Air Miles Canada is changing their program as of December 31, 2011. Here are is an outline of the new program:
1) As of December 31, 2011, Air Miles reward miles will have a stamp date of 5 years. In other words, your current account balance must be redeemed by December 31, 2016.
2) Reward miles earned after December 31, 2011 will have to be redeemed 5 years from when they were posted. For example, if you earn Air Miles reward miles on January 15, 2012, you will have to redeem them by January 15, 2017.
Click here for more information regarding these two changes.
3) A new program called Air Miles Cash enables collectors to instantly redeem their reward miles in store at participating sponsors. This program will begin in March 2012. Click here for more information regarding this program.
Click here to browse the Air Miles Canada website.
Thanks FallenPixels!
What a scam by AirMiles !!! People are gonna lose their miles now and AM will pocket them.
That sucks…not a big fan of the expiry on your points. Kind of good about the instant cash back though in certain stores.
How is that legal? They’re earned points that are given when money is spent. What a load of BS!
At least they are giving us five years to use the points. With Aeroplan if there is no activity on your account for one year points are revoked.
an air mile usually takes $15-20. So unless you have a credit card that also gives you air miles an air miles gives you about 10 cents for spending 20 buck or 20 cents if you can double up. So basically 1/2 % or 1% return. Many credit cards do better then this without the hassle.
Not happy at all to hear about this change! 🙁
i didn’t see where it says this begin March 2012…..the only date i saw is December 31st 2011…..so i’m loosing some points right now because there is no GC i can redeem them for in my area
This sucks.. cuz first of ALL they dont even credit your account FAST enough.. im STILL waiting for Shell Promo….. since March 2011!!! and i didnt get that bonus 10!
and second HOW can one possibly keep track of when EACH reward mile was earned and when it shud be redeemed..
and if u dont have enough rewards for a ANYthing that means they POCKET ur airmiles?!?!?!?!
BLAH to them!
Yes it is a scam. I did a comparison. At Shell, if you redeem 95 airmiles for cash you will get $10 off instantly. 2X 95 is 190 airmiles or $20 off instantly. You can get the same $20 of gas in a GC if you redeem 175 airmiles! So that same gas is really costing you an extra 15 airmiles – who is winning here? Not us that’s for sure.
Well do not omplain and just use your air miles up. Many companies are changing policies so just track your points and enjoy them while you have them….nothing lasts forever.
So here’s a question…..Company A purchases airmiles from the airmiles company to give to their customers. I go into Company A and buy $20 of merchandise and I get an airmile or two for my purchase. Now, the airmiles company is taking back my airmile that I paid for that didn’t cost them a cent to give out. I never liked airmiles and this is just another reason why! They take FOREVER to accumulate!!
This is a bad move on part of Air Miles.
This is the reason why I stopped shopping at Sears and don’t use Aeroplan.
Now it’s time to move on to credit cards with cash back – like Walmart; and points that never expire: Zellers/ClubZ, Shoppers Optimum and Pc Points.
I for one figured that this was on it’s way. After all, most companies have expiry dates and Aeroplan has had the one year expiry thing for as long as I can remember. The best thing top do is not to panic as it’s FIVE years before you have to worry about losing points. I for one appreciate that they gave us a heads up. I have lots of miles, and now I have to consider what to spend them on. As for the lousy return on your miles earned on the credit card, I agree that you can do better with other cards. I for one think that the Presidents Choice one is the best one out there. Just my opinion.
Boycott time! http://on.fb.me/uYREFl
Mia001 you will not lose any points you have right now until 2016.
Five years is a long time and face it, airmiles is a business. They needed a way to calculate the liability of outstanding miles on their books. I have redeemed over 10 airline tickets in the past five years with them. If you are a regular user of airmiles (I am, I shop at Shell, safeway, online with their associate stores and use their mastercard everyday for extra miles) this should not be an issue. As the program is free to join there is little benefit to boycotting. In case others don’t realize – every other point program out there has a time limit on miles.
I remember a similar situation with Sear’s point system. I had a ton of points, but lost them all due to new expiry rules (not enough notice either). I was so pissed I cancelled all my Sear’s accounts and cards.
(No easy task to cancel a Sear’s account or card either, but it was worth it on principle alone). In this case too, who wants to have to keep track now of when you earned points and when they will expire. I’m hoping they will give fair warning when some points are about to disappear.
Wow, this change is very unfortunate as Rexall, Metro and the LCBO are the only places in my area that reward Airmiles, which “coincidentally” are stores that I don’t usually shop in.
BUT! For the time being, Ontario residents can fill out a survey for Ontario Health and earn 35 Airmiles; thus extending the 5-year stamp date a little longer!
It is not 5 years from the last earned airmile, it is for each one and they say they will still offer the online GCs, it is just an extra option
At present the credit card option that I find most beneficial is MBNA Smartcash. I get 3% “cash back” on my fuel and grocery purchases, plus 1% on remaining purchases. When I accumulate 5000 points, MBNA sent me a $50 cheque. If I am at Metro or Shell I still use my Air Miles collector card as a small bonus. I just redeem AM points for gas or grocery cards in future. I was always a “gold” collector for many years but since I started using MBNA Smartcash as my primary credit card I am unable to qualify with Air Miles, but I earn “cash” in my pocket now. Only an opinion.
tp1943 ++1
Dunno why more ppl don’t get this credit card. Had it for less than a year and already got 3 $50 cheques cut to me, and all i was doing is buying gas and groceries…plus a few extra things……it’s stuff i’d buy anyways. Points cards are so secondary now……
Nice thing about MBNA card is if you look around you can get 5% rebate on gas and groceries for the first 6 months then 3% thereafter but this is only for the first 600 each month otherwise it is 1%
@tp1943 and @BaikinMan
I looked on their website didn’t get the answers to the questions I have, perhaps if you have a moment you can answer them for me.
How many dollars do you have to spend to get a point, so that 5000 points then equals $50?
Do you start back at 0 points each month if you haven’t accumulated enough for a $50 chq back? OR do the points just continue to accumulate and then you get the $50 once you hit the 5000 points?
It’s origin was for redeeming flight tickets, unfortunately, not many actually accumulate enough to redeem that. So they branching out into gift cards from other retail stores. With the new restriction, you can forget about redeeming any flights at all. They should just change their name. On second thought, perhaps the Air in Air miles just mean lots of air with nothing to show for.
Will they have something on their website that shows when the miles expire? I’m over halfway to a luggage set I want. I get lots of airmiles from my prescriptions. I’ve collected 1100 in 9 months so I’ve still got lots of time build up and get my reward.
Not nice. At least we now know the “true” value of an Air Mile about 9.5 cents. So that means my flight which cost $211 for taxes and fees and 1450 AM was really only worth about $153. So $211 of tax and fees on $153?!?!?!
Also since an AM is worth 9.5 cents, why does it cost 15 cents to transfer it to another account?