![[INTERVIEW] Moe Ghafari, Founder and CEO of Pointsgram](https://pointshogger.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Pointsgram-1-768x766.jpg)
I am Moe, the founder and CEO of Pointsgram. With over 20 years of experience in the technology sector and active involvement in the local community, I’ve always pondered: How can we infuse more technology into our local economy to foster its growth and promote sustainability? After engaging with over 100 local shops and understanding their challenges, I’ve made it my mission to launch a tech-based company with three primary goals:
![[INTERVIEW] AIR MILES – The evolution of the in-store shopping experience](https://pointshogger.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Air-Miles.jpg)
Today, we are featuring Jason Beales Chief Strategy & Commercial Officer at Air Miles. Today, he is sharing his thoughts on in-store versus online shopping. Thank you Jason for taking the time to answer our questions.
1) Please tell us about yourself and your role with AIR MILES.
Neo Financial took over the co-branded partnership with Cathay Pacific from RBC. RBC discontinued its partnership with Cathay Pacific in 2023. Today, I will do a comparison review of the new card with Neo Financial.
We noticed that one of our more popular posts was the one about Airlines Partners of WestJet. That being said, that post is fairly dated now (from 2015), so I thought I’d provide an update.
The only airline in Canada who is part of a major alliance is Air Canada.
At the beginning of the year, I predicted that we will see more competition within the Canadian airline industry. We are clearly not off to a good start.
Only a week or two ago, there was news that discount carriers Flair Airlines (“Flair”) and Lynx Air (“Lynx”) were in merger talks. Fast forward to today, Lynx airlines will cease operations tomorrow (February 26, 2024). Seems like they were unable to come to an agreement to make it work. I was really hoping that they could make it work as it was going to be a long shot for both to coexist in Canada at the same time. Pulling resources actually made a lot of sense to have one stronger discount airline. Looks like Lynx was too much of a lost cause of Flair to merge with.
It has been a year and a half since our last update to this post. A few minor changes (mostly deletions) occurred since then.
Airline alliances are extremely valuable when trying pool miles and points on one airline. Such partnerships allow us to earn miles with our favourite frequent flyer program without actually having to fly with that airline.
Back in 2016, I began a tradition of trying to predict the travel / rewards market in Canada. The first year was rough, but it got better over the years and recently dropping back down. How did it go in 2023? I wrote out my predictions on January 2, 2023.
Happy New Year Everyone!!
A new year means a new wish list. Yesterday, I wrote a post about how I only listed three items on purpose last year as those are my hot topics that I have been continuously tracking. I will adding the same three to my list again this year, along with a couple others.
As we close out 2023, we continue with our year-end series of grading our wish list from our first post of the year. This report card is a continuation of our yearly mid-term report back on Canada Day (July 1st of every year).
Since the start of the decade (2022, 2021, 2020), we managed to update this list every December, mine as well keep going.
There were quite a few major changes in the industry, so there was some shift in the rankings. They are now divided in the 3 groups: top 5, from 6 to 10, and the rest.