Do you still take out your Air Miles card? Regularly, as was the case 15 or 20 years ago? I bet not.
After its heyday, the loyalty program has lost almost all of its luster and the partners that made it attractive, such as Rona, Jean Coutu and IGA. Its new owner, BMO, is now trying to reinvent it by offering new ways to accumulate miles. Unfortunately, they require a good dose of motivation from consumers.
Unless you have a credit card that automatically awards Air Miles based on purchase volume, I would even say that you have to be a rewards enthusiast to take advantage of the benefits of the program.
The newest way to get a free kettle or cinema tickets is called Air Miles Receipts. The pan-Canadian launch, announced a few days ago, follows tests carried out in the Atlantic provinces last summer.
To get miles, here’s what you need to do: go to the Air Miles app to “view available offers”, purchase “eligible products” in “most major national and regional grocery stores”, scan your receipt using the app and send the image to Air Miles within 14 days. The miles will appear in our account “a few days later or even sooner”, we promise.
The list of businesses includes Costco, Walmart, Maxi, IGA, Metro, Super C, Dollarama, Tigre Géant and several others.
To give you an idea of the offers, a large pot of Astro yogurt or Nutella chocolate spread gives you 10 miles, an avocado, 4 miles, a broccoli, 3, a package of sausages, 5, a carton of eggs, 4. In total, 16 offers were in effect for the period from November 16 to 29.
For fresh products like meat and eggs, no specific brand is specified, which is good news since we can choose the products we really like and take advantage of sales in store.
I also didn’t expect vegetables to be on the list, since the offerings seem to be funded by big food processing companies. Moreover, Air Miles claims that its program will allow its partners to experience a “monumental improvement” in their ability to thrive. Nothing less ! Specialist in loyalty programs at Milesopedia, Caroline Tremblay assumes that the miles offered on fresh produce are financed by BMO which is “pushing” a lot on its program so that it survives after coming close to bankruptcy last winter. “BMO is on fire with Air Miles right now and they are giving away miles to diversify the distribution,” she told me.
Either way, let’s hope that fresh produce continues to earn miles, even after Air Miles has recruited a bunch of partners. Too often, promotions of this type only apply to processed products.
According to Milesopedia calculations, one Air Miles mile is worth $0.105 (95 miles equals $10).
Thus, the 3 miles offered on the purchase of a broccoli provide a saving of $0.32. Purchasing a jar of Nutella would give $1.05 in miles, which is still not negligible, especially if this promotion is added to a sale.
Assuming a realistic gain of 15 miles per week, we end up after a year with 780 miles worth almost $82. Some will answer yes, others no.
Of course, you don’t need to consult the Air Miles app to write your grocery list. You can simply send your receipt in the hope of obtaining, thanks to chance, a few miles. But the process still requires more effort and organization than simply presenting your card at the checkout. Will a large proportion of members get into the habit of sending in their invoice? Caroline Tremblay expects, like me, that the proportion will be “fairly low”.
By the way, Receipts Air Miles didn’t invent anything. Checkout 51 and Eclipsa offer a similar formula. These platforms give cashback.
Air Miles also offers “à la carte” and temporary offers in certain stores.
But as I already explained1, it is not enough to present your credit card. It would even be useless! Instead, you must go to the Air Miles website and enter your Mastercard credit card number to link your two accounts. It works with all Mastercards, regardless of the issuer.
Again, the consumer must be proactive and motivated, but the process should only be done once. We salute the creativity, but the offers are too few at the moment to hope for a gift in the medium term. They can be counted on the fingers of one hand for Quebecers, and in some cases, they require an additional step: to be entitled to miles at Sephora, you must first take the time, on the Air website Miles, to “subscribe to the offer”. This is not the case for obtaining miles at Dollarama, an offer valid until January 31, 2024.
And good news for those who have miles lying around in their Dream account, it will be possible to transfer them to the Money account, somewhere in 2024.
Thanks to the proliferation of announcements of this type, Milesopedia notes that the program is slowly regaining interest among consumers. It might be better to think twice before throwing away your card.