Airmiles Armchair Chatter

[Donald - my hero]

GRRRRR oh so frustrated this week! The DH lost his wallet yesterday... clearly it fell out of his jacket. So ALL the cards had to be called in and replaced.
Worst part was that we had JUST collected rent from the tenant and ARGH we were ON THE WAY to the bank!!! So say farewell to $400 in cash!

Any AM collecting has to wait until the next load-down shopping trip which won't be until the end of October...

I would insert all the angry Donald Duck having a Temper Tantrum moments right here, right now...

Well you can't have them ALL --- what would I use when i might need them but i do think this one is very appropriate for this crap-tastic-day! (word coined by our daughter!)

 

[Donald - my hero]

I also never heard of offer #2. It was certainly not mentioned on this thread.

Nope, me either. We rarely spend more than $100.00 at one time though so i doubt we would have made any use of it -- unless that one Metro promo was during the same time period

 

[Disney Addicted]

GRRRRR oh so frustrated this week! The DH lost his wallet yesterday... clearly it fell out of his jacket. So ALL the cards had to be called in and replaced.
Worst part was that we had JUST collected rent from the tenant and ARGH we were ON THE WAY to the bank!!! So say farewell to $400 in cash!

Any AM collecting has to wait until the next load-down shopping trip which won't be until the end of October...

I would insert all the angry Donald Duck having a Temper Tantrum moments right here, right now...

Oh no. Talk about bad luck. Sorry to hear that.

 

[hdrolfe]

Stopped at Sobeys, got a lot of cookies. I earned 175 AM, plus I should get the 150 for spending $100. I should have enough to get to Onyx! First time ever woo hoo! thanks to all on here. And I'll have enough to book a hotel for pre-cruise in April.

 

[Disney Addicted]

Thank you for that information. I did not know about offer 2 although how I missed it is a mystery to me. Lol. I would have been all over that one.

I also never heard of offer #2. It was certainly not mentioned on this thread.

Nope, me either. We rarely spend more than $100.00 at one time though so i doubt we would have made any use of it -- unless that one Metro promo was during the same time period

Seriously? No one else heard of it? No one got an e-mail about it?

Oh crap. I just went through the entire month of August looking for that info and the only person who mentioned it (briefly, in passing) was ME - page 348 post 6941.

I am so so sorry... Late July / early August is when I rejoined this thread (after looking it at a few years ago). I was so overwhelmed on ways to earn air miles I guess I thought someone else brought it up first.

 

[gskywalker]

AM math time!

Tickets on AM (7day base) 5200AM /95*10 = $547.37 Cdn

Tickets on WDW (7day base) $436.65US (tax incl) *1.2505 (todays buy rate US$) = $546.03 Cdn

At the current exchange rate and with no special discount for Canadians yes you could be indifferent as to who you purchase your tickets from. Most of us here on this thread, as others have mentioned, take advantage of the "Bonus offers" and those don't cost us any more out of pocket cash than we would have spent anyway. (Get AM for shopping online, picking up groceries at competitive prices, using your credit card) It just means strategically planning where you shop and occasionally stock piling non perishables and those tickets can be considered free!

For instance Monday to Thursday I shop at Rexall to pick up milk, eggs, cheese, bread and usually a drug store item or two. I take advantage of the Load and Go offer and the weekly email and come home with 100+ AM for items I could have picked up at another store at the same price.

AM Hunting is a bit of work, on the computer reading this thread and searching flyers, as well as a little extra driving but it can pay off.

The choice is yours as to whether it's worth it. Hope you join the Hunt!

Thanks for the feedback everyone. For me I am not concerned whether something "feels" like its free by saving the miles to use to get the tickets. I am just concerned about the bottom line. I find it very difficult to get the same value when collecting AM's compared to optimum(to compare drug store to drug store) and especially AM's compared to pricematching and PC points at Superstore, No Frills etc. I knew AM's may not work as well for me also because we tend to go during free dining when you have to buy the tickets in a package but I thought I would ask to figure out if it would work well for us because of how many people are clearly passionate with how well AM's work for them. I think those deals for the Amex spending though sounds quite good. I used to be a manager at Amex and never remembered those kind of deals, maybe I need to look a getting a new card.

Our plan is 2018 Free Dining and then upgrade for the first time to an annual pass. Hoping 2018/19 looks like this with the annual Passes:
1) Sept 2018 11 days Free Dining
2) March 2019 7 Days March Break
3) Aug/Sept 2019 Free Dining but use our annual pass and save the 2 day pass towards another year sometime
4) Hopefully one more trip, either a parents only trip or another driving trip if my wife doesn't kill me for having us drive for March Break(we've never driven)

 

[mort1331]

A lot of people seem to try to accumulate miles for disney tickets. I am hoping someone can help me understand. When I looked up the number of miles required for the tickets it seems that it costs about the same as the value if you just redeemed the airmiles for cash at the stores. Am I mistaken? Do people just like feeling like they aren't paying for the tickets? If someone could show me a real advantage fiscally I would like to refocus efforts to gaining more airmiles. thanks,

I bow down to those who collect weekly and can. My shopping habits are not that strict. But when big mistakes happen that is when I pounce. It started with Sobeys GC, there was a flaw at the start that allowed us to buy one with another one.
So some of us were able to have a $200GC bring us 4000+AM, then there was a poweraid promo.
Here they allowed us to buy3 for $5 and get 50AM. That equals a little more than $5. Bought a skid, yes a skid.
The latest was the pickle promo. Buy 3 jars for prices from1.99-3.99 and receive 75AM. Well relish was 1.99 so that = $6 and they were giving me back over $7.50 worth of AM. Yup full Skid again. The last 2 the food banks were very thankful for. And an unknown benefit that I was not counting on was the food bank gave us a tax receipt after showing them the bill that we paid for.
Combine this and the history of the tickets being the Can$ amount for what they would have been at the US$ amount, save the exchange and we are miles ahead.
Added bonus when you do collect that many is Onyx level. And the small perks that come with that. For 1 am(yes) each we were able to see Cirque 2 years, wine tours, movies , Canadas Wonderland tickets.
And with the great people on this link we tend to find these great 1AM promos quick and help each other out with them.(ottawamum, Donald, Bababera)
So you can collect smart and get great rewards for things that you do anyway, and reduce your cost down south.
Good Luck

 

[mort1331]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. For me I am not concerned whether something "feels" like its free by saving the miles to use to get the tickets. I am just concerned about the bottom line. I find it very difficult to get the same value when collecting AM's compared to optimum(to compare drug store to drug store) and especially AM's compared to pricematching and PC points at Superstore, No Frills etc. I knew AM's may not work as well for me also because we tend to go during free dining when you have to buy the tickets in a package but I thought I would ask to figure out if it would work well for us because of how many people are clearly passionate with how well AM's work for them. I think those deals for the Amex spending though sounds quite good. I used to be a manager at Amex and never remembered those kind of deals, maybe I need to look a getting a new card.

Our plan is 2018 Free Dining and then upgrade for the first time to an annual pass. Hoping 2018/19 looks like this with the annual Passes:
1) Sept 2018 11 days Free Dining
2) March 2019 7 Days March Break
3) Aug/Sept 2019 Free Dining but use our annual pass and save the 2 day pass towards another year sometime
4) Hopefully one more trip, either a parents only trip or another driving trip if my wife doesn't kill me for having us drive for March Break(we've never driven)

Just know that free dining can change or stop at anytime. We have friends that take it with the bounce back every year the last 2 weeks of Aug. This year they cut their trip short by 2 days because it wasnt offered for the whole time. And for next year they were only given one week. So now they dont know what they will do.
We are DVC so free dining doesnt apply, but I have done it many years ago.
The AP looks right and can save you some money as well as getting discounts when you shop or eat when your not using your dining plan.

 

[Disney Addicted]

then there was a poweraid promo.
Here they allowed us to buy3 for $5 and get 50AM. That equals a little more than $5. Bought a skid, yes a skid.
The latest was the pickle promo. Buy 3 jars for prices from1.99-3.99 and receive 75AM. Well relish was 1.99 so that = $6 and they were giving me back over $7.50 worth of AM. Yup full Skid again. The last 2 the food banks were very thankful for. And an unknown benefit that I was not counting on was the food bank gave us a tax receipt after showing them the bill that we paid for.
Combine this and the history of the tickets being the Can$ amount for what they would have been at the US$ amount, save the exchange and we are miles ahead.

I'm curious. How many air miles did you receive for a skid full of poweraid and again for relish? I don't know how many items is in a skid.

 

[hdrolfe]

I haven't used my AM earnings for Disney tickets. I do use them for flights, hotels, and "stuff" that I would like but don't want to spend money on (like my fitbit). I plan to use them next summer for some Canada exploration, including hotels and things like the Toronto zoo, La Ronde, and we'll see what else. It may not be the best use of AM but it is savings for me, and means we can go do a few things we wouldn't normally do.

I was a big user of Optimum, and still do on occasion. I will use what I have towards gifts, but I prefer AM right now, and it is hard to do two programs at once and really take advantage of both.

 

[tinkerone]

Just took a drive to Foodland, spent 27.26 and got 156 AM. That is a good day in my books. I did have issues though with their targeted offers. It was a bust. I couldn't even buy a loaf of Wonder Bread (buy 1 get 7 AM) because there was none. And at this time of the year I am not paying $5.99 for 3 lbs of apples, that's ridiculous. Oh well, 156 makes me happy.

 

[mort1331]

I'm curious. How many air miles did you receive for a skid full of poweraid and again for relish? I don't know how many items is in a skid.

So the relish being the most recent. It was around 13,000AM, which is over $1300. I spent just over $700 for it. This was a big score and a lot of people did it. Like I said 75AM=$7.50 for $4 of relish. They were paying us to take it. Also why I did not mind laying out that kind of cash.
The Poweraid wasnt as much maybe 4000AM. But the food banks loved getting it all. The relish really got loaded in the truck and driven straight to the food bank.
So I now have 8 adult 5day tickets, 2 child tickets waiting to be used.
Just have to be able to work what you can.
My main collection is PC points, but we will see what is happening to that.

 

[Disney Addicted]

So the relish being the most recent. It was around 13,000AM, which is over $1300. I spent just over $700 for it. This was a big score and a lot of people did it. Like I said 75AM=$7.50 for $4 of relish. They were paying us to take it. Also why I did not mind laying out that kind of cash.
The Poweraid wasnt as much maybe 4000AM. But the food banks loved getting it all. The relish really got loaded in the truck and driven straight to the food bank.
So I now have 8 adult 5day tickets, 2 child tickets waiting to be used.
Just have to be able to work what you can.
My main collection is PC points, but we will see what is happening to that.

Interesting. Thank you. That's something I'll have to keep in mind from now on. I'm only 1,600 air miles short for 4 Universal Studios 2-day park-to-park tickets. Based on the 2,425 miles they cost before AM removed them for the 2 days + 2 days free. Hopefully they will be put back at the same price once the 2 days free promo is over.

My next saving of air miles will be to pay for Cabana Bay Resort with the 909 miles = $100 travel certificate. If I can make a purchase that will give me double or more the air miles than the cost of a travel certificate that would be fantastic.

 

[tinkerone]

Interesting. Thank you. That's something I'll have to keep in mind from now on. I'm only 1,600 air miles short for 4 Universal Studios 2-day park-to-park tickets. Based on the 2,425 miles they cost before AM removed them for the 2 days + 2 days free. Hopefully they will be put back at the same price once the 2 days free promo is over.

My next saving of air miles will be to pay for Cabana Bay Resort with the 909 miles = $100 travel certificate. If I can make a purchase that will give me double or more the air miles than the cost of a travel certificate that would be fantastic.

$252 in frozen pizza will get you those 1600 AM.......just sayin. Lol.

 

[bababear_50]

Just thinking,,ok maybe having a cup of tea with a few cookies...................I was reading the terms and conditions of the new Universal Orlando tickets.
One thing that stood out was they say these tickets will only be sold from Aug 2017 to
November 30 2017. Hmmm wonder what they will offer after that?
I really like the old passes. I'd start saving Dream rewards if they returned them.
Hugs Mel

 

[bababear_50]

Just took a drive to Foodland, spent 27.26 and got 156 AM. That is a good day in my books. I did have issues though with their targeted offers. It was a bust. I couldn't even buy a loaf of Wonder Bread (buy 1 get 7 AM) because there was none. And at this time of the year I am not paying $5.99 for 3 lbs of apples, that's ridiculous. Oh well, 156 makes me happy.

Hi Hon
I agree this is Ontario and I can't understand why apples are so expensive.
I was at Sobeys today and all their fruit and veggie platters were best before Sept 23,
so I ended up just buying bananas and a watermelon. I felt I over paid for them for the quality I got. Sobeys used to have good produce (yes it was a tad bit expensive) but I didn't mind if the quality was there.
I spoke to one of the managers and voiced my concerns, he seemed embarrassed
by how many products I showed him that had expired.
I think I am going to start looking elsewhere for my fresh fruits and veggies.
Hugs Mel

 

[Disney Addicted]

$252 in frozen pizza will get you those 1600 AM.......just sayin. Lol.

Nope, not happening!

Just thinking,,ok maybe having a cup of tea with a few cookies...................I was reading the terms and conditions of the new Universal Orlando tickets.
One thing that stood out was they say these tickets will only be sold from Aug 2017 to
November 30 2017. Hmmm wonder what they will offer after that?
I really like the old passes. I'd start saving Dream rewards if they returned them.
Hugs Mel

I believe the only reason these tickets can be sold until Nov 30th is because the 2 free day promo is not through Air Miles but with Universal Studios Orlando. USO came out with the promo before Air Miles put those tickets up. USO's website's terms & conditions on that offer is the ticket will only be sold until Nov 30th and must be first used by May 11, 2018.

I hope Air Miles brings back the 2-day 2-park-to-park tickets that don't expire. I doubt the redeemption price will be the same though... probably much higher.

 

[damo]

Just thinking,,ok maybe having a cup of tea with a few cookies...................I was reading the terms and conditions of the new Universal Orlando tickets.
One thing that stood out was they say these tickets will only be sold from Aug 2017 to
November 30 2017. Hmmm wonder what they will offer after that?
I really like the old passes. I'd start saving Dream rewards if they returned them.
Hugs Mel

The other thing with those tickets is that they include a water park, and lots of people don't do the water parks in the colder months.

 

[alohamom]

My next saving of air miles will be to pay for Cabana Bay Resort with the 909 miles = $100 travel certificate.

@Disney Addicted (or someone else) what is this? I looked at the rewards and could not find it. Is it a general $100 travel certificate for 909 AM? OR is it specific to Cabana Bay and Universal?

 

[Disney Addicted]

@Disney Addicted (or someone else) what is this? I looked at the rewards and could not find it. Is it a general $100 travel certificate for 909 AM? OR is it specific to Cabana Bay and Universal?

Sorry. I meant I'm planning on paying for our Cabana Bay Beach Resort stay using the $100 travel certificates you can get by redeeming 909 AM.

When I checked Marlin Travel and TripCentral I can book the CBB Resort through them and use those travel certificates to pay all but the taxes. I believe the last time I checked I need 8 of the travel certificates - at least at the moment.