Here's how things worked out. We paid almost double airmiles to book the air canada flight instead of Westjet (which just doesn't exist according to airmiles. The arrival and departure times are worse but the most annoying (and scary) part is that the flight connects in Vancouver, meaning we have exactly 1 hour and 22 minutes to 1)Get off plane #1, 2)Collect luggage, 3)High tail it to customs, 4)Clear customs, 5)Get airplane #2 before it leaves without us.
While we were on the phone talking to a supervisor we asked how the average person is supposed to know when these flights become available, ESP? We explained that we'd been collecting for 12 years and haven't been able to redeem our points yet cause every time we try the flight is sold out. He explains that it's not just flights they offer, they have hotels too. Well, ladi-frickin-dah, it's called AIRmiles, if i wanted a hotel rewards program we'd sign up for HOTELmiles or something.
What really chaps my behind is that we're paying an annual fee for this mosaic mastercard so that the most points needed to fly anywhere within North America is between 1400 and 1600 point, round-trip. Twice now, booking SEVERAL months in advance, we were unable to book a ticket at theses "fares".
Oh, and to share another "Airmiles sucks" story. My father had a ticket booked to go visit my grandfather. My father became ill (he's all better now thankfully) and the doctor told him he could not fly and the doctor provided a note stating such. Do you think airmiles would refund his points? Nope, not even with the cancellation insurance that my father was suckered into buying.
I think i'll be cancelling my Airmiles AMEX and switching to something with cash back, or another rewards program that isn't so tough to redeem. I feel like i'm dealing to David Spade from the Capital One no hassle rewards commercial...
(How's that for a tag 
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I always buy that insurance, now I am thinking maybe I should not. 
in November. I booked in June, however there were NO flights out of Ottawa on Westjet or Air Canada. The only flights which would work were Westjet out of MONTREAL = which then went to Toronto for a plane change and then to LV. So, I said,'just book us out of Toronto.' Well, there were no seats out of TO, only Montreal THROUGH Toronto. It was that or nothing. It was with Westjet though so it means the five of us fly there for 7,000 Airmiles so I just said book it. DH was not too impressed - he is our collector - so I told him to call and fight it out with them. Long story - they cancelled our Montreal leg but we had to pay the cancelation fee of about $200 for the five of us. Nuts. As DH says, we are still ahead and we don't have to have a layover and a drive to Montreal, but I still find it annoying. (He also called Westjet and they said they can't touch an Airmiles ticket to change it. He has the Westjet MC to collect Airmiles.) They should have just booked us out of TO to begin with. However, we did get to fly Westjet and that was half the Airmiles of Air Canada, so I may use the extra Airmiles to rent a car. 
