Cashing out Airmiles?

September 17, 2005 9:35 PM

Does anyone know of a way to convert my Airmiles to Aeroplan points? Or to convert Airmiles to cash?

I want to convert my Airmiles to either cash or to Aeroplan points so that I can redeem the combination of the two points for a Canon Rebel XT. I know a similar question has been asked about merging points from different star-alliance loyalty programs, but that doesn't help me out.. I've read vague posts in online forums about converting points from points plan a to points plan b, and then to point plan c, (etc.) - this I guess is also called 'points laundering', but haven't gotten any clear guidance on how to do this.

posted by burhan to shopping (7 comments total)

Sorry, I should also mention that converting Aeroplan into Airmiles is also an acceptable solution for me... (or converting Aeroplan to cash).
posted by burhan at 9:44 PM on September 17, 2005

I have nothing of direct help for you, but you might want to try posing the same question in the FlyerTalk forums. Those people are frequent flyer addicts.
posted by nathan_teske at 10:22 PM on September 17, 2005

You can buy giftcards with Airmiles, and then sell them, or pull the old buy and return trick. They have Chapters, Home Depot and others on there. That's what I did when I realized I had thousands of points that I've collected over the years. I've looked into point trading schemes, and as I recall, they all took hefty commissions.
posted by loquax at 11:35 PM on September 17, 2005

Can you use them both to buy giftcards for the same store that carries the camera? Airmiles, for example, offers gift certificates to Staples, which might have what you want. Aeroplan has them for Future Shop, which almost certainly does. Aeroplan also offers some mall gift certificates - if you could get an Aeroplan mall certificate to a mall that has a Staples in it, that might work.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:05 AM on September 18, 2005

I remember at one point you could turn airmiles or aeroplan points into (formerly clubZ points) HBC points. Otherwise gift cards is the next best thing.
posted by furtive at 9:27 AM on September 18, 2005

I thought about the gift-card thing with the Airmiles -> I was going to go for the Staples card. However, their return policy states that they do refund only to the same form of payment..

My thought was, that if I redeem for 10x$25 Staples cards, then go buy something worth say $300, and then return it a week later, that they might try to credit $250 of the $300 back on a giftcard.

Their FAQ doesn't mention anything about returns from items purchased with giftcards.
posted by burhan at 10:33 AM on September 18, 2005

Let's see, you can convert your Air Miles to HBC Rewards points -- losing about half the value of the Air Miles.

Then you can pay points.com a fee to convert the HBC Rewards points to Aeroplan points -- losing about 80% of the value of the HBC points.

The gift certificate route is probably best. Ideally, you'd get GCs for the same place from both rewards programs and buy the camera there. Don't know if that's possible. Otherwise you can do something like use the Air Miles to get $X in grocery GCs and then take $X from your grocery budget to buy the camera, etc. Or get $X in GCs and then sell them for $X minus $10 on eBay.

What I did when I got my digicam was use different points for different parts. I got the camera at one place, the additional memory card I wanted at another place, and the rechargeable batteries and recharger at a third place.
posted by winston at 11:54 AM on September 18, 2005