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This is the last post in a three-part series inspired by a recent set of conversations with some medical students, and is really geared towards the medical student thinking about going through the Canadian residency matching system. Of course, everyone is welcome to read!

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So, you are in your last year of medical school. Before you know it, it will be autumn and the invites to interviews will be rolling in!

The next step, of course, is looking at the schedule and seeing how it all fits together. I applied broadly across the country. Might have been excessive in my applications, but it was in the name of couples-matching as Mr. Sparks and I were in the same year. (For any readers who aren’t familiar with the term, couples-matching is when two medical students in the same graduating year choose to link their applications in the Canadian Residency Matching Service computer algorithm to prioritize their matching to the same school. Often romantic partners will do this, and I’ve also heard of siblings doing so).

After accepting the interviews comes the “ouch” part financially – paying for it all. You’re looking at:

• Flights to your destination
• Lodgings for the interview
• Possibly a new suit, or alterations to the one you used for medical school interviews. Some people go all out with new shoes, shirts, ties, pocket squares, etc.
• Food – harder to cook and eat in when flying around
• Paying for rent at your home base even though you might not be home for the better part of a month

Let’s address the flights part. I can’t really comment on the remainder as those are more personal choices to make!

This post mostly looks at CaRMS travel from a Canadians-in-Canada perspective. For non-Canadians or Canadians living outside of Canada, the specifics of websites and credit cards might look different. The general principles below would hold true though!

Flights: Tracking

As soon as you have your interview locations and dates locked down, the next step is mapping out your flight/train/bus path. There are, of course, the discount airlines that have been recently introduced, Swoop and Flair Air. And for people in Western Canada, there is an airline that runs in Eastern Canada called Porter (which I had no idea existed till I moved eastward). It is sometimes cheaper than Air Canada, and has pretty great on-board service. 

Once you have your route mapped out, then I would suggest tracking flight prices. There are many tools for this – I used to use Kayak and more recently have switched over to Google Flights. Both have easy user interfaces, and the discount airlines show up there. Hopper is a great mobile app that not only tracks flights but also predicts price movements and how good of a deal the flight is based on historical data.

Flights: Buying

Okay, the title is a little bit of a misnomer. Part of what we will talk about is ways to buy your flight that can help maximize what you get back. The other part will be talking about ways you can fly while spending waaayyyyy less than usual for a flight. Interested? Read on!

Below are some ways that you can get something back for the money you are about to spend on flights This is by no means an exhaustive list – please drop me a line if you have more suggestions!

1. Buy your flight through Expedia.ca and get some Expedia Rewards points which can be applied to hotels and some other products booked through Expedia. (Double check the cost of the flight against the cost listed on the flight carrier’s own website – sometimes there is a price difference, though often it is a negligible amount).
2. Buy your flight through any of the travel portals on Ebates.ca and get some cashback. Available are Expedia, Flighthub, Travelocity, Orbitz, and many others.

Flights: Stacking the Wins

Below are three versions of the same flight purchase.

1. Purchase your flight through the flight carrier’s own website. No extra perks.
2. Purchase your flight through Expedia.ca and get Expedia Rewards points for money you would have spent anyways.
3. Purchase your flight through Ebates.ca, click on the Expedia link, then get Expedia Rewards points AND some cashback from Ebates.ca.
4. Purchase your flight with your travel rewards card through Ebates.ca, click on the Expedia link, then get Expedia Rewards points AND some cashback from Ebates.ca AND rewards points from the travel card.

The last version obviously comes out with the most wins.

Should you really care about the rewards points from the travel card, though?

A Brief Intro to Travel Rewards Points

This is an area where you can do a deep dive. I wrote a little intro piece on exploring travel hacking. For Canadians, I find Prince of Travel to be a great resource. His Newbie’s Guide and Knowledge Base are excellent starting points.

The point of travel rewards – for me, at least – is that I’m spending a large chunk of money over a fairly short period of time anyways (such as for CaRMS expenses), so I may as well get something back for those expenditures.

I chose the American Express cards as they do not have a minimum income requirement and many (most?) medical students will not be pulling in any income during medical school. Also, I hope to keep this page updated over the years…but…no guarantees. Double-check with your own research before proceeding!

American Express Gold Rewards Card

For $150 annual sign up fee or for no annual fee for the first year if you can find the Perkopolis offer code (which is floating around on the Internet even if you’re not a Perkopolis member), you can get the American Express Gold Rewards Card (henceforth referred as the AMEX Gold).

If you spend $1,500 in the first three months (very do-able in the context of CaRMS), you will get 25,000 Membership Rewards points which can be directly transferred into Aeroplan for 25,000 Aeroplan miles.

It costs 15,000 Aeroplan miles for a short-haul North American flight and 25,000 for a long-haul North American flight based on the rewards chart.

Summary: you are effectively paying $150 (plus any tax and fuel surcharges) for a short-haul or long-haul flight within Canada – which is pretty good! And if you are resourceful enough to find the Perkopolis code, then you would be getting an almost free flight. Doesn’t get better than that!

Also, don’t forget to cancel this card before the next year starts, so that you don’t pay the card fee, unless you want to keep the card. The sign up bonus obviously only occurs with the sign up…unless you credit card churn.

American Express Platinum Card

For a net cost of $499, you can effectively get 60,000 Aeroplan miles. 

(The best available offer is through a referral link. A referral link for the AMEX Platinum is available through Prince of Travel – I’m not affiliated in any way, I just really enjoy his blog – or if you know someone who has an AMEX Platinum already, feel free to share the joy of referrals with them!)

Anyways, back to $499 for 60,000 Aeroplan miles. That means paying $125 (+ fuel surcharges and taxes) each for four short-haul flights. Or $250 (+ fuel surcharges and taxes) each for two long-haul flights. Quite reasonable considering typical prices within Canada!

Plus, if you are flying out of Pearson Airport in Toronto, you get to be in the fast track line. And, you can feel like a boss with your amazing premium lounge access.

The only thing to watch out for is that you would need to spend $5,000 in the first three months of having this card AND leaving yourself enough time to actually get the points as it can take (in theory) up to 8-10 weeks to credit the rewards points once you’ve reached the minimum spend. Fortunately, Prince of Travel has answers to that too, with the refundable hotel trick (a means to widen your effective spending window if you do have some income coming in) and paying for things like rent and utilities with your credit card via Plastiq (though there is an associated fee for this service). (Update June 5, 2019: thank you, Dr. Networth, for pointing out that PayTM is also a great option – no fee when using Mastercard to pay for rent/utilities/taxes/etc!).  As always, be sure to pay off your credit card statement. If you need to dip into your student line of credit to do so, then do so – the interest is far less on the student LoC than on the credit card. 

And remember, we’re talking about money you were going to spend anyways. I strongly advise against going wild with purchases just to meet the $5,000 minimum spend requirement. 

Again, don’t forget to cancel this card before the next year starts, so that you don’t pay the fee again, unless you want to keep the card. 

Other Credit Cards

Cash back cards are also an option that many people like, due to the straightforward nature of redeeming value. I am more travel oriented and so haven’t delved into this area as much. One tool that can be used to compare cash back cards (and other credit cards) is creditcardgenius.ca.

Also, you may already have a credit card with a financial institution – they like to work with medical students as an investment in a potential future high-earnings client. See if they have any deals on right now to upgrade cards, or switch to a better card with waived fees. You don’t know till you ask! I wandered into RBC a little while ago to ask about the current deal for 20,000 Avion points for no first year fee on the RBC Visa Infinite Avion card.

Imagine my surprise when they told me that medical students and residents are able to upgrade for free right now AND get the welcome bonus. I think we also get to keep the card with no fee moving forward, so long as you keep student/resident status – would have to triple check that though.

15,000 Avion points gets you to an adjacent province or territory based on the RBC redemption chart. Not bad, considering no money spent on your part! And if you already have some points due to previous spending, you could easily extend your reach to an anywhere-in-North-America-Flight with the extra 20,000 points from the free card upgrade.

I don’t know the ins-and-outs for the other major banks that offer medical student banking packages, but I would highly encourage you to go in and explore your options!

Other Flight Considerations

Consider getting a Nexus Card. Sure, you can avoid long line-ups when entering the U.S. More importantly for the purposes of this post, you can skip those same lines while dashing around the country for your interviews!

Now, I went through CaRMS without the Nexus Card, so it is definitely doable. I hear, though, that the experience is so much breezier if you do have a Nexus Card, and it’s good for 5 years. When you factor in Canadian weather and the fact that CaRMS is in the winter, all sorts of badness can happen. The Nexus card can make things easier.

Flights Summarized

Here is the summary of my travel recommendations.

1. Apply for a Nexus Card, if you want.
2. Track your desired flights.
3. Check your current credit card and see if you have points you can use towards flights for CaRMS, and check if you can upgrade your card at no or minimum cost to you at your existing financial institution. Remember, don’t be shy to ask!
4. Apply for a travel rewards card early, so that you give yourself time to meet the minimum spend requirement. (This step is optional, but I recommend it for people who are organized enough to keep track of the minimum spend requirement and canceling before the first year is up).
5. Go into Ebates.ca (or something similar to it), click on the Expedia link, and purchase your flights through that portal.
6. Get Expedia Rewards points AND some cashback from Ebates.ca AND rewards points from the travel card.
7. Don’t buy all of your flights with dollars – try to maximize flights bought with rewards points and minimize actual dollars spent.
8. Apply Expedia Rewards toward hotels for CaRMS (or save up for a future trip. I mostly used AirBnB for CaRMS due to the cost difference).

Have I missed anything? Do you have other thoughts you’d like to share? Please feel free to leave a comment below!

Till next time,

-Dr. FIREfly