AirMiles still deceivng us | Page 2 | Your stories | Discussion forum

All of my AirMiles from the qualifying offers were posted ages ago, nno later than early June. but, still, no MegaMiles.

Thanks for posting, and congratulations!
I just looked, and mine are posted too.
Thanks for all help in ensuring I did it right, despite the poor communication from AirMiles

The next thing is to use them up before they get devalued!

AirMiles has a new bonus deal, called "Shop the Block". https://shoptheblock.ca/en/home/

For this one, you have to make up to 7 specified purchases, but you can get up to 2,000 bonus AirMiles as well as individual bonuses on particular items. This can be done, at least by me, by spending only about $30 that I didn't otherwise need to spend. A great deal if I can actually get it.

The purchases themselves are not onerous if you live in an area where these things are sold, and, in general, this one is not as badly handled as the previous one, but, still, there are glitches and caveats.

Things to be aware of:

Not all of the offers are to be found in the printed booklet, which is more widely available than the last one was. I found them at Sobey's. You need to go online to get all the offers, and there will probably be some new ones added in a week or so when they run out of the required items at the LCBO.

Some require coupons, and others don't. Make sure you use a coupon if it is required. Check your receipt to make sure the bonus offer specified on each coupon went through - you will see the individual bonus that you got for this purchase.

There is an offer for Cadbury chocolate bars of a certain size at Foodland and at Sobey's. For the one at Foodland at least (perhaps also Sobey's), I discovered that not all of the Cadbury bars that met the criteria were being credited for the offer. I had to go back to the store, return them, and start again. The CSR was very helpful and said she'd run into this once before already. Most people probably won't notice if it didn't go through, and will find out later that they supposedly didn't qualify and will be told that they didn't present a coupon or some such excuse - if AirMiles doesn't recognize its error. Even if they do recognize the error, it will be a pain to correct later, and you will probably have to phone. Look to see that you were credited the 20 bonus Miles on your receipt for these chocolate bars before you leave the store, to save yourself a trip. I am not sure which bars don't work but I think it's the "Dark Premium" one at least.

Watch out for start dates AND expiry dates on the offers. They are not consistent. Plan out what you are going to do at the beginning or you could get caught short with a time limitation. You may need to mark it in your calendar to be sure of meeting the required window.

Please post any other problems that you may find.

Good luck!

Air Miles has, in my opinion, been a bit of a dicey operation for quite a while. I don't know about all the interconnected corporations etc., but I do recall that AirMIles failed to catch on in the US and folded. They have lost (and gained) and sometimes lost-and-regained numerous merchants in Canada over time. ViaRail is back, but was gone for a while. BMO has been a stalwart, but with fewer linked products now. Curiously, they have 2 of the 3 major food retailer groups in Canada at the time.

We got rid of our BMO AirMiles MC a long time ago as not competitive plus the risk of AM folding is always there, especially during last Fall's fiasco.

Just today, I think I finally got rid of almost all my "Dream Miles", I think. I got rid of them last year, but the item never arrived and they reinstated my Miles (only when asked), so had to look for another deal. I still have 130 Miles but may never use them as too small to do anything much.

I advise anyone who asks to collect only the "Cash Miles" and to use them up as soon as possible. As long as Shell hangs in as a partner, I'm good - or one of the grocery stores. The best deals, in retrospect, used to be with gift cards and BMO, and we got quite a few of them - still have some of the old gift cards! At one point you could pay down your mortgage with AirMiles, if you had it with BMO. Then there was the GIC reward - both gone now. The flights, which were the original deal, became too expensive quite a while ago because they charge very high associated fees when you redeem. We've gotten several flights in the past but I wouldn't save for them now.

AirMiles is also moving more into online shopping. They now sell merchandise, with no Miles involved. That may also be fruitful for them, but I wouldn't touch it.

I've read that Canadians seem to have a large appetite for reward systems, compared to other countries. This may be why AirMiles survives here. At one point I thought I would stop using them, but as long as they aren't costing me any more money I will use them. We will be making a concerted effort to use them up at Shell over the next few months and at the grocery stores when they have redemption bonuses. Gas is a necessity and costs about the same everywhere, especially if you have Sobey's coupons - which a non-driving relative saves for us! If they lost those sponsors, though, I would be less interested.

In any event, the current promotion is a great deal if you don't get caught in the fine print. Between the two of us, we expect to net about $360. We haven't used up the AirMiles from the last big promo yet, so, in total, that will carry us through about 7 months of gas.