Air Miles collectors leaving its program due to drops in value of some points

Air Miles collectors will now need to spend more miles when booking vacation or cruise packages. That is becuase the rewards program has brought down the values of miles in the category by around 20%.

The program made the move without informing its collectors.

Collector Allison Peters just discovered this fact when she attempted to book a vacation package to Mexico. Around the time she researched about the trip and then contacted Air Miles by telephone to book it, she found her trip would now cost considerably more.

“I was surprised and then I was angry,” says Peters.

She evaluated the more than $11,000 worth of miles she needed to book a trip abruptly dove to an estimation of about $9,000.

“I feel like they’ve stolen over $2,000 of available travel to me,” says Peters, who lives in Victoria. “I’m really unimpressed.”

Peters thinks Air Miles devalued a few miles to compensate for lost benefits when its proprietor, Toronto-based LoyaltyOne, scratched off its dubious expiry approach a month ago.

“This is just another way for them to make some money that they were looking to make from the expiry,” she says.

Before it crossed out its expiry policy, every single unused mile more established than five years were set to terminate on Jan. 1.

Yesterday, LoyaltyOne’s parent company, Texas-based Alliance Data Systems, announced in a budgetary articulation that LoyaltyOne’s income fell by 32% in the final quarter.

The company had determined it would have gained from collectors who let their miles expire on Jan. 1 rather than redeeming them.

“Going forward, we will need to rework the Air Miles reward program to replace the lost economics,” said Alliance Data’s, CEO Ed Heffernan in a statement.

The program added that only 1.6 per cent of its collectors redeem miles for vacation packages in its “dream rewards” category.

Peters says she’s standing up in regards to her experience since she needs Air Miles collectors to realize that Air Miles that the company has devalued the worth of their vacation package miles.

She says it took her five phone calls over four days, speaking to different Air Miles employees before a supervisor finally confirmed to her the details.

“This is a substantial shift and it was like going through a fortress to get the information I was after,” says Peters who is still considering to leave the program.