Here's an interesting development in the ongoing saga of AIR MILES and grocery partners. As most of you should already know, AIR MILES and the Empire Group of stores such as Sobeys and Safeway are parting ways. Atlantic Canada was first and the Western Canada sees them switch to Scene+ on September 22. But that's not all that will happen on September 22. Coincidentally, on that date AIR MILES will be launching card linked offers for grocery shopping at Save-On-Foods.
Sep 22 Update - The offer has now been revealed: Earn 100 bonus AIR MILES when you spend $100 at Save-On-Foods, Urban Fare and other grocery stores
Save-On-Foods just happens to be a Western Canadian grocery chain and while this isn't a direct partnership as Save-On-Foods is not becoming an AIR MILES partner, it does help fill the void of losing Sobeys, Safeway and other stores.
Card Linked Offers
What is compelling about this announcement is that is a card linked offer. If you are unfamiliar with AIR MILES card linked offers, they are avenues for you to earn extra miles at stores that aren't AIR MILES partners and you earn those miles by simply linking any Canadian Mastercard! It's not just limited to AIR MILES Mastercards and you don't even have to show your AIR MILES card. Have a WestJet RBC World Elite Mastercard or an HSBC World Elite® Mastercard®? You can link them and earn whatever bonus AIR MILES may be offering when you use that linked card for your purchase.
Here's an example of some of the current card linked offers available:
On top of this, when you are at Save-On-Foods you will still earn your More Rewards points on your purchase and you'll earn whatever points, miles, dollars that your Mastercard earns. Effectively a triple dip not including any bonuses.
How many miles can I earn?
AIR MILES has not revealed what the card linked earn rate will be just yet. I would wager a guess they will announce that on September 22.
Considerations
There a couple things to consider here with this news.
First if you don't have a Mastercard then you cannot earn AIR MILES for your Save-On shopping.
Second, depending on what the offer is from AIR MILES you'll want to do the math to see if it is worth it to use a Mastercard for the purchase instead of a card like the king of grocery store earning, the American Express Cobalt Card and it's 5x points. But, we do have a true 5x points Mastercard and that's the MBNA Rewards World Elite® Mastercard® and it in fact can earn up to 5.5 points per dollar thanks to its birthday bonus plus you'll earn your More Rewards points and now whatever the AIR MILES card linked offer maybe. This just may become a killer combination with the MBNA card!
Also recall, that BMO just added general grocery store accelerators to their AIR MILES Mastercards so those will be earning more miles at Save-On in addition to your More Rewards points and card linked miles.
Wrapping it up
This is good news for AIR MILES members out west. The program needed to step up to the plate and do something after losing so many partners over the past few months and years. And while this may not be a direct partnership between Save-On and AIR MILES, at least this can be seen as a stop gap measure to appease members who aren't keen on what the Scene+ program provides and want to keep earning AIR MILES on their grocery purchases. It also got me thinking that who knows, maybe this will lead to AIR MILES acquiring the More Rewards program should a lot of their members switch their shopping to Save-On-Foods.
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