AirMiles what a deal! ???? | General financial discussion | Discussion forum

Kanaka;
Interesting article. The only issue I have with it is that it doesn't take into account the various promos available through various sponsors. Amex currently is offering 1 air mile for every purchase on top of the usual 1 for every $20 at non-sponsors and 1/15 at sponsors. As well, they gave me a Christmas "gift" of 200 air Miles and offered me 700 if I charge $1500 by March 31. Safeway has excellent air miles offers on items we buy anyway. If you take advantage of the bonus offers and accumulate strategically, you can rack up quite a few air miles with minimal output, which would drastically increase the value of the Air Miles. I do agree that the sponsors are more limited and the standard offer by some sponsors is not worth going out of my way for. Shell recently revamped their offer to ridiculously low levels if you don't take into account their bonus offers. I have been evaluating the value of air miles lately as I am not impressed with their reward offers, but decided to stick with them, for now.

kanaka, a couple of ideas if you want to bother with them.

1. sign up for email from AirMiles and partners - well, at least the Air Miles. Offers sometimes come by email and not in snail mail.
2. sign in to AirMiles site frequently. There are offers there sometimes that come and go and are not necessarily promoted elsewhere. For example, there was one a few weeks ago that if you activated your "Cash rewards", you would get 100 bonus AM. My spouse got this offer but I did not, although neither of us had previously activated. There was another one that I didn't take right away, forget what it was exactly, but it was like a "flash" offer - was only there when it was there, and could not be found again. It can be worth running through their "promotions and offers" online once a week or so, and ALL partners once a month. However, all of this takes time, and you have to read the rules carefully, so may not be worth one's time. Often, I can't be bothered. You can do it while watching TV!
They are a funny organization inasmuch as there seem to be a number of hidden sources of AirMiles if you keep your eyes open.
At the Zoomer show here in the Fall, one exhibitor was offering 25 AM just for filling out a brief form. (Free tickets to show provided by Oaken through link in a post here by kanaka!- thanks!)

For those in Ontario, Sobey's and Foodland are about to join Air Miles, on same basis as Metro, but no evidence that Metro is leaving. This is strange because Metro and Sobey's are direct competitors and separate grocery empires. What sort of "loyalty" does that build?, I wonder.

From spouse's account, we just ordered a sub to Moneysense for 110 AM, definitely the cheapest price going. Library copies are always missing. Should at least provide entertainment value, and once in a while some useful ideas.

So, now we have almost no AM left! - 13 and 7 in our respective accounts! At least we don't have to worry about them getting devalued or expired any more.

Hi Norman,
Maybe.
On the other hand, Metro has been doing very well according to the financial news, exceeding expectations, so i would have thought that (a) they didn't need a freebie, and (b) they might raise quite an uproar about giving up their competitive advantage.
I think the pressure might have come via Sobey's. Sobey's was already affiliated with AirMiles in the Maritimes, I believe, so would have had their foot in the door already and able to extend it as a wedge. i don't know which company is worth more to LoyaltyOne.
Whatever went on in the back room, it does show that it's not really about "loyalty" any more.

At my house, the chips would be all gone by the next week! lol

I am ruthless about never buying something I don't need, or at an inflated price, just to get some points or miles. And, so, I almost never get any Air Miles at Metro, because almost everything they sell fits one of these categories. Will probably be the same with Sobey's, as they are at least as expensive as Metro where I live.

Cashed in some AirMiles this week for a sub to MoneySense so that I will be even smarter about spending and saving! (Good deal, too, at 110 Air Miles = $11.55, gives me both paper and digital access.)

Perhaps this is a prelude to a takeover of one by the other? Then we'd only have 2 major grocery store companies left!

I could be wrong, but I have read in the past that margins in this business are all tight.
Perhaps both Sobey's and Metro needed some help to fend off Loblaw/Weston. Where I live, the latter has the strongest presence and a more attractive model, at least from my perspective as a consumer.

On the other hand, surveys seem to suggest that AirMiles is perhaps the most popular rewards card out there, so it would be worth fighting for. Sobey's Ontario was linked until now to Aeroplan as an option for the consumer, but they may have wanted to ditch that because Aeroplan isn't as popular. Another thing that this arrangement will offer Sobey's is the likelihood of bumping sales by value of purchases. With the old Sobey's points (better, and worth slightly more), there was no minimum purchase in order to get points, and every dollar spent was rewarded. Air Miles only kicks in at $20 and at $20 increments. With the usual smoke and mirrors, they may be hoping that shoppers won't notice. On that score, PCPoints still wins, for the consumer. PC also offers points through all their brands of stores, which does not happen with AirMiles clients.

Metro and Sobey's both send us offers based on our purchasing habits, such as they know them (We don't shop much at either one and don't have an AM creditcard), but I find they are inefficiently presented so I almost never use them.

The real winner is LoyaltyOne, based in Texas. http://www.theglobeandmail.com.....y/?q=ADS-N with the parent having profits of over 11%.

The other thing that spooked consumers with Aeroplan was when they introduced the expiry dates (now abandonned). A lot of people lost all their points with Aeroplan, not sure if this was the reason or just "inactivity", but they were really PO'd. It's fairly easy to NOT rack up any Aeroplan points in a year because they don't have nearly as many partners as AirMiles, and not everybody takes a paid AC flight every year, so it was fairly easy to lose all your points - still is. I make sure I buy something at one of their partners once a year whether I need it or not, just to retain my miles, of which I have quite a lot.

Air Miles, although it is constantly devaluing its points and silently losing deals and points, has been a lot more savvy about retaining members. They have retained their expiry date system, but the first one is still a long ways off. The 95 AM onsite redemptions allows far less chance of your Air Miles expiring if you only have to accumulate 95 of them in order to get a reward that you can actually use. You can still lose your AM through "inactivity" but fewer people have fallen victim to this than with aeroplan because AM partners are more ubiquitous.

Isn't it amazing how $630million profit can somehow equate with the vulnerability of small margins. It's still a huge profit.

There are lots more efficient ways of getting AirMiles than shopping at Metro or "buying" them.
Bonus offers are the best, but not the only. You do need to spend some time reading their email and studying their website to see where you can get extra miles. Your choice.

Between Nov 22 and Jan 22, I accumulated 92 Air Miles. I spent $20 and only bought stuff that was either on a good sale or that I couldn't get elsewhere. If I hadn't spent the $20, I would have only earned 91 Air Miles.

Works for me!

The Loyalty Management Group is a profitable company. They get to make whatever deals they can with merchants. If they could get away with charging the merchant $.40 for an Airmile, I'm sure they would. Larger businesses probably get better deals.

Maybe we're in the wrong business! lol