~Points Programs 101~

So if you are like me you have a whole lot of cards in your wallet for points! You collect them and then wonder what you are going to do with them...sooo annoying!

So I will be going over how I have maximized my points so far! I look forward to hearing from others on their tricks and tips too! In todays' post I'll just cover the basics and delve into it further in later posts.

I'm sure you've all heard of some of the most popular points programs:

Airmiles, Aeroplan, Priority Points, Save-On, Shoppers Optimum Points, HBC, and many, many more. My favorite by far is Airmiles. I live in an area where I can get Airmiles from many retailers so it makes the most sense for me. You, of course, will need to evaluate your spending habits and what is available to make the best deal for yourself! In my area I can get Airmiles mostly from Shell and Safeway but I also use a Low Rate BMO Mastercard on which I earn Airmiles for my purchases.

The easiest way to rack up miles is to double dip whenever you can. For instance my Safeway has bonus airmiles specials weekly. They email them into my inbox after I signed up for it and received 100 bonus airmiles. Nice eh? Anyhow as I was saying, they email me deals. So I look them over to see if any are for items I need. If there are then I look for coupons for them to save money. I make my grocery list and estimate what it will cost me. I then go to Safeway and use my Mastercard to purhcase a Gift Card. I give my Safeway card and my Airmiles card and earn both rewards on the purchase of the gift card. Double airmiles though because I paid with my mastercard which earns me airmiles. I then do my shopping and then pay with the gift card and again give my airmiles card and Safeway card getting airmiles again. So on a $100 transaction you would normally receive 5 airmiles from Safeway. On my shopping trip I would easily earn 15 plus any of the bonus specials that I pick out.

One thing to think of course is redemption on the points. Airmiles has a relatively high redemption rate of $0.14 per airmile on average for items. I usually redeem my airmiles for various gift cards. I often redeem them for gift cards that I can trade for free product coupons for on Smart Canucks. There is no cost to me for them and I get the type of benefit that I'm looking for.

Of course you can also earn airmiles by shopping through airmilesshops.ca at many major retailers. It is all online shopping but if you implement some of my tips for online shopping you just might find a whopping deal.

I hope this whetted your appetite for more info on points programs. I want to spend some time putting out all the details that I know on the various programs that are offered. Look forward to more posts coming on this topic. Coming next on Save a Loonie: What is Futura Rewards?