What Are Air Miles?
Whenever you make a purchase at a participating business, you're rewarded with points, these points are called Air Miles. You can then redeem these points for rewards. Rewards like discounts, merchandise, and travel.
AIR MILES are points that you collect and then redeem for rewards. The amount of points you earn usually depends on the retail partner but on average, you earn 1 Air Mile for every $20 spent.
How Can You Earn Air Miles?
Here are some ways to earn Air Miles:
- You get miles from spending at a participating store
- Making purchases using Air Miles credit card
- You can buy them directly from airmiles.ca
The best ways to quickly collect AIR MILES is by buying things with an AIR MILES credit card and to shop at special AIR MILES partner stores.
If you are planning to get your hands on an AIR MILES credit card and don't know which would suit your best interest, we got you covered. Here are some of the top cards for earning AIR MILES.
BMO AIR MILES World Elite Mastercard
If you are looking for a faster way to stack up Air Miles, the BMO AIR MILES World Elite is your top option. It has one of the best earn rates in all mentioned. With a welcome bonus of a whopping 3,000 miles and an annual fee of $120, this BMO credit card lets you earn 1 mile for every $10 you spend anywhere, regardless if it is an AIR MILES sponsor or not. On top of that, the annual fee of $120 is waived in the first year. That's not all. You can also expect 15% discounts on selected flights to North America and travel insurance.
BMO AIR MILES Business Mastercard
As the name implies, the BMO AIR MILES Business Mastercard is a great option for business people. With a welcome bonus of 3,000 miles and the opportunity to earn 1 mile for every 10$ spent in any store.
It comes with travel and car rental insurance and a very standard annual fee of $120, which you won’t have to pay during the first year either.
Do Air Miles Expire?
Yes, Air Miles do expire but there are ways to prevent that from happening. So long as your account is active, your miles won't expire. If your account stays inactive for 24 consecutive months, only then will your miles expire. Every time you earn or redeem miles, the expiry date on the miles is renewed.
When Do Air Miles Expire?
So long as you're earning and redeeming Air Miles, your miles will not expire. However, your Air Miles will expire if your Air Miles account becomes inactive for 24 consecutive months. That is if you don't earn or redeem any miles for 24 consecutive months. So make sure you keep earning and redeeming some Air Miles once in a while or at least once every two years.
Will You Be Notified of Your Account Expiry?
Yes, you'll receive an expiry statement from Air Miles, alerting you that your account has been inactive for too long and you’re coming close to the cut-off period, after which it will be considered dormant.
Note: Sometimes important emails can go to the ‘junk folder'. So, to ensure you don't miss the warning, it's a good practice to check the ‘junk folder' as well.
How Many Miles Can You Expect to Lose?
In short, all of them if you are not careful. There is no limit to the number of Miles that you can lose. According to the AIR MILES expiry rules, once your AIR MILES account is marked dormant due to inactivity, you will likely lose all of your Miles. Though preventing that from happening is not difficult at all.
Steps to Avoid AIR MILES Expiry
Here are a few habits you can adopt to ensure that your account stays active and you get to keep and use all your earned Air Miles.
Check Your Mail Once In A While
As mentioned above, Air Miles always sends an expiry statement before marking your account dormant so we highly recommend keeping an eye out for such notifications so you can act, in time, to prevent that from happening.
Keep Earning And Redeeming AIR MILES
The most obvious and effective way to keep your account active is earning and redeeming Air Miles at least once every two years. You can later redeem them for other rewards items. Info about how to get the most out of your Air Miles Points will be at the bottom section of the article.
Use An AIR MILES Credit Card
One of the easiest ways to keep your Air Miles from expiring is to use a credit card that works with the AIR MILES loyalty program. Then whenever you shop at an Air Miles retail partner using the card, the expiry date for your miles will be renewed.
Ways To Redeem AIR MILES
Besides spending your AIR MILES on your flights, you can use your AIR MILES as Cash Miles or Dream Miles. When checking out, show your AIR MILES Card and let the cashier know you would like to use Cash Miles for your purchase.
Spending Air Miles On Flights
When redeeming for flights, the average CPM is about 17. Simply head to the airline where you have a frequent flyer account. Log in, search for flights, and choose the option that allows you to see fares converted to points or miles instead of dollars.
If you have enough points to cover your entire round-trip flight, you’ll only need to pay $11.20, the required security fee for a round-trip flight (or $5.60 each way).
Spending AIR MILES On Discounts In Everyday In-Store Purchases (Cash Miles)
You can use Cash Miles towards a discount on everyday in-store purchases at participating Partners. 95 Cash Miles is the equivalent of $10 towards your purchases. The minimum amount of cash miles you can redeem is 95 Cash Miles or $10. The maximum amount of cash miles you can redeem is $750 per account per day.
Spending AIR MILES On Package Vacations, Hotels, Cruises & Car Rentals (Dream Miles)
You can redeem AIR MILES Dream Miles for events and experiences. You can use Dream Miles for travel, merchandise, events, hotels, attractions and even travel insurance.
- Events: For events, the average exchange rate is 21 CPM.
- Flights: For flights, the average exchange rate is 17.2 CPM.
- Attractions: For attractions, the average exchange rate is 13.4 CPM
How to Earn Extra AIR MILES
Next time, when you go out for shopping at Clothes, or Grocery Store, make sure to visit these brands if you wanna collect some extra points. Although the list of sponsors is very long, we have gathered some of their best partners in Clothing, Tech, Travel, Drugstores and Grocery Stores.
| Tech | Microsoft, Staples, Canon, Apple, Dell, Dyson |
| Travel | FlightHub.com, Holiday Inn, priceline.com, Booking.com, Best Western, Expedia.ca |
| Clothing | Hudson’s Bay, J. Crew, Nike, Sport Chek, Roots, Adidas, Aldo, Amazon.ca, Footlocker, Gap |
| Grocery Stores, Drugstores | Sobeys, Rexall, Pharmasave, LCBO, Foodland, IGA, Metro |
