With Christmas only 19 days away I thought I'd do a little post on gift cards or gift certificates. Remember, to get your giftcard (or any merchandise) before Christmas you need to redeem before December 15th! Gift cards make a great Christmas present and are a great way to use your airmiles (be sure to check the fine print as I noticed quite a few say ships in 3 weeks).
What Kind of Gift Cards Can I buy?
You can get a gift card for almost everything and anything. From fashion and entertainment to food and automotive.
How do I calculate what the best deal is?
Find the number of airmiles and the value of the gift card. Divide the number of airmiles by the dollar value (ie: 125 / 20 = X). The best value I've found is 7.3 as this ratio. The lower the better and typically you don't want to go higher than 10 (over even 9) as that would be a bad redemption value. I've listed the best gift cards to airmiles deals below.
Fashion:Roots $20 = 125 airmiles
Health, Food & Beverage: Metro (Ontario) or Sobeys (Atlantic) $20 = 140 airmiles
Gas: Shell $20 = 175 airmiles
Sports & Entertainment: Night Out Movie Package (approx value $30+ ) = 175 airmiles
Home, Reading & Renovations: Rona $20 = 150 airmiles
Also, remember that sometimes if you spend more airmiles you'll get a better deal. ie: Buying a $50 gift card will cost less than a $25 (not significantly but occasionally by 5 airmiles).
How Do I redeem my airmiles for gift cards?
I get this question quite often and it's actually very simple. You can either call airmiles directly at 1-888-AIRMILES. When you do call be sure to have a speaker phone as it takes quite a while to get through, especially during the holidays. The other option is to login into your airmiles.ca account, click rewareds, giftcards & subscriptions and then select the gift card / category that you'd like.
Finally, even though you're trying to maximize your airmiles you still want to get a present that they'll like. If they would rather shop at Gap then Roots than buy the Gap card and visa-versa.
