Unfortunately will you have to take that risk. They are very insistent on this rule. Only the boarding passes need to be original - the ticket can be a photocopy. And in my experience they have never lost any mail I sent them so I wouldn't be too worried about it. But since Rudi, you are a Mileage Plus member rather than Aeroplan it doesn't really affect too much. My guess is that some person(people) figured out a loophole in their system - maybe AC doesn't properly check whether mileage has been credited or not before adding more miles. I do know that Aeroplan employees can add miles aribitrarily. I once received a 2000 mile bonus that I should have got in both directions but only one was credited. I sent in a letter and the boarding card and they added another 2000 miles to my account but it just showed up as Misc. Miles 2000 on my next statement. I don't know how US Airlines deal with missing bonuses as I just moved to the US.

Regards,