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moneysense.ca, 16/02/06
Comparing Loyalty Programs
PC Points and Sears Club loyalty programs have the most generous awards.
Current issue:
Canadians are addicted to loyalty programs and there are plenty of them ranging from AIR MILES to Club Z points (I haven’t stepped into a Zellers store in years, so I believe the latter is now defunct). The fact that Canadian Tire “money” is practically a parallel currency says something about our collective addiction. Personally, I am enrolled in AIR MILES, Aeroplan and PC Points loyalty programs.
Recently, I wanted to redeem my AIR MILES for an Apple iPod, so I visited the various loyalty program websites to figure out the actual dollar value of a point. The results are summarized in the following table.
| Loyalty Program | To Earn 1 Point | To redeem $10 (in Points) | Rewards Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aeroplan | $1.00 | 1,200 | 0.83% |
| AIR MILES | $20.00 | 74 | 0.68% |
| PC Points | 10¢ | 10,000 | 1.00% |
| Canadian Tire Money | $66.67 | 10 | 1.50% |
| Sears Club | $1.00 | 667 | 1.50% – 4.00% |
| Shoppers Optimum | 10¢ | 7000 | 1.40% – 2.00% |
| HBC Rewards | 2¢ | 9160 | 0.50% |
Aeroplan, AIR MILES and PC Points can be collected as rewards through various credit cards and rewards range from 0.68% (for AIR MILES no-fee credit cards) to 1% (for PC MasterCard). I am not aware of a no-fee credit card that can be used to collect Aeroplan miles, so the value of the rewards is less than 0.83%. 1.5% seems to be the standard reward for loyalty programs offered by assorted retail outlets, though Sears Rewards can be as high as 4%. Note that rewards on department store credit cards are typically lower than rewards for in-store purchases.
moneysense.ca, 16/02/06
Do you know abt this website: ttp://www.points.com
It helps you keep track of all your points/miles etc and you also get a bonus for joining.
Thanks for the info J’adore. I will check them out.
[...] Some credit cards charge an annual fee and provide more generous rewards. Are these cards worth their annual fee? To find out, let’s compare the no-fee American Express AIR MILES credit card with the Gold card that carries a $50 annual fee. One AIR MILE is worth about 13.5¢, so the Gold card earns more rewards than the no-fee version only when more than $22,200 is spent. [...]
Have you ever heard of Avion?
http://www.rbcroyalbank.com/online/avionspring06/index.html?ASC=AVM07
It looks the reward rate is around 2% even after you take into account the $120 annual fee. I’m still looking for the catch.
[...] Aeroplan also graciously reinstates expired miles for an administrative fee of just $30 plus 1¢ per restored mile. Of course, you almost never want to reinstate expired points because each mile has an economic value of about 0.83¢. [...]
[...] the checkout, I found a less publicized side to the story: Loblaws gives a bonus of 50 PC Points (worth about 5 cents) for every reusable bag. In other words, it is not a simple rip off: Loblaws penalizes customers [...]
[...] real life, road warriors can also visit various websites to compare airlines’ and hotels’ loyalty programs. This is also normal – the pursuit of best [...]