Use up your Air Miles before they all fly away

Announced back in 2011, points from Canada’s largest loyalty program will begin to expire at the end of the year

Attention, Air Miles collectors. You have less than a year until your reward points start to expire.

Back in December of 2011, Canada’s largest loyalty plan announced a new expiry policy. Older reward miles would have a date stamp and could not be used after a five-year period, starting Dec. 31, 2016.

Why was the policy adopted? The company said in 2011 that millions of Air Miles had been sitting around and had not used for rewards since the program began in 1992.

“We can’t plan financially with enough accuracy if points never expire. That’s why most programs have expiry dates and the remaining few will have to change,” an Air Miles marketing executive told me at the time.

Air Miles’ smaller rival, the Aeroplan program spun off by Air Canada, had already announced that its points would expire after seven years, starting in January 2014. But in a surprise move, Aeroplan — now called Aimia Group — decided to scrap the seven-year limit in July 2013. Members disliked the deadline, said spokeswoman Christa Poole. The closer it came, the unhappier they were.

Aeroplan was also facing a national class-action lawsuit, launched by Merchant Law Group, about its policy of date-stamping reward miles.

The suit, which is still ongoing, cites another change made by Aeroplan in 2006. Members with no activity in their accounts during a 12-month period would lose their points and have to buy them back in order to use them.

In my view, Aeroplan’s activity rule is too restrictive. I’ve handled hundreds of complaints in the decade since it was adopted, but I’ve found most requests to reinstate miles are denied.

Hilda Maurer was a lucky exception, though her inactivity was caused by ill health. I helped her get back more than 270,000 Aeroplan miles, which would have cost more than one cent each to buy back (that’s $2,717).

She had major surgery last July, followed by three months of recovery, while her husband had five eye surgeries. She documented the details in attachments to her email request.

“To say that 2014 to 2015 was a bad period for our health is an understatement,” Maurer said. “I’m sure you can understand that our focus was on getting our health back and not on monitoring our Aeroplan points.”

Within 10 days, Aeroplan had reinstated her miles without charge “based on medical compassionate grounds,” Poole said.

Air Miles also penalizes inactive members, but waits 24 months — twice as long as Aeroplan does — to annul their points.

With that five-year expiry date looming, you might expect to see Air Miles launch a campaign to make sure collectors cash in their points before they expire and become worthless.

But when I searched for information at Airmiles.ca, all I found were a few fineprint answers to frequently asked questions on the help page.

“What does expiry mean?” The company replies that reward miles more than five years old will expire on a quarterly basis after Dec. 31. Miles acquired in January 2014, for example, will expire on March 30, 2019.

“How will I know when my miles expire?” The company tells members to log in at the website and ask for a personalized email statement, which tells them how many reward miles are set to expire each quarter for the next 12 months.

Could Air Miles follow Aeroplan’s lead in scrapping the date stamping as the deadline nears?

“We have no plans to change or revoke the expiry policy,” said spokeswoman Natasha Lasiuk. “We announced this policy to collectors in 2011, giving them lots of time to use their miles before any of their miles could possibly expire.”

But is it realistic to expect everyone to remember a policy change made five years earlier? Why not remind them in 2016?

“Air Miles expects collectors to log into their account and request an expiry statement, even though they’ve never had to do this before,” Lesley Taylor said in an email, asking me to publicize the change. She tried using Twitter to ask Bryan Pearson (@pearson4loyalty), president of Air Miles’ parent company, about attempts to alert members about the change. He dismissed her concerns. “All info is available at AirMiles.ca,” he replied. When she asked again, he said, “Expiry is not new. It was announced over four years ago.”

Ellen’s advice Loyalty plans can change their rules whenever they like. Pay attention to your reward points if you don’t want them to vanish.

Air Miles and Aeroplan make money pleasing their business partners, such as airlines, hotels and retailers. That’s why their policies encourage member activity and disenfranchise those who are inactive.

Check into a loyalty plan’s website every few months. Find out how to use small amounts of points for gasoline, groceries or home items.

Don’t hoard all your points, waiting for seats on long-distance flights that may never materialize. Ask about donating points to charity to remain active. Ellen Roseman’s column appears Tuesdays in Smart Money. She deals with consumer issues involving large companies. You can reach her at eroseman@thestar.ca or send a message though her website, ellenroseman.com