Collecting Air Miles at BMO is no more, as the bank has officially flipped the switch on Blue Rewards, the new loyalty program it’s been teasing for a while now, and it’s already live for Canadians.
The rollout includes a fresh lineup of BMO Blue Rewards Mastercard credit cards, a Blue Rewards Chequing Account, and a set of commercial cards for businesses. It’s still run by a BMO subsidiary, so this isn’t a third party taking over. It’s BMO replacing its own program with something it says fits how people actually spend.
If you had Air Miles, you don’t need to do anything. Your existing Reward Miles were automatically converted to Blue Points with no loss of value, and your cards and card numbers stay exactly the same. BMO also rolled the old Cash and Dream Miles into one single type of Point, so there’s no more juggling two buckets.
Blue Rewards leans into everyday spending, with bonus earn rates on gas, groceries, wholesale, and EV charging. There’s also up to 10x the Points on travel booked through Blue Rewards Travel, which is powered by Expedia. The travel side has been simplified too, letting you redeem any amount of Points toward a trip and cover whole trips including taxes and fees.
On the partner front, the network has expanded, now including the likes of Porter Airlines, Instacart, Accor hotel brands like Fairmont, Sofitel, Rimrock and Novotel, plus a stack of MTY Group restaurants including Thai Express, Mr. Sub, Manchu Wok, Mucho Burrito, Pizza Delight and Jugo Juice. BMO says more partners are coming through the year.
“Built around how Canadians choose to spend, Blue Rewards brings together in-store, online and digital experiences to make earning and redeeming rewards more flexible, convenient and seamless,” said Mathew Mehrotra, Group Head, Canadian Personal & Business Banking at BMO, in a statement on Tuesday.
BMO says the new Blue Rewards Mastercards are the only retail credit cards in Canada with built-in bonus earn on gas, groceries, and wholesale purchases all at once, based on its own competitive review from December.
Back in 2023, BMO acquired Air Miles from LoyaltyOne, with the latter having filed for bankruptcy protection. Fast forward three years later and the Air Miles program as you knew it, is now dead. The writing was on the wall though as the Air Miles program saw so many partners switch away from the program near the end.
What do you think about the new BMO Blue Rewards program?
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