I looked up an airmiles ticket YUL-YYZ one way. for me and the wife in march. I forget how many miles it was going to cost, but the fees were going to be $109 - each. For a flight of an hour. Considering a Tango ticket at the time was $115, what's the point? No value in AM at all and for the extra $6 each, I'm not using any points. Not like I was going to get AE miles no matter which option I took.

So instead, just booked biz class on Via Rail. That was the real smart choice. For the same price as basically either of the above options, get a nice, comfy ride, a good meal and while travel time is longer, door to door time is really only 1.5 hours longer or so since its downtown to downtown, don't need to deal with airport security, etc.

I may not have actually ever used my AM for flights before, only for other stuff like movie passes, hotels, etc. i think i just figured out why. Found those redemptions to be decent value - now with the 7 year expiry like AE, I'll probably start redeeming these. I've still got the BMO AM MasterCard, but just got one of the TD travel cards which is now my primary Canadian CC. I understand loyalty programs can choose to run the way they want, but even with the changes to some US-based programs (where i am based) the Canadian ones pale in comparison.