There is breaking news for Air Miles collectors today. Many were outraged at the Air Miles expiration policy which was to take effect on December 31st, when all of your Air Miles accumulated five years and prior would vanish from your account. Air Miles has now decided to cancel this policy, and your existing Air Miles, five years or older, are no longer at risk of being taken from you.
This is fantastic news for those of you have not yet used those points and will see them remain in your account. However, this is a bit of a slap in the face to those of you who may have made haste to redeem your miles for things you may not have otherwise, simply because you risked losing them.
I switched my Air Miles to cash miles, from dream miles when they were introduced, as I had no dream miles of value accumulated, and have never managed to rack up any substantial amount of miles anyhow. For those of you who were more affected by this, now that “date stamping” your miles is now longer an issue, will you continue to collect Air Miles as you have in the past? How do you feel about Air Miles and this decision?
Many airmiles collectors that felt they were armtwisted into redeeming their points for items they didn’t really want will be even more furious at the company now.
Too late for me, I left the program since they got rid of tons of flights and goods you could redeem for. They ruined what used to be a good program.
They messed up big time. They should either offer to reimburse half the amount of points back to the customers who redeemed and allow them to keep the junk they got, or allow them to return the junk for their full points back. Give them 90 days to do this. Seriously, what a mess !
This sucks.. I redeemed my 400 points for contests because there was nothing else I could get.. If I knew this would happen I wouldn’t have spent them..
This co is a Shame It’s a Pyramid Scheme,Keeps changing all the rewards to higher points redeemed ever so often. They are only 1% of value when You redeem, after waiting in Line to speak to somebody with all Fake names. Even their agents Laugh at You as soon as You finalize a call. Another Sucker Sucked for What (Loyalty).Now they take your points plus fee for what,The points they create and then a fee thats taking twice the LOOT in the bag. No More For this Co
The points would only have begun to expire in January and then not ALL points would have been affected right away. Nobody twisted their arms to hurry up and redeem. It was largely a herd mentality of stampeding for the exits and now they wish they had held their ground. Am I the only person in Canada who’s quite pleased that they don’t have to cash in my miles any time soon?
You obviously work for Air Miles with your ridiculous comment.
You’re so stupid. Of course they twisted my arm. What? Let half of my points expire?
If Air Miles wants to stay in business, they need to allow for a one time transfer of “dream” points to “cash” points. Not all of us have a big company accounts where we can charge everything to, collect the points and be reimbursed from our workplace. Come on everyone, we need to all complain until they allow us to transfer our points to cash points !
I am annoyed as I redeemed points for an item that I did not want or need!!!My points were due to expire end of December.
This company is disgusting. I have been collecting for over 8 years, have 3200 points half of which is (was) expiring end of the year. Wasted half of it on a electrical toothbrush that’s is way overpriced. I was saving it to redeem a return flight. Now that’s not going to happen, stuck with some dumb toothbrush and have another 1800 to burn through some overpriced stuff.
Air Miles is owned by ALLIANCE DATA SYSTEMS. The Chairman, CEO and their Board need to be held accountable for their fraud perpetrated against Canadian consumers.
CLASS ACTION proceedings and a criminal investigation are a minimum.
In the meantime, Air Miles had given itself pubicity even money can’t buy.
MURDERERS get amnesty – but not Air Miles members holding “dream” miles which Air Miles beligerently refuses to convert to CASH MILES.
Unless the people at Air Miles responsible for this criminality go to Jail, no lessons will have been learned.
This company (LoyaltyOne) is very unethical in my opinion. The program is a scam and I am cutting up my card and going to be boycotting every company that issues Air Miles. I am also writing the companies that I did shop at and let them know why I am moving on.
While I understand the outrage on people losing their points by purchasing unwanted items, they have nothing on the disgusting behaviour of Aeroplan.
I lost 35,000 points with them because I was one day late in purchasing something. They have a rule, that if you don’t use your card in a one year period, you lose all your points. I actually didn’t have anywhere to obtain them. The Home Hardware closed down, and all of our Essos changed over to Huskeys. I didn’t take any flights.
I ended up being in the hospital for an extended time when I gave birth to my son, and upon his release, I bought gas at an out of town Esso to keep my points up. (ONE day late apparently) When I checked my balance I found out my points were ALL gone.
When I called to complain, and after going through all the levels of supervisors, I was told, “We don’t care if you’re dying of cancer, and are too busy with chemo, it’s your fault you didn’t get points within the year, and there is nothing we’re going to do.” And they hung up.
I had been collecting since 1999.
Personally I find Air Miles’ policy, including their previous expiry policy, was extremely lenient compared to nearly all other loyalty programs. Aeroplan was mentioned above — which btw is why I refuse to have anything to do with Aeroplan. (I think only people who fly multiple times a year can really make it work, and I only fly maybe once every five years, and then usually only within Canada.) Air Miles is downright easygoing by comparison.
Then again, I did and do pay active attention to all my loyalty programs, including changes and especially special offers. I converted to 90% Cash Miles as soon as it became available — and then I began actively using those Cash Miles to earn more AM, eg. cashing out only during AM-back weekends to buy items on sale and with very good AM bonuses, not using AM Cash at Rexall (since they do not combine it with their promotions), etc.
No company account btw, and on the low end of middle-class income. The only reason I am Onyx — have been ever since they first introduced it — is because I manage my Air Miles like an active investment, so I am always paying attention to changes and new offers, and I am always trying to plan ahead, even for simple things such as a restaurant night out. As a baseline, I always try to get 3 or more AM per dollar spent on non-gas items, and between 0.50 and 1 AM per dollar spent on gas-related items … which means that I only have to spend about $3,000 per year, on items I buy anyway, to reach Onyx level. So far, I have been managing that level of spending fairly effortlessly.
There are also occasional epic-level breaks, such as the weeks at Sobeys, shortly after they introduced the program, when they gave AM simply for buying their store gift cards. No expiry date means taking your time spending the gift card, so you can use it only on the good sale items. During one of the subsequent weeks, PowerAde was on promotion such that the bonus AM given with the product paid for the product (meaning that base earned AM plus the gift card AM were a bonus). That kind of break is rare, but you can count on something similar at least a couple of times a year.
My personal regular favourites are the cumulative in-store AM multiplier promotions at Shell. I buy one lottery ticket a week, plus occasional strips of bus tickets. Shell carries both. Minimum in-store purchase to get the bonus is $10, which is basically one strip of bus tickets plus a lottery ticket. Another such purchase are restaurant gift cards such as the Swiss Chalet restaurant family: bonus AM plus cash-back credit card for the initial gift card purchase, SCENE bonuses with the meal. Five such store purchases gave me an AM bonus of 15+50 AM (at the second and fifth shop respectively) — for buying things I buy anyway.
Finally, Air Miles is not a pyramid scheme. No one who signs on now loses out on Air Miles incentives available to everyone. However, I have learned the hard way (at work, in fact) that terms and conditions constantly change in the background — so I have subsequently learned to pay close attention. Air Miles again was quite reasonable in this regard. When it was first introduced, their expiry policy and cash miles policy was announced in large banners and personal emails to every subscriber, so there was plenty of time to make the adjustment. Yes, I too was caught with several hundred unspent Dream Miles when the gift cards stopped being available — but it took only a couple of years before I was able to spend them on Christmas gifts for others, for things I knew they wanted. These days, I find I am spending them almost as quickly as I earn them. Maybe it helps that I have always known a major overseas trip was beyond my means, so I always looked for short local getaways instead. (I really miss the VIA travel gift cards!)