high-end cards (like the Amex Platinum Card) so outstanding.

With the Aventura for Business, you'll get flight and baggage delay insurance, car rental loss and damage insurance (which can help you save on the daily insurance charged by car rental companies), $500,000 common carrier accident insurance, and protection against trip cancellation or interruption.

Apply Now

As with most financial institutions, you'll have no problem getting approved for this card even if you aren't a small business owner in the traditional sense. You do need to have a minimum annual income of $35,000 though, so as long as you meet that requirement you're good to go.

Follow the below link (not a referral link) to the CIBC website to access the application:

princeoftravel.com/apply/CIBCAventuraBusiness

Any questions? Contact me.