BMO Completes Acquisition of Air Miles

Air Miles has a story that’s as iconic as it is dramatic. Through its precipitous rise to its ignominious and sad internal collapse, the brand has maintained a recognition amongst Canadians unparalleled by any other loyalty rewards program.

It looks like this story has at least another few chapters yet to be written, because the white knight known as the Bank of Montreal has completed its acquisition of Air Miles as of June 1, 2023.

Let’s dig in.

BMO Completes Acquisition of Air Miles

On June 1, 2023, BMO completed its acquisition of Air Miles. The bank paid $160 million (USD) to bring the loyalty program under its purview, and the deal has now been completed.

To quickly recap what brought the bank to make the purchase, the Air Miles loyalty program had been in decline for quite some time.

First came the news of enormous devaluations in 2021, particularly when using Air Miles for travel.

Then came years of stagnancy and lack of growth as customers organically veered away from using Air Miles, because it was harder to gain a sufficient amount of miles to redeem for decent rewards. Even if they were able to, it became more complicated as Air Miles became split between the Dream and Cash categories, both of which having different rules and valuations around redemptions.

Third came the mass abandonment of the Air Miles program by its various meaningful retail partners in 2022 and beyond, which included Lowe’s, Staples, and the crown jewel of Empire-affiliated grocery stores, such as Sobeys. To add insult to injury, the grocery juggernaut opted to board the Scene+ program instead, which by all accounts has been full steam ahead since then.

This cacophony of woes resulted in Air Miles’s former parent company, Loyalty Ventures Incorporated, declaring bankruptcy back in March of 2023 – after senior executives had a chance to pay themselves hefty bonuses from the meagre remaining balances of the company cash accounts, of course.

BMO offered to immediately buy out the Air Miles portion of Loyalty Venture Incorporated’s portfolio, and with obvious reason. The Air Miles brand name still holds a hallowed cachet to many Canadians, not because of what the brand has been recently, but because of the ubiquity it once possessed.

And now, BMO inked a deal to acquire Air Miles that was pending court approval for…