Air Miles

[Cheebs]

Let's talk Air Miles.

After a few years of moderate collecting, I'm up to 3000 miles. I've discovered that with all that, I can pretty much get a couple blenders or a duffel bag. That's about it.

Has everyone else moved on to Aeroplan, or are there any other air miles collectors out there? I'm not angry or anything, but it just seems like it would take a decade, or heavy Mastercard and Air Miles card usage to ever gather enough points to go on some kind of trip.

Should I make the switch to something else, or stick it out and just give it time?

[Aquaticfinatic]

3000 should get you to a Canadian destination?? Calgary to kelowna bc was a 1000 rtn.

[JetJumper]

I use aeroplan personally.  So far I have bought a new TV with my points and have more then enough points to do the same again.  However I get extra points from trips from work.

[Greatwhite]

I have been collecting Aeroplan forever... I've had free trips all over, and there is also merchandise you can get.  When the iPad 2 came out, and was sold out everywhere, a friend of mine got one through Aeroplan.

I get points using my credit card, travelling, getting gas......  Love it.

The only better point system, in my opinion, is Shoppers Optimum... But that's a different can of worms.

[Nerine]

if you don't want your air miles I'll take em hehehe

we already redeemed $400 at Rona!!

[xbrentx]

I have done the research on all points programs.

The first thing you need to ask yourself is what you want to get at the end; cash, merchandise, or travel?

Cash?  Get a straight up cash back card, Scotia and MBNA have good returns atm.

Merchandise?  Try to find a program that gives you at least a 1% return in value, aim for 1.5%-2% if possible.

Travel?  Air miles / Aeroplan.  Make sure you have the matching credit card to earn bonus miles.  I have the Gold BMO airmiles card, I have to spend $15 to get 1 air mile, that is worth 0.14 cents towards travel.  It's not 1% but you earn a lot of bonus miles along with your normal spending and Shell gas and Metro. 

I don't spend/make a lot of money but I pay attention to the bonus offers and use them whenever possible.  I'm up to 7400 air miles, multiply that by 0.14 and I have $1036 towards travel, not too shabby.

[Cheebs]

I have done the research on all points programs.

The first thing you need to ask yourself is what you want to get at the end; cash, merchandise, or travel?

Cash?  Get a straight up cash back card, Scotia and MBNA have good returns atm.

Merchandise?  Try to find a program that gives you at least a 1% return in value, aim for 1.5%-2% if possible.

Travel?  Air miles / Aeroplan.  Make sure you have the matching credit card to earn bonus miles.  I have the Gold BMO airmiles card, I have to spend $15 to get 1 air mile, that is worth 0.14 cents towards travel.  It's not 1% but you earn a lot of bonus miles along with your normal spending and Shell gas and Metro. 

I don't spend/make a lot of money but I pay attention to the bonus offers and use them whenever possible.  I'm up to 7400 air miles, multiply that by 0.14 and I have $1036 towards travel, not too shabby.

Aweseome, thank you. That's a good way of looking at it. I have the gold Mastercard as well, but I know I should use it more and just pay off the card monthly to earn more miles.

Thanks everyone for the advice haha, I'll be keeping them I was perhaps exaggerating a bit when I was talking about how little I could get for 3000 miles.
Cheers

[Nerine]

I found that with air miles when you use it for travel it is not a good deal...also when I TRIED to use my air miles for flight, you have to book a hotel etc it had to be part of a package, I couldn't just book a flight! I tried getting around that, maybe it's changed in the past 6 years?? But I ended up using my air miles for gift certificates and it worked out better value that way! Now they changed it a bit and you get cash back at Metro/Rona and a few other places! I was hoping to redeem more at Rona

[Greatwhite]

My personal Visa has cashback... But it cuts off at $50k spending annually.  This year with the renos on the house, we hit that cap around October, so I switched over to my card that gets Aeroplan points.  My cash back was a cooooool $750 in my pocket.. woo...

There's a Dividend Mastercard from CIBC without that cap.......  (and I think there's a higher % return overall)

The problem with using miles to travel is that airlines only tend to have a few seats flights available to points users.  You are then stuck with bad flight times, or long connections - unless you luck out.  I wanted to use points to fly the family down to Florida, but the arrival in Orlando was either 2am, or the departure from Ottawa was 5am, through Toronto (yuck).

You DO get better bang for your buck cashing in Aeroplan for travel than for merchandise, though.

[ajm1961]

I don't like having to dish out $120 or more a year for a credit card that accumulates Aeroplan - plus the disgusting 17.5% rate if you don't pay the balance. Does anyone have a better deal for an Aeroplan credit card?

[Stussi613]

I have an Aeroplan Platinum Amex.  It gives 2 Aeroplan miles for every dollar spent, plus bonuses for booking flights and hotels on top of that. 

I use it for work so I accumulate points fast.  I think I have about 1.3 million points right now, give or take a few 

Any travel reward, regardless of Aeroplan vs Air Miles, will be better value than merchandise.

If you are booking Aeroplan there is a way to get VERY good value for your points.  I've gotten tickets around the world in First Class for 120k points and $150 in fees. There are two key things to doing this:

1.  Book your flights as early as you can.
2.  Even though Aeroplan is Air Canada's reward program never, ever, EVER fly on Air Canada. They have the highest fees and surcharges for reward travel of any carrier in the world, followed closely by Lufthansa who they have an agreement with.  United and US Airways have tons of flights out of Ottawa to international destinations so unless you're traveling in Canada, redeem with someone else.