Get more mileage out of your miles: upgrade {Gadling}

Dec 23rd 2008 9:53PM Ub here in Canada there's a program called "Air Miles", but you don't earn them by flying, well not directly at least. Heck, we use the Metric system up here, of course we're not going to earn miles by flying, we'd earn kilometers. Anyway, earn Miles by shopping at participating retailers that honour the Air Miles program. The purpose of the program is for you to cash in your Miles for actual miles on an airplane, although it's not one-to-one. You can also redeem them for all sorts of merchandise from the airmiles.com website. I once put together a spreadsheet which tracked the dollar and Mile value per item, and once you tacked on the taxes and fuel surcharges, flights were actually the worst thing to do with your Miles. The best value for your Mile was to spend them on gift cards, places like The Gap, Shell, iTunes. I did this analysis a few years back so it's no longer current, but anyone else collecting Air Miles should take this into account.