For awhile I tried collecting Air Miles through special bonuses Safeway offers. We manage to up the balance a bit, but we don't have enough to spend to fly to California yet, and its been 12 years my wife held the card, even before we were married.

And for awhile, I purchased $35 IIRC of groceries, then the customer saves 5.5 cents per litre at the gas pump, which made it convenient given the quadrant of Calgary I was frequenting.

As a landlord, gas stations are an environmental hazard, and over the years because of remediation risks and costs, gas stations have become more of a monopoly in Calgary. Major players like Costco, Shell, Esso, Petro Canada, Safeway, and some Centex's are the few gas stations that are left. High volume discount gas is the next frontier, that is because most commercial landlords like myself, frown at leasing land to gas stations because of potential environmental hazards. These hazards pose a significant risk to our ability to finance and refinance commercial centres. Watch for continual decrease in locations and decrease in convenience as a result of fewer gas stations across the board.

Lesson? Sobeys is acquiring huge environmental liability in taking over Safeway gas bars. Hopefully, they calculate the costs of this in their acquisition, and offset the efficiency that they are gaining through economies of scale.