Online shopping portals have eligible Amazon.ca purchases curtailed

Thanks to Rewards Canada reader Todd W. for forwarding details about new limitations on Amazon.ca purchases made via the Aeroplan eStore. We dug a little deeper and it's not just Aeroplan who has limited what Amazon.ca purchases earn Aeroplan miles, we see the same thing with airmilesshops.ca, Rakuten (nee ebates.ca). As you can see the categories you can earn miles on have been really cut back while the cash back sites no longer award anything on Amazon.ca purchases.

Here are the updated terms for Amazon.ca purchases made via the Aeroplan eStore:

Earn 1 Aeroplan Miles for every $1 you spend on participating categories. Aeroplan miles will be earned across the following categories when shopping on Amazon.ca via the Aeroplan eStore: Apparel, Cloud Cam & Blink, Echo Devices, Eero Devices, Fashion, Fire Tablets, Fire TV Devices, Furniture, Handmade, Home, Kindle Devices, Kitchen, Luggage, Pet Products, Ring Devices. Categories for Aeroplan mile earn may change from time to time.

Please note that the following categories, as well as any others not listed above, are not eligible for earn of Aeroplan miles at this time: Arts & Crafts, Automotive, Baby & Nursery, Beauty, Books & Textbooks, Camera & Photo, Cell Phones & Accessories, Computers, Electronics & Audio, Grocery & Gourmet, Health & Personal Care, Home Entertainment, Home & Portable Audio, Jewelry, Kindle eBooks, Kindle Tablet Accessories, Lawn & Garden, Magazine Subscriptions, Major Appliances, Mobile Electronics, Movies & TV Shows, Music, Musical Instruments, Office & School Products, Outdoor, Power & Hand Tools, Shoes, Software, Sports & Outdoors, Tools & Hardware, Toys, Video Games, Watches, Wireless Accessories and gift cards.

Terms for airmilesshops.ca:

You will get AIR MILES® Reward Miles on purchases made in the following categories, all other categories are excluded. You will not get AIR MILES® Reward Miles on purchases made via the Amazon app.

Included categories: Amazon Echo Devices, Amazon Echo Look, Amazon Fire TV Devices, Amazon Fire Tablets, Amazon Kindle E-readers, Apparel, Automotive, Baby & Nursery, Cameras, Cloud Cam & Blink, Element Smart TV, Furniture, Handmade, Home Entertainment, Jewelry, Kitchen, Luggage, Luxury Beauty, Office & School Supplies, Outdoor Recreation, Pet Food & Supplies, Power & Hand Tools, Private Label Fashion, Ring Video Doorbells

Meanwhile both Rakuten and Great Canadian Rebates no longer offer cash back for Amazon.ca purchases!

Looks like these changes came about sometime in February. It couldn't have come at worse time  with online shopping exploding due everyone staying home and not going out as much to physical stores to shop!