I recently had a question about shopping at Jean Coutu with AIR MILES affiliated credit cards. This is my opportunity to explain how to accumulate and spend your AIR MILES in this chain of pharmacies.
Jean Coutu drugstores are AIR MILES Sponsors. This means that you can earn AIR MILES on your purchases, but also spend them through “cash rewards”.
The Jean Coutu AIR MILES program is detailed on this page.
First of all, you should know that in order to be able to use your AIR MILES at the cash register of a store – whether it is Jean Coutu or another sponsor – you will have to choose to accumulate your AIR MILES in “cash rewards”.
As you can see above, I prefer to accumulate AIR MILES in my “dream” account. But you can adjust the slider to your liking between AIR MILES Cash and AIR MILES Dreams as I simulated in the image.
To resolve this, here is the direct link to the AIR MILES page.
Jean Coutu drugstores regularly offer promotions to accumulate AIR MILES.
For example, this promotion offers you 20x AIR MILES with the purchase of $50 or more in cosmetics.
This is a “bonus offer”, which is applied to the total number of AIR MILES earned with the “basic offer”. For more details on these types of offers, I invite you to (re)-read this article explaining how the AIR MILES multiplier works.
Other offers, easier to understand than the multiplier, offer you AIR MILES as a bonus. Like this one, which offers you 50 AIR MILES for every $50 in cosmetic purchases.
To win AIR MILES at Jean Coutu, you will have to present your AIR MILES loyalty card at the checkout. But be aware that if you pay with an AIR MILES-affiliated credit card, you can make a killing!
Depending on your credit card, you can earn up to 1 AIR MILE for every $10 in purchases. For example, the BMO AIR MILES World Elite MasterCard.
An AIR MILES-affiliated credit card allows you to earn AIR MILES regardless of your purchase. You are therefore not as limited as with your AIR MILES Reward Card alone (with which you cannot accumulate AIR MILES on several categories of items such as Jean Coutu gift cards, prescriptions, etc.).
Let’s take our example of the promotion offering 50 AIR MILES for every $50 spent on cosmetics. If you buy $100 worth of cosmetics with a credit card that gives you 1 AIR MILES for every $10, you’ll get 110 AIR MILES:
Like some AIR MILES Sponsors, you can use your AIR MILES directly at the cash register of your Jean Coutu pharmacy.
The normal exchange rate is 95 AIR MILES = $10.
However, here again, you’ll have to watch for promotions! From time to time, Jean Coutu pharmacies allow you to redeem your AIR MILES at a different rate. Often it’s 85 AIR MILES = $10 as in the example below!
The main offers:
As you can see, there are many ways to earn and use AIR MILES at Jean Coutu. As with any loyalty program, you’ll need to pay close attention to promotions, both for accumulation and for spending AIR MILES!
For more information on the AIR MILES program, you can read this very complete article on the subject.
Savings are here:
