Canadian Tire and Tim Hortons Launch Loyalty Rewards Program

Your Tim Hortons order might soon come with Canadian Tire money attached. Canadian Tire Corporation Ltd. announced Monday that it is partnering with Tim Hortons to offer combined rewards to customers of both brands. Beginning sometime next year, customers who link their Triangle and Tims Rewards accounts will be able to earn Canadian Tire money on qualifying purchases made at Tim Hortons. Linking the two accounts will also unlock exclusive offers for participating members.

Neither company has released specifics about the types of offers that will be available. Details about what counts as an eligible purchase and the rate at which Canadian Tire money will be earned per dollar spent will be announced closer to the program’s launch.

Partnership paves the way for more perks and partners

Canadian Tire CEO Greg Hicks and Tim Hortons’ chief marketing officer Hope Bagozzi said the collaboration is intended to add extra value for their customers. In their statements, both executives highlighted how the arrangement will expand benefits for people who already use one or both programs.

The tie-up is another step in the expansion of the Triangle Rewards program beyond the original Canadian Tire family of stores—brands that include SportChek, Party City, Mark’s, Pro Hockey Life and Atmosphere. Triangle already offers incentives for purchases at Petro-Canada gas stations and has partnerships with the Royal Bank of Canada, and a partnership with WestJet is planned to launch next year.

Legacy brands fight for share in a crowded rewards space

Triangle Rewards counts nearly 12 million members and sits at the centre of Canadian Tire’s True North strategy, a multi-year plan intended to drive growth and operational efficiency that includes more than $2 billion in planned investment over four years. Tim Hortons has also been building its rewards ecosystem through initiatives such as the Roll Up To Win contest and by expanding app functionality, including features that let customers skip the line for orders placed ahead.

Lauren Burrows, a senior manager of retail strategy at consulting firm Accenture, described the partnership as “so powerful” because it gives both brands additional ways to engage customers across frequent spending categories—coffee, gasoline, household goods and automotive supplies. In a LinkedIn post, she called the move a strong example of loyalty programs evolving from purely transactional schemes into more strategic customer engagement tools.

Not everyone sees the deal only as a customer boon. Liza Amlani, principal and co‑founder of the Retail Strategy Group, warned that this kind of arrangement is “less about customer delight and more about two legacy brands scrambling for incremental share in an oversaturated loyalty market.” She cautioned that Canadians are already juggling numerous programs and that, unless the value proposition is simple, transparent and genuinely rewarding, the partnership risks feeling like another corporate tie-up that benefits the companies more than shoppers.

Partnerships unlock even deeper consumer insights

The Canadian Tire–Tim Hortons partnership arrives amid a broader wave of loyalty program launches and revamps. Recent years have seen changes to other major programs—Cineplex’s Scene program was redesigned when Empire Co. Ltd. joined, and significant updates are planned for Air Canada’s Aeroplan.

For customers, loyalty programs can mean discounts, perks and more convenient experiences. For businesses, the advantages can be larger and more strategic: loyalty schemes generate detailed data about shopping habits and demographics whenever a customer joins or uses the program. Retailers and partners then use that data to tailor offerings, inventory and store experiences to better match customer preferences, with the goal of increasing sales and loyalty.

When loyalty programs form partnerships, the data picture becomes even richer. Linking programs enables companies to combine insights and build a more complete view of customer behaviour, which can inform cross-brand promotions, product assortments and targeted incentives designed to drive repeat purchases.

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