Pissy morning

The frequent flyer program for Air Canada, called Aeroplan, has just sent out a mass email detailing upcoming changes to their "loyalty" program. In a nutshell, not only do you have to have "activity" on your account at least once a year, but also that the miles you earn now will expire seven years from now.

I can understand the first requirement, and it is easy to satisfy, what with the credit cards and adjunct businesses offering miles for using their services / buying their products. In fact, it seems to be more the norm than the exception in the air miles business.

The second part though is incomprehensible to me. Well, actually that's not true, it's a money grab. At the expense of loyal customers. I sent the following note to Aeroplan to express my displeasure.

I received the new guidelines for mile expiration. My question is, "How does it make business sense to tell your customers that their loyalty only counts for 7 years?"

If I were to want to save up for a first class round trip Europe flight with my miles, I would not be able to since I only travel twice a year or so. I'm seriously thinking of going back to Northwest airlines whose miles don't expire as long as you have activity in your account.

I'm quite disappointed with this news, and I'm sure that I'm not alone.

They replied that they were having trouble with this feature of their contact page and said that I should call them. What for? There are plenty of other carriers that fly out of Montreal. Maybe it's time to switch to Westjet. Well, that is after I accumulate enough miles to drain the account (in a year or two.)