Your travel strategy for Black Friday sales

I wrote this piece last year, and feel that the advice still stands.

Do you have plans to shop travel Black Friday or Cyber Monday?

Spend those Air Miles

The Safeway e-auction is back. To over simplify, it's a few weeks a year that Safeway and Air Miles team up to clear out some inventory. There are 2 ways to participate. 1) Group Buy.... meaning you must be quick on the draw (these sell out in minutes) and you are purchasing a specific item that is available in a mass quantity. 2) The auction items take bids for a set amount of time. (I think it's 24 hours) and you compete to win one item.

You must sign up to participate, and you must have an access code per action. The access codes are little square cards you are given at the Safeway checkout line when you buy participating products (like Campbell's Chunky Soup).

So, there are quite a few steps to this. Is it worth it? Maybe. Depends what you are in the market for. However, you need to do the math before even considering buying the gift cards (see example shown at bottom of page). You see, you can redeem Air Miles at the checkout at Safeway any time at all, at the rate of 95 miles per $10...therefore 950 Air Miles is equal to $100 in Safeway credit. Therefore, I can't see any reason other than over-excitement that someone would bid over 1000 Air Miles for a $100 gift card. What a waste.

They have in the past, and elude to in the fine print, that there will be travel items up for auction. If I remember correctly, there was a trip and a couple gift cards last time around.  The Safeway e-auction has been around since 2011 I believe.  I will post if something exciting pops up.

The benefits of Onyx

When you become a 'super-collector' or as Air Miles calls it.... an Onyx collector, you will earn deeper discounts on flights and other awesome rewards.

To become an Onyx collector, you need to collect 6000 Air Miles in a 12 month period. It's easier to do than you think.

Step 1: Get a second copy of your card so that all adults in your household can collect

Step 2: Strategize to get 300 Air Miles per month from groceries

Step 3: Gas at Shell, and beer/wine/etc at the MLCC should account for another 50 per month.

Step 4: Do your on-line shopping through the www.airmilesshops.ca referral link. (They offer huge bonuses at back to school and Christmas time)

Step 5: Choose Rona over Home Depot for your home renovation supplies.

Then, you will be eligible for specials like these: