AirMiles for US Resident
 

I have about 5200 miles in AirMiles that I forgot about, but have been living in the United States for a few years now.

Their point redemption sucks and doesn't seem to show the cost of trips that depart from non Canadian cities. And when I look for flights I don't see anything.

Thoughts on best way to redeem these points? I can always order a BBQ, since I actually need one. Merchandises are usually a bad way to spend points on. :( Would they ship to the US? In my profile, I can't even state that my address is in the US. I can always ask to ship in to a Canadian address, downside, is figuring out if I will have to pay duties on way back.

Sigh...

"Their point redemption sucks" "And when I look for flights I don't see anything"
I know exactly what you mean, I just used my remaining 5000 miles for hotel rooms at Seattle airport.
Make sure you find out from airmiles when your miles expire. A lot of people will lose out at the end of the year. There is a form on the airmiles website and they will email you back right away with the info on when your miles expire.

I see you're located in SEA. So, yeah, flights out of YVR are your best bet.

Flights don't have to be for yourself. You could certainly buy flights for relatives, etc.

All Air Miles you earned before 2012 will expire Dec 2016. Flight inventory will probably be very hard to cash in at the end of 2016.

You can also redeem some airmiles for SHELL gas card.

IMHO, unfortunately SHELL gift cards don't work in the US.

Not unless those Air Miles were earned as Cash miles, which is unlikely in this scenario.

Likely not.

If you ship a BBQ to Canada and bring it back...You'd also end up having to pay customs anyways on your trip back (though if I'm not mistaken you're given $XXX for X days of visiting) as you mentioned so that isn't too worth it.

The best you may do is load up on a bunch of high value gift cards and then use them when you're back in Canada for a visit, give them to friends/relatives (easy Christmas/Birthday gifts) or there's a bunch of gift-card selling online that take about 10%-15% commission of the price devaluing your points even further from the typical $0.10/mile.

You can redeem for hotel vouchers though.

Again, I don't see how anyone who earned Air Miles many years ago can redeem for merchandise gift cards.

Air Miles took the option of redeeming for gift cards away entirely on Air Miles earned years ago.

The only way, now, to redeem for gift cards is to have already declared your Air Miles as Cash Miles before you earned them.

Am I wrong about that?

Toronto Star article
 

Nothing new in here, but a good summary.

https://www.thestar.com/business/201...ce-effort.html

I have been accumulating miles for a trip to Asia, where our son lives. With the new rules, I will lose over 1000 miles as of December 31. Now I am trying to use up these miles before they expire. We have a trip to LV booked for next week, so I burned some Air Miles to rent a car for the week. I usually rent through the WN portal, and get 2400 RR points for doing so.

Trying to book flights to anywhere is an exercise in futility. When I use up all of the expiring/near expiring points, I am pretty much done with Air Miles and American Express as well. :mad:

You can make a booking in 2016 for flights (or other rewards) that take place in 2017. That's not a lot of help, I know, but something that some haven't considered.