Loyalty is Dead: This Time it’s Aeroplan

We talked last year about loyalty programs. On average we’re in a dozen programs and active in about eight.

But, if you’ve noticed, almost all of them aren’t loyal to you. Their way of getting points, freebies, dollars, or whatever are harder to get, PLUS the redemptions keep getting further and further away from happening. It’s more of a game that you’re going to lose beyond a free toaster or something minor. Yet, we’re hooked and stay loyal, despite all the evidence that we’re not getting much of a reward for it – and often for overpaying when another company is often cheaper to deal with.

The newest is a twist where the company who wants your business isn’t even loyal to their loyalty company! If you remember back, it wasn’t that long ago that Air Canada was on the verge of bankruptcy. At that time, they sold their frequent flyer miles program for some big money.

Aimia is the company that owns and runs the Aeroplan frequent flyer loyalty program. They also manage those of Nordstrom, and other companies from Europe to the Middle East.

They have five million of us Canadians as members who hold over 200 billion miles. The company itself, buys 700 million dollars of tickets from Air Canada a year. But now Air Canada is dumping the company that bailed them out to start their own loyalty program again. Needless to say, the stock was down over 76% after the announcement.

Aeroplan is done as of 2020. So the five million of us will start to get greatly reduced rewards. After all, what’s Aimia’s reason for keeping us excited when Air Canada is yanking us away from the program. By the end of next year, there’s no point chasing points that you’re not likely to get any benefit from. On my to-do list is to cash them all out by next year. I normally get Esso gift cards as they can turn into real cash when I gas up. Most other things are pretty marked up in value, so be careful before you press the “redeem” button. If you’re close to an airline ticket, book it as soon as you can before the points needed goes up again and again. If you’re not close – I’d recommend you don’t start the chase.

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