Airmiles Armchair Chatter

Has anyone booked a hotel using AM and cancelled? What about car rental? Do you get all your points back if you cancel before the deadline (for the ones that offer free cancellation). How long until your points are back in your account?
 
Here are my thoughts on the Personal Shopper program. When I found out I could use it to obtain items not listed in Air Mile's rewards site, I fell in love with it. Shortly after we got back home and into the swing of things my husband & I decided to start saving all our miles again for a big trip in 3-5 years. That started a month long debate of cash vs dream miles in my head. I had a hard time deciding. I switched my husband's miles to cash and thought I would leave mine on dream. Chances are we will go on a cruise and I thought I would use dream miles to pay for most of the cost and my husband's cash miles for things like the taxes/port fees/deposit and other items.

Then I looked back at the items I purchased with dream miles over the past two years and made up a spreadsheet to see if I had been saving as cash miles and put the money aside to make the purchases myself, how much it would have cost for those items. Costs include taxes and converted into CAN if needed.

My card
A's computer = cost 14,560 miles (those miles worth $1,530 at $10 every 95 cash miles). Computer cost $1,467.87. Would have saved $62
My computer = 21,475 miles (worth $2,260 at $10 every 95 cash miles). Computer cost $1,807.87 - would have saved $452.13 (huge! enough to pay for the 2 hard drives I bought OOP)
Samsung S5E tablet = 6,064 miles (worth $630 at $10 every 95 cash miles). Tablet cost $621.49 - would have saved $8.51
2 MNSSHP tickets = 2,400 miles (worth $250 at 10 every 95 cash miles) ticket CAN cost $224.8 - would have saved 25.33
1 Gatorland AP = 700 miles (worth $70 at $10 every 95 cash miles) CAN cost $64 - would have saved $6

My husband's card
2 MNSSHP tickets = 2,400 miles (worth $250 at $10 every 95 cash miles) CAN cost $224.8 - would have saved 25.33
4 Universal Studio tickets = 20,550 miles (worth $2,160 at $10 every 95 cash miles) CAN cost $1,931.88 - would have saved $228.12

A's computer and the Samsung tablet were purchased on the rewards site, hence the low savings as Air Miles gets these in bulk and charge less miles.
Everything else was purchased through the Personal Shopper program. The Gatorland AP savings surprises me at being so low. The biggest difference was my computer and the Universal tickets. Unfortunately the Universal tickets were not on the reward site when I ordered them.

All together, if I had saved cash miles; put the money aside and purchased the items on my own, I would be ahead $807. Who would have thunk? While I still think the personal shopper program is good and love that Air Miles offers this program, I have decided for my next round of collecting that I will not use it. I switched my account to cash as well. I'll just keep "cashing out" and put the money in our vacation account.
It's all together possible that I'm misunderstanding your point here.....I'm still on day light savings time. If what you mean is what I'm reading you are saying that if you had paid OOP for all that stuff you would have saved $800 over the AM conversion math. My feeling on that is that there is no AM math. You earned miles on your gas, groceries etc....all stuff you have to buy anyway.....therefore all the computers etc. were totally free regardless of the amount of miles to redeem. I just don't believe in attaching a dollar value to the miles on a redemption. I think for some it's a bit of a hot button topic but that's just my opinion.
 


It's all together possible that I'm misunderstanding your point here.....I'm still on day light savings time. If what you mean is what I'm reading you are saying that if you had paid OOP for all that stuff you would have saved $800 over the AM conversion math. My feeling on that is that there is no AM math. You earned miles on your gas, groceries etc....all stuff you have to buy anyway.....therefore all the computers etc. were totally free regardless of the amount of miles to redeem. I just don't believe in attaching a dollar value to the miles on a redemption. I think for some it's a bit of a hot button topic but that's just my opinion.
THIS!! Following my post from yesterday that outlined our criteria for collecting the miles, we never earn miles strictly for getting the miles so EVERY.SINGLE.THING. we redeem miles for we consider to be 100% FREE. All of the "things" we've received have been things that we would either never actually buy or we got them much sooner than we would be able to afford to buy outright. Every time i turn up the volume on my sound bar on the TV so i can FEEL the movies in my chest, I giggle inwardly because it was free (I've also been known to say, a few too many times, to hubby "NICE SOUND BAR"), every time i make a batch of bread, or 15 dozen cookies at once I thank the AM gods that I no longer get an entire upper body work-out thanks to Max the Mighty Mixer. Our upcoming trip to Disney has more frills that we would normally get because, well, FREE! Staying overnight in the Sheraton Gateway the night before our flight so we don't need to leave the house at 3 am. Would be normally buy tickets? Yes, but not the 10 day hopper i got thru the Personal Shopper, we would have gone with a 5 day more than likely.

We also don't use what hubby calls the "shell game" with our miles to use cash miles for whatever we're buying and then telling ourselves we got the gift card or put the money into a vacation fund for 2 reasons: doesn't work with our all-in-one bank account and that doesn't mean things were free! (Excuse me while i slip into PC mode for a bit since it's the same thing: we redeem those points for things we would NEVER buy. Last year my Birthday fell on Black Friday and Zehrs had a no-tax day PLUS the Instant Pot was on sale. I'd been coveting that for a long time so decided it would make a great B-Day gift to me!) We also rarely buy gift cards when they have miles attached UNLESS it's part of a big promo like StB or MM because we don't like to have a bunch of money tied up for any length of time.

ALRIGHT, time for the Duck to get down off her soap box! I know my views are not in line with a lot of you but you know what? That's OK! We're all here for the same reason .. to find hints & tips to help us get the most miles with the smallest outlay of cash!!!!
 
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It's all together possible that I'm misunderstanding your point here.....I'm still on day light savings time. If what you mean is what I'm reading you are saying that if you had paid OOP for all that stuff you would have saved $800 over the AM conversion math. My feeling on that is that there is no AM math. You earned miles on your gas, groceries etc....all stuff you have to buy anyway.....therefore all the computers etc. were totally free regardless of the amount of miles to redeem. I just don't believe in attaching a dollar value to the miles on a redemption. I think for some it's a bit of a hot button topic but that's just my opinion.

I totally agree, air miles are worth it when they’re rewards for the things we all already buy. I sometimes change my spending pattern for air miles (stocking up on something because it’s blue friday), but I don’t buy products I wouldn’t otherwise get just for the miles.

I think what Disney Addicted was saying, though, is that the miles would have been worth more as cash miles used to buy things outright rather than dream miles used to redeem for specific merchandise? I think the only way to figure that out is to price products out, and overall it would have been 800$ cheaper to redeem cash miles for the same products instead of dreamm
 


We've changed our rewards earning over the past year while saving for our trip to the World in January. We've added primarily cash back credit cards for our grocery/gas purchases since the reward is greater than what we earn with the BMO World Elite. I would love for everything to pay me in cash so that there's more flexibility in where I can redeem, but since we earn the majority of our Air Miles through our BMO CC and promotions, there are few places we are able to redeem our cash miles. Our Rexall here in town has very little for merchandise - it is primarily a compounding pharmacy, and we try and get most of our gas at Superstore since the rewards return between our other cards and the PC Optimum points we receive there is better than at Shell. We don't have a grocery store in our city of 80,000 that gives Air Miles... We generally stock pile our Air Miles and then use them to book flights for everyone or theme park tickets. The way we spend, we treat the miles as a bonus to our already usual purchases and fit them in to our travel plans as best we can. We have never redeemed for merchandise and likely never will.
 
Since back from Mexico where we signed up for Aeroplan miles, I have occasionally shopped through their estore portal when they have multipliers on.

I just did my Clinique order for 5x the miles vs. doing it through the AM Shops portal as I would only earn 1 mile for a $22 purchase. Also, I'm going to be ordering clothes from Mark's for Christmas, but they are not an air miles partner. But, they are on the Aeroplan portal.

I know it takes lots of miles to get anywhere with Aeroplan, but just keep it in the back of your mind if you find you can't earn through the AM Shops portal.
 
Sobeys, personal offer single use. We have on all our accounts.

View attachment 450670

I like that offer! Double dip with airmilesshops / STB

Hey, that's great! Thanks for pointing that out. I just check and I have it as well. Those cover Sport Chek and I just found out Sport Chek started a sale today. The running shoes I have been putting off purchasing are on sale. I can get 60 miles on these gift cards, then use the gift cards to buy the runners at Sport Chek.
 
Since back from Mexico where we signed up for Aeroplan miles, I have occasionally shopped through their estore portal when they have multipliers on.

I just did my Clinique order for 5x the miles vs. doing it through the AM Shops portal as I would only earn 1 mile for a $22 purchase. Also, I'm going to be ordering clothes from Mark's for Christmas, but they are not an air miles partner. But, they are on the Aeroplan portal.

I know it takes lots of miles to get anywhere with Aeroplan, but just keep it in the back of your mind if you find you can't earn through the AM Shops portal.

Aeroplan also has gift cards (and sometimes they go on sale). I used the miles I had to get some old Navy gift cards for back to school shopping since I know it would take me way too long to save up for a flight. Mine are only earned through my few Air Canada flights I pay for (rather than using airmiles) and doing surveys.
 
It's all together possible that I'm misunderstanding your point here.....I'm still on day light savings time. If what you mean is what I'm reading you are saying that if you had paid OOP for all that stuff you would have saved $800 over the AM conversion math. My feeling on that is that there is no AM math. You earned miles on your gas, groceries etc....all stuff you have to buy anyway.....therefore all the computers etc. were totally free regardless of the amount of miles to redeem. I just don't believe in attaching a dollar value to the miles on a redemption. I think for some it's a bit of a hot button topic but that's just my opinion.

I think what Disney Addicted was saying, though, is that the miles would have been worth more as cash miles used to buy things outright rather than dream miles used to redeem for specific merchandise? I think the only way to figure that out is to price products out, and overall it would have been 800$ cheaper to redeem cash miles for the same products instead of dreamm

Yes - this! My post was rather lengthy and rambly though - sorry! I meant that if instead of dream miles I collected cash miles and put the cash aside and then used that cash to buy those items, I would have had an extra $800 for whatever I wanted. Dream or Cash miles either way - all that was free. I just would have had extra money for more free stuff.

By no means am I saying anyone should buy stuff just to get the miles (or PC Points), and I try my best not to do that..

I'm happy with the products I received and that post was not a complaint! I just got curious how it would have worked out if I collected the cash miles and put the money aside. Now that I did that comparison and know "cashing out" will work better for us - this is what I'll be doing for the next 3-5 years. This "cashing out" (or whatever it's called) method is not for everyone. You really need to be able to put that money aside; save it and not spend it! Since we don't know exactly WHAT we want to do in 3-5 years (beyond a vacation) this method will work for us. Every now and then I will "cash out" $10 worth of cash miles by paying groceries with it; take that money out of our grocery fund and put it into a completely separate Vacation bank account not attached to our debit cards so we're not tempted to "borrow" from it. If we end up changing our minds in 3-5 years on a vacation (ha ha, I doubt that!) then we will have the cash for something else instead.

We've changed our rewards earning over the past year while saving for our trip to the World in January. We've added primarily cash back credit cards for our grocery/gas purchases since the reward is greater than what we earn with the BMO World Elite. I would love for everything to pay me in cash so that there's more flexibility in where I can redeem, but since we earn the majority of our Air Miles through our BMO CC and promotions, there are few places we are able to redeem our cash miles. Our Rexall here in town has very little for merchandise - it is primarily a compounding pharmacy, and we try and get most of our gas at Superstore since the rewards return between our other cards and the PC Optimum points we receive there is better than at Shell. We don't have a grocery store in our city of 80,000 that gives Air Miles... We generally stock pile our Air Miles and then use them to book flights for everyone or theme park tickets. The way we spend, we treat the miles as a bonus to our already usual purchases and fit them in to our travel plans as best we can. We have never redeemed for merchandise and likely never will.

Yes, this cashing out method only works for us because we have a Metro in town; a Foodland a few minutes drive; and a Sobey's within 20 minutes drive. If we didn't have the grocery stores to cash out at during sales then I would keep collecting our miles as Dream miles. I loved all the tickets I was able to get for our last trip. Though merchandise would still tempt me every now and then. My son's computer and my husband's tablet was a good deal!
 
I know this has been discussed here before, but my mind is drawing a blank.

Can I purchase Sobeys gift cards in-store with Cash miles?
Nope, you can't redeem cash miles for any in-store gift cards anymore. Until about a week ago you were able to get e-vouchers for the Sobey's chain of stores but those just disappeared :(


AKKKK i just checked and they updated the Cash Miles section of the website and they're BACK!
 
Sometimes there are cash mile specials but we will keep you in the loop on those!

I saw the Spend $100/100 AM coupon for the weekend. Working on a list... may go to 2 different stores and max my earnings because the cashiers dont often let me have two orders in the same day. But it's been a few weeks so we are getting creative meal planning ( that sadly has included candy as a food group) AND the husband has more diet recommendations from his Dr so its shopping I go, its AM s I earn! Yes I just ruined a Disney classic song there. Meh :)
 
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Nope, you can't redeem cash miles for any in-store gift cards anymore. Until about a week ago you were able to get e-vouchers for the Sobey's chain of stores but those just disappeared :(


AKKKK i just checked and they updated the Cash Miles section of the website and they're BACK!

it would be so nice if they added disney as a possible e-voucher...cut out the middle step!

that would be a real leg up on PC points for me.
 
I’ve been slacking this year compared to 2017 & 2018! Only earned 8223AM this year. Once we had enough miles to book flights & hotel for our Disney trip this year I stopped going to Sobeys / Rexall specifically to get miles.

Husband has earned 2372AM and I cashed in almost all of those for Starbucks gift card $ for our upcoming Disney trip! Yes that’s a lot of Starbucks LOL - and almost all those miles came from last year’s STB.
 
Here are my thoughts on the Personal Shopper program. When I found out I could use it to obtain items not listed in Air Mile's rewards site, I fell in love with it. Shortly after we got back home and into the swing of things my husband & I decided to start saving all our miles again for a big trip in 3-5 years. That started a month long debate of cash vs dream miles in my head. I had a hard time deciding. I switched my husband's miles to cash and thought I would leave mine on dream. Chances are we will go on a cruise and I thought I would use dream miles to pay for most of the cost and my husband's cash miles for things like the taxes/port fees/deposit and other items.

Then I looked back at the items I purchased with dream miles over the past two years and made up a spreadsheet to see if I had been saving as cash miles and put the money aside to make the purchases myself, how much it would have cost for those items. Costs include taxes and converted into CAN if needed.

My card
A's computer = cost 14,560 miles (those miles worth $1,530 at $10 every 95 cash miles). Computer cost $1,467.87. Would have saved $62
My computer = 21,475 miles (worth $2,260 at $10 every 95 cash miles). Computer cost $1,807.87 - would have saved $452.13 (huge! enough to pay for the 2 hard drives I bought OOP)
Samsung S5E tablet = 6,064 miles (worth $630 at $10 every 95 cash miles). Tablet cost $621.49 - would have saved $8.51
2 MNSSHP tickets = 2,400 miles (worth $250 at 10 every 95 cash miles) ticket CAN cost $224.8 - would have saved 25.33
1 Gatorland AP = 700 miles (worth $70 at $10 every 95 cash miles) CAN cost $64 - would have saved $6

My husband's card
2 MNSSHP tickets = 2,400 miles (worth $250 at $10 every 95 cash miles) CAN cost $224.8 - would have saved 25.33
4 Universal Studio tickets = 20,550 miles (worth $2,160 at $10 every 95 cash miles) CAN cost $1,931.88 - would have saved $228.12

A's computer and the Samsung tablet were purchased on the rewards site, hence the low savings as Air Miles gets these in bulk and charge less miles.
Everything else was purchased through the Personal Shopper program. The Gatorland AP savings surprises me at being so low. The biggest difference was my computer and the Universal tickets. Unfortunately the Universal tickets were not on the reward site when I ordered them.

All together, if I had saved cash miles; put the money aside and purchased the items on my own, I would be ahead $807. Who would have thunk? While I still think the personal shopper program is good and love that Air Miles offers this program, I have decided for my next round of collecting that I will not use it. I switched my account to cash as well. I'll just keep "cashing out" and put the money in our vacation account.

Thank you for sharing this, I always like to know where there is value. I do however like the availability of the personal shopper option as I feel my airmiles are less likely to get stuck in "dream land".

While not personal shopper, I thought I'd add the current airmiles WDW Canadian ticket values (as used as the actual tickets) compared to purchasing WDW Canadian base tickets. I will repost in the airmiles ticket thread but just wanted to post here to show there is some value in purchasing WDW tickets over cash airmiles, depending on when you go.

Airmiles 5 day Cdn WDW adult flex = cost 4725 miles (worth $497.37 at $10 every 95 airmiles). Exchange when first came out 1.33 (now 1.32) = $497.37/1.33=$373.96USD. Current 5 day Cdn Wdw base ticket value ($352.86Usd low season - $483.36Usd high season). Lowest season loss using airmiles $28.06Cdn, highest season gain using airmiles $145.50Cdn.


Airmiles 7 day Cdn WDW adult flex
= cost 4850 miles (worth $510.05 at $10 every 95 airmiles). Exchange when first came out 1.33 (now 1.32) = $510.05/1.33=$383.85USD. Current 7 day Cdn Wdw base ticket value ($364.90Usd low season - $492.75Usd high season). Lowest season loss using airmiles $25.20Cdn, highest season gain using airmiles $144.83Cdn

 
AKKKK i just checked and they updated the Cash Miles section of the website and they're BACK!

I don't understand the Sobey's evouchers. Is there anything you can do with these different from redeeming in-store? I'm reading they exclude gift card purchases:

"Grocery Gift Cards can be used for all in-store purchases except third party gift cards, corporate gift cards, Safeway fuel or as prohibited by law. "
 

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