Credit Cards

ScotiaRewards to become Scene+

  • Last Updated:
  • Feb 12th, 2024 12:43 pm
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Deal Guru
Jan 30, 2012
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DP: After suspending using my Amex Gold since Feb and waiting for the missing points to be resolved on its own, I decided to give them a call just now. Got through within 20 seconds after entering all the account info on the phone. The issues got resolved and account updated in realtime.

I will try to use the card and see if points get posted and correctly.
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Jan 30, 2012
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WayneW8682 wrote: How does one redeem the points?
You can do most type of redemption online at scene+ website.
For certain redemptions, you may have to phone in.
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LOL808 wrote: DP: After suspending using my Amex Gold since Feb and waiting for the missing points to be resolved on its own, I decided to give them a call just now. Got through within 20 seconds after entering all the account info on the phone. The issues got resolved and account updated in realtime.

I will try to use the card and see if points get posted and correctly.
It seems scene+ pts posted as soon as the transaction got posted on the BNS side.
Multipliers were also correctly applied.
YMMV tho.

For purchases charged to debit card, pts got posted immediately.
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Jul 3, 2019
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Looks like gift cards are back for those interested.
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Nov 23, 2021
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I’m giving them till June 11th to fix my multipliers or I’m out out out and into the Cobalt instead
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Nov 16, 2015
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Mississauga, ON
Anyone know if Amex offers credits is supposed to deduct points? For example, I took advantage of the buy a $350 Oxford gift card and get a $70 credit on my Scotia Amex gold. This purchase is 1x pts. so I got 350 pts but when I was issued the $70 credit, it also deducted 70 scene+ points. Was this also the case with scotia rewards? This is my first time taking advantage of an Amex offer so I’m not sure it it’s supposed to be doing that.
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Oct 17, 2012
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Fescueta9 wrote: Anyone know if Amex offers credits is supposed to deduct points? For example, I took advantage of the buy a $350 Oxford gift card and get a $70 credit on my Scotia Amex gold. This purchase is 1x pts. so I got 350 pts but when I was issued the $70 credit, it also deducted 70 scene+ points. Was this also the case with scotia rewards? This is my first time taking advantage of an Amex offer so I’m not sure it it’s supposed to be doing that.
This happened to me as well. My last transaction was a tap at Pizza Hut (the offer is 20$ credit for 10X tap)
. Since its a restaurant it counts as 5X points... So it posted -$20 and deducted 100 points, so stupid!
Deal Guru
Jan 30, 2012
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Fescueta9 wrote: Anyone know if Amex offers credits is supposed to deduct points? For example, I took advantage of the buy a $350 Oxford gift card and get a $70 credit on my Scotia Amex gold. This purchase is 1x pts. so I got 350 pts but when I was issued the $70 credit, it also deducted 70 scene+ points. Was this also the case with scotia rewards? This is my first time taking advantage of an Amex offer so I’m not sure it it’s supposed to be doing that.
It appeared that the credit was treated as a "refund" of some sort thus the points clawback.

Perhaps this is new to scene+.

AFAIK, TD, BMO and MBNA have been doing similar clawback for point redemptions.
Member
Jan 22, 2022
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sunnysidesolutions wrote: This happened to me as well. My last transaction was a tap at Pizza Hut (the offer is 20$ credit for 10X tap)
. Since its a restaurant it counts as 5X points... So it posted -$20 and deducted 100 points, so stupid!
Amex cards issued by American Express itself also show Amex Offers as 'refunds'. They appear as a credit from the vendor. However, American Express prevents the clawback of MR points when this occurs. It seems the Scene+ system is not setup to handle Amex Offers and the 'not-actually-a-refund-but-still-listed-like-a-refund' transactions the program generates. Instead the items are being treated as they appear - as partial refunds.

I suppose both Amex & Scene are at fault in their own way. Scene should better integrate with Amex Offers since they are a standard feature of Amex cards, but Amex should have more accurate reporting: The Tap 10 promo shows the final tap generating a $20 'refund' from the last vendor used - this is wholly inaccurate. Even if the credit was listed as from "Amex Offer" would make things better - filtering for one vendor would be easy, and even unfixed you'd never get an accelerator clawback. As it stands, it looks like a restaurant gave you a refund and that never happened.

The key question to me is: Did this happen under the Scotia Rewards program? If it didn't then there's some hope it can be fixed. If it also happened under the old program, then perhaps Amex isn't sharing rich enough data for 3rd party issuers to do Amex Offers in the same way Amex does.
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Jan 16, 2007
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If my memory is correct, it worked the same way in the old program.
Banking: Alterna Bank (2.25%), Motive Financial (4.1%)
Investing: Qtrade Direct Investing
Spending: Scotia Amex Gold (6 pts/Sobeys, 5 pts/dining, 1 pts/rest), Scene Visa (1 pts)
Mobile: Eastlink 20GB Rollover ($39/mth)
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“Empire Company Limited is joining the Scene+ program, offering ways to earn and redeem on grocery and more.

Scotiabank® and Cineplex®* are thrilled to welcome Empire Company Limited as a new rewards partner and co-owner of Scene+. Scene+ provides over 10 million members with the flexibility to earn and redeem points how they want for things like banking, movies, entertainment, dining, travel, shopping and soon, grocery.

Starting in Atlantic Canada in August 2022, followed by Western Canada, Ontario, and Quebec throughout 2022 and early 2023, Empire will rollout Scene+ across its family of brands including Sobeys, Safeway, Foodland, IGA, FreshCo, Chalo! FreshCo, Voilà by Sobeys/Safeway/IGA, Needs, Thrifty Foods, IGA West, Les Marchés Tradition, Rachelle Béry, Lawtons Drugs, Co-Op, and its liquor stores in Western Canada.”

A new partner for Scheme+, despite its many current flaws. Hopefully, we get some decent earn rates, and possibly(?) bonus points for using the Scotiabank payment cards (that will probably have indefinitely delayed crediting)

Add another nail in the coffin for Air Miles, that’s for sure.
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...Wow
Banking: Alterna Bank (2.25%), Motive Financial (4.1%)
Investing: Qtrade Direct Investing
Spending: Scotia Amex Gold (6 pts/Sobeys, 5 pts/dining, 1 pts/rest), Scene Visa (1 pts)
Mobile: Eastlink 20GB Rollover ($39/mth)
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Jan 22, 2022
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MrGoose8 wrote: “Empire Company Limited is joining the Scene+ program, offering ways to earn and redeem on grocery and more.
[...]
A new partner for Scheme+, despite its many current flaws. Hopefully, we get some decent earn rates, and possibly(?) bonus points for using the Scotiabank payment cards[...]
Converting the rate directly, it would be 1 Scene+ point for every $2 spent (with plenty of bonus point offers). Although it's not hard to see them taking the path of the restaurants and unify the rate on food at 1 Scene point per $3 spent. I doubt we'll see "pay with Scotia, get more points" as an explicit standing offer...I'd guess it'll just be optimal to double dip by aligning your spending card - same as Cineplex currently.

As to the wider implications: They supposedly had ambitions to become a coalition program in the past, looks like that was true and the desire never died. Now, in less than a year, they've gone from being a 3rd tier "Air Miles for Teens" program to the one with the highest earning potential on everyday spend!?

I was talking with a friend who's also into points...and I suggested that if Scene+ snagged the future Star Alliance currency as a transfer partner they'd leapfrog into a top tier program. The issue was whether they'd have the ambition. I didn't think they did. But now...
Last edited by ExOrigami on Jun 7th, 2022 6:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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ExOrigami wrote: Converting the rate directly, it would be 1 Scene+ point for every $2 spent with plenty of bonus point offers. Although it's not hard to see them taking the path of the restaurants and unify the rate on food at 1 Scene point per $3 spent. I doubt we'll see "pay with Scotia, get more points" as an explicit standing offer...I'd guess it'll just be optimal to double dip by aligning your spending card - same as Cineplex currently.

As to the wider implications: They supposedly had ambitions to become a coalition program in the past, looks like that was true and the desire never died. Now, in less than a year, they've gone from being a 3rd tier "Air Miles for Teens" program to the one with the highest earning potential on everyday spend!?

I was talking with a friend who's also into points...and I suggested that if Scene+ snagged the future Star Alliance currency as a transfer partner they'd leapfrog into a top tier program. The issue was whether they'd have the ambition. I didn't think they did. But now...

I mean in the past if you “Pay with Scotia” (using the Scotia More Rewards VISA Infinite) you earned more More Reward Points (west coast) at More Rewards participating supermarkets
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Does this mean we can redeem points in Sobeys?
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MrGoose8 wrote: I mean in the past if you “Pay with Scotia” (using the Scotia More Rewards VISA Infinite) you earned more More Reward Points (west coast) at More Rewards participating supermarkets
Earned more by what mechanism? There at least 4 paths and all of them could be fairly advertised as "get more X Points when you pay with Y":
  1. Retailer & Card are agnostic: Sobeys has a fixed earn rate, Scotiabank CCs have a fixed grocery earn rate. Use BNS CC at Sobeys to double dip and thus 'more'
  2. Retailer has preference: Sobeys has regular earn rate for non-BNS + a higher rate for BNS cards, Scotia CCs grocery earn rate is fixed
  3. Card has preference: Sobeys has a fixed earn rate, Scotia CC has a regular grocery earn rate + boosted rate at Sobeys
  4. Card & Retailer have preference: [Option 2 & 3 simultaneously]

Currently all the Scene retail partners are agnostic, they don't care what payment card you use. BNS is mixed. Most of their Scene+ earners are agnostic (e.g. Amex line up), but some of them have a preferential rate for Cineplex (e.g. Scene Visa). When I'm at a Cineplex I do see ads for Scotiabank, but I haven't seen Cineplex staff or banners pushing the preference from the other direction. It's all clearly from BNS. What was the situation with More Rewards? From what I can glean it was #3: The BNS More Rewards CC had a higher partner earn rate and a lower 'everywhere else' rate. But in practice was it actually #4?
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ExOrigami wrote: Earned more by what mechanism? There at least 4 paths and all of them could be fairly advertised as "get more X Points when you pay with Y":
  1. Retailer & Card are agnostic: Sobeys has a fixed earn rate, Scotiabank CCs have a fixed grocery earn rate. Use BNS CC at Sobeys to double dip and thus 'more'
  2. Retailer has preference: Sobeys has regular earn rate for non-BNS + a higher rate for BNS cards, Scotia CCs grocery earn rate is fixed
  3. Card has preference: Sobeys has a fixed earn rate, Scotia CC has a regular grocery earn rate + boosted rate at Sobeys
  4. Card & Retailer have preference: [Option 2 & 3 simultaneously]

Currently all the Scene retail partners are agnostic, they don't care what payment card you use. BNS is mixed. Most of their Scene+ earners are agnostic (e.g. Amex line up), but some of them have a preferential rate for Cineplex (e.g. Scene Visa). When I'm at a Cineplex I do see ads for Scotiabank, but I haven't seen Cineplex staff or banners pushing the preference from the other direction. It's all clearly from BNS. What was the situation with More Rewards? From what I can glean it was #3: The BNS More Rewards CC had a higher partner earn rate and a lower 'everywhere else' rate. But in practice was it actually #4?
Seems you are right it was #4. I hope that there’s some implementation of 2/3/4 with this new partnership though.
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smartie wrote: Does this mean we can redeem points in Sobeys?
Yes, it would appear so. "...the new ownership structure will allow Scene+ members to earn and redeem points at the grocer's supermarkets, including Sobeys, Safeway, Foodland, IGA, and FreshCo."

...So when do they announce Home Hardware? Smiling Face With Open Mouth
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ExOrigami wrote: ...So when do they announce Home Hardware? Smiling Face With Open Mouth

Home Hardware is on the Aeroplan program, they may or may not move off that loyalty program. Lowes is on Air Miles and Home Depot has no loyalty program. Who knows, maybe Home Depot or Lowes might get lured down the road?

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