Air Miles is well marketed, but it's really not a great program. Borders on "pointless" if you'll pardon the pun. As has been posted here before, Air Miles is at their worst when you try to redeem their points for flights. Somewhat ironic given their name and branding.
The experience in a nutshell:
- No internet booking. It's 2010, and they must be the only air-travel-booking-organization on the planet who has zero online booking or searching capability for customers. Archaic, and ridiculous.
- What makes it even more frustrating: you therefore need to phone their call centre, which (in my experience) is typically a very long wait. Sit down and get comfortable, and prepare to enjoy on-hold music.
- Then, as the OP stated, you'll have to fork out a $25 fee for the privilege of talking to them on the phone.
- Book your flight (at their ever increasing points levels) and you'll then be asked to fork out major $$$, ostensibly for taxes. As the OP said though, the math doesn't add up.
- Then, get ready for the insurance sales pitch. High pressure, and pushy: "Well, virtually all of our customers take the insurance" is seemingly part of their rejection-handling script that they read. This is likely why they force their customers to phone in for a flight: they make big $ off of the $25 phone-in fee, probably more from padding the taxes, and then make big $$$ off of selling insurance. (The hard core insurance sell can't take place on a web booking engine, which is probably why they've avoided going with online booking.)
I no longer go out of my way to collect Air Miles. When I do get them, I won't even try to use them for flights. Just get some retailer gift cards instead.