On Thursday, March 9, 2023, we learned that Loyalty Ventures, owner of the AIR MILES Reward Program, was planning to file for bankruptcy. On Friday morning, March 10, 2023, in a twist of fate, BMO announced that it would acquire AIR MILES! Finally, on the same afternoon, the bankruptcy of Loyalty Ventures became official.

As a follow-up to these two important pieces of news, we wanted to know what our Facebook Community members wanted to do with their AIR MILES miles. Here are the answers.

As of Friday afternoon, we note that a majority of people either have or will use their miles for a hotel reservation, followed by airfare in second place.

“We booked two round-trip flights this morning to spend the Christmas holidays in Belize. It was already in our plans so we simply accelerated the purchase. ” – Geneviève

“I booked 3 nights in Paris, 1 night in Amsterdam and 3 days of car rental in France yesterday!” – Sophie

“3 days of Disney parks for 2 adults and 2 children. I’ll push the date back to 2024 or 2025 and pay the difference. That still gives me a Disney credit worth US$1,527” – Maude

“8 return tickets to Florida, 4 to California, vaccums including a Dyson and a robot vacmop, a Napoleon BBQ, AirPods Pro and lots of nice things” – Jean-Denis

“I just booked an all-inclusive for October 8 days with 60,000 miles.” Francisco

“3,360 miles + $94: Night at the YUL Marriott the night before a flight at dawn where I had a hotel to book anyway, 1100AM: Ski ticket at Mont-Ste-Anne and 900AM: Ski ticket at Stoneham.” – Jean-Philippe

“Two one-way FLL airline tickets and movie tickets with the rest.” – Louis-Samuel

“18 movie tickets from a 2005 Air Miles account that I had forgotten about…” – Marie-Philippe

“3 nights at the hotel for our late summer vacation.” – Nancy

“With everything that was already going on last fall with Air Miles, I had taken no chances and booked 10 days of hotel rooms in Florida during the 2022 holiday season.” – Caroline

Thus, the majority chose to use their miles for a grocery store redemption at IGA.

“We have some left over shot maybe enough for movie tickets and 2 X $10 at IGA. ” – Nancy

“Swap for Starbucks (we use them in Disney parks for lunch)”. – Elizabeth

“I just bought 10 bottles of shampoo at Jean Coutu!” – Stéphanie

 

“I just took a $100 voucher for Sephora and the rest of the AMs I will go to Jean Coutu this morning to buy razor blades” – Chantal

All this news reminds us of what we often say: Earn and burn – accumulate and exchange as much as possible.

Loyalty programs are not savings accounts. They can be devalued at any time.

We still advise you to analyze whether an immediate exchange is more beneficial for you or to wait for better, after the purchase confirmation by BMO.

Want to discuss the changes at AIR MILES? Join our Facebook community!