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moneysense.ca, 17/07/08
Quick Tip: Don’t let your Aeroplan Points Expire
If you are an Aeroplan account holder, keep your account current by making at least one transaction every year. Even if you don’t fly frequently, you can collect Aeroplan points at Esso gas stations by swiping the orange card with a magnetic stripe. If you don’t have the newer cards (don’t forget to call Aeroplan and request a new card), you can earn points by buying specially marked Tropicana or Quaker products and entering a code on this website.
It sounds silly to jump through these hoops but if you have a significant number of points, you may not want to lose them. For instance, if you have accumulated $100,000 points, the cash value is about $800. Since Aeroplan made changes to the loyalty program requiring members to make at least one transaction in a 12-month period to avoid expiry of all points in the account, a number of members have commented that they lost their accumulated points due to inactivity (check the comments in this post). If the miles did expire, it may not be worthwhile to get them reinstated as the economic value of the points (about 0.80¢) is roughly the same as the fee (Aeroplan charges $30 plus 1¢ per mile).
moneysense.ca, 17/07/08
Good reminder. Be aware that the economic value of points is hard to estimate and depends very much on what you will redeem them for. It can be less than 0.5 cents a mile if you purchase the nontravel awards in the catalog, it can be in excess of 5c/mile if you use the miles to purchase business class tickets you would have otherwise purchased for cold hard cash.
A few years ago, people tended to value miles at 2c/mile. Since then, in general miles have devalued. I’d still argue that in many cases they are worth more than 0.8c. I personally accumulate about 200,000 miles a year and value them at 1-1.5c/mile for me.
Minor typo – there should be no dollar sign before the 100,000 in the post
There is also an expriry of points after 7 years. (Points accumulated to the end of 2007 have 7 years from that point on.) So for infrequent flyers, there is not much chance of accumulating points for that once in a lifetime trip.
Also, do not wait until the last minute to make that transaction. Points from Esso or Tropicana may take a few weeks to post. A last minute solution may be to spend 5000 points on a gift card or a few thousand to charity.
“Bundling” a couple of Bell services, e.g. internet and landline, for billing can include monthly Aeroplan points mind-free along with a small money discount.
Bell canceled their Aeroplan participation 4 months ago. Primus is the only telecom provider to offer Aeroplan points.
I think CIBC gurantees their VISA AEROGOLD cardholders will not have their aeroplan points expire whether the client has any account activity or not. Of course not using a $120/year credit card is a poor way of maintaining your points balance!
Flyer: Thanks for pointing out the typo. I’ll correct it. I agree that my valuation of the miles is the lowest possible because I’m using the conversion rate to cash (or gift cards). I looks like you are successful in redeeming points for flight tickets. Care to share some insider secrets?
Paolo: That’s one reason I’m sick of these loyalty points. I use a Costco Amex cashback card and am happy with the annual cheque. Even PC Mastercard is great as you get $20 off groceries every now and then.
Forone: Jon is right. Here’s what the Bell website says:
“Bell and Aeroplan have elected not to renew their agreement to allow Bell customers to earn Aeroplan Miles on their monthly bills. As of October 20, 2007, you can no longer add an Aeroplan number to your Bell account.
If you are currently earning Aeroplan Miles on your Bell bill you will continue to do so up to December 18, 2007. Bills issued after this date will no longer earn Miles.
This change does not affect Miles you’ve already earned, nor does it affect your Aeroplan membership status.”
Jon: Primus also allows Air Miles. I’ve collected Air Miles when I subscribed to their internet service but they seem to have added Aeroplan since then.
I try to use up my aeroplan points for flights as soon as I have enough. I don’t collect a lot of points, but enough for one or two short haul flights per year.
The value depends on the flight redeemed. I like to check how much the flight would have cost with cash, right after the aeroplan flight is booked. Last time I redeemed, I got two flights (shorthaul) from Ottawa to NYC over new years. Only cost 30,000 aeroplan points, but to pay cash would have been over $1000 a flight.
That’s correct JK, though Aeroplan Visa card holders are still subject to the 7 year time limit.
I “bought” ($120) the card for 1 year and canceled it as they were offering 25,000 points rather than 15000 and was about to make a few large purchases anyway.
Ug. I despise the Aeroplan LOYALTY program. I used up all my points this year, on a wonderfully exotic flight to Toronto. After my “free flight” I was still out of pocket $220 for EACH ticket due to various surcharges and fees. Nothing is free.
Squawkfox… I had to chuckle because I have the exact same feeling about Aeroplan. Pre-merger, I was mainly a Canadian Plus Points member but I absolutely despise Aeroplan, post-merger.
Since then, Air Miles has become my favourite loyalty program. Some of my friends use their Air Miles for merchandise rewards and I have to admit that they got a lot of cool stuff… But for me personally, I love travelling too much to squander my Air Miles on stuff like iPods or Blue Jays tickets. But then again, if I had enough points to get that Vespa scooter they offered for a while… Just kidding! I’d rather rent a Vespa to get around in Italy! =0)
I collected 36,000 points and they are all expired last year. I did get a email from aeroplan and did try to renew it by going to Esso to fill gas. Unfortunately I went to full service gas station and they mess up my aeroplan card with someone else’s, two month later my points expired. I called aeroplan and they adviced me to call Esso and gave me their contact number. Following their instruction I called Esso and they promised thing could be fixed. But later I found out that the ‘fix’ was get back 10 points from that mistake but not getting back the expired points. So now the 10 points is sitting in my account like a joke…
I am going to send back the card to them as I decide I am not collecting aeroplan points any more. My husband and I used to use CIBC aeroplan card and the points goes to his account, but now we switch to CIBC dividen card, it’s free and we get 1% rebate from out spending. I am happy that I have nothing to do with Aeroplan any more.
yes, i got 180,000 right now, i used my point from time to time exchange tickets from Toronto to Hong Kong, i remember that last time only cost me abourn $250 for the taxes per ticket, and now since the fuel sur-charge goes up…. it cost about $420+ for the taxes and misc….. so expenseive to cash a ticket now !
My aeroplan number is 351-026-471 but when I tried to check on my airmile status it said it was not a valid number. Please check on this problem for me. THANKS
I too have a commment to leave re: Air Canada and their aeroplan miles. I worked in Canada but many times i had to fly to customers facilities throughout N.A., Mexico and S.A. and used Air Canada extensively as my carrier. I had been travelling approximately 40-50 times per year over a 12 yr period and held off using my points until i deemed i was ready for my ultimate getaway free of charge. On several occasions i had to book 1st class due to a shortage of seats only to realize at the time that coach was almost completely empty and they had to justify the fuel costs. Over the years i recieved my monthly statements showing the air miles that were accumulating, but they eventually stopped. I too also tried the internet where i was also told that my i.d. # was not valid and tried to resolve this to no avail. Finally recently deciding i was long overdue to take the elusive free flights i found that Air Canada revoked my points, my account now shows Zero. I assume since it is in partnership with the Star Aliance group, that any other commercial flights i took are equally dismissed. I feel that this is an unfair justice for being a loyal customer for so many years and that Air Canada has done this to keep its available seats for the presently paying customers. I will however continue to fly, but i can certainly assure you that it will not be with Air Canada nor its partners.
It seems that some transactions do not qualify as activities and will not extend your account’s expiry date. If you check the list of transactions on your account, there is a “status activity” column. Transactions from Tropicana and Quaker might not qualify as status activities.
I have esso ponts I would to get aero plan miles