Originally Posted by jerry305

Reward worked fine for me.
There was an eligible hotel charge on my October 20 statement; I phoned in to have points redeemed against it.
Scotia Amex took 30,000-ish points out of my account; I received the email confirmation pretty quickly if not immediately.
When the next statement arrived, that amount was credited against my balance owing on the following statement.
So, again, I did pay for that hotel stay, and then got the equivalent ($300-ish) credit on that next statement.
This worked as I expected.

In your case, I don't see why the points wouldn't be used up immediately, either.
The points you're earning on spending in the month right now might not be available until the monthly statement is issued; maybe that's what he's talking about.

Now, that's my experience booking my travel directly with a travel provider, waiting for the charge to appear, and then claiming that as a reward.
If someone wants to use Scotia's travel agency to pay with points, it's possible that that process will take longer.