As most of you probably know, Air Miles start expiring soon. After apparently doing zero research, many years ago I thought an Air Miles card was a good idea, and thus have a decent amount left (~$500 worth). Now that it's getting to the point where they will soon start to expire, I have started looking at merchandise to use up my miles on, because the flight deals are obviously horrible value.
Lo and behold, there is probably 1/10th of the merchandise they normally have, and it is all garbage. Normally their selection is decent, with a scattering of quality items (years ago got my Vitamix from them for example). Further research shows that AirMiles is already being sued, because people with expiring miles get far fewer redemption options shown to them than those with mostly brand new miles.
I have only begun looking into this but has anyone else noticed this or is it just me? If I had to guess, they are making it as unappealing as possible for people with expiring miles to redeem them, so they don't get used by the deadline. For nearly a decade my choices for merchandise have been roughly the same, and now conveniently when there is no doubt a bit of a rush to use the points, they cut their selection down by a factor of probably 10. Not a big deal for me obviously, but some of you might have a lot more miles.