Air Miles Re-Launched!

Air Miles announced recently that they are making some enhancements to their rewards program including a new logo (see image below)

Air Miles seems to be looking at making an aggressive move to win more market share by making their program more competitive.

Highlights of the Brand Launch

Here are some of the highlights of the enhancements to look forward to:

• New partnerships (e.g. Voilà by Sobeys)
• Lowering the number of miles required for merchandise reward redemptions
• More flight reward options, such as market pricing
• More breakdown (transparency) in their flight booking system
• More ways to earn miles (e.g. linking any MasterCard to their Air Miles account for an opportunity to earn miles)
• More opportunities to earn elite status (e.g. earning Onyx status for being a BMO Air Miles World Elite MasterCard holder)
• Enhance elite statuses (e.g. upgrading Onyx collectors to Shell Go+ membership for a year)
• More bonus miles opportunities with AirMilesShops.ca (e.g. Bonus Boom, Bonus Boom Boost, etc. initiatives)

100 Bonus Miles / Bonus Boom

Until October 31, 2021, when redeeming at least 1,000 miles or more, use the promo code “GRAVY” to receive 100 bonus miles back.

Currently, they are already running a Bonus Boom promotion through its shopping portal to earn more bonus miles when shopping online. The offer runs until October 13, 2021.

Thoughts

When the time comes, we will write more in-depth posts on each topic as we see things roll out over time. For now, I did want to give my 2 cents on their overall initiative.

If you can believe it, Air Miles has been in Canada since 1992. As I mentioned in our bio, Air Miles was really the program that got me into the loyalty game way back in 1992.

For them to have continued being in operations after all this time, they must have done something right to stay profitable. They had their ups and downs along the way for sure. Having a strong partnership with Bank of Montreal and American Express probably played a big role in helping Air Miles to maintain a strong balance sheet.

That being said, I am glad to see that they are attempting to make some bold moves to make their program much more competitive. This is definitely one of their biggest moves in their almost 30 year history. They are well positioned to capitalise on the changing market, with more online shopping happening, as well as travel slowly opening back up. On the other hand, they better keep up since many other loyalty companies are making some aggressive moves too.

Either way, I am definitely looking forward to writing more posts about what they have in store (as more details roll out) in the coming few months and year!