Here is a copy of a letter I sent to Aeroplan earlier this week.

Rupert Duchesne
President & Chief Executive Officer
Aeroplan

Dear Mr. Duchesne, I have been a loyal Aeroplan miles collector since 1996. To date I have collected over 57000 airmiles in the hope of one day taking my family to Disneyworld. I figured I would wait until I had enough aeroplan miles and then surprise my wife and two children with the trip as a gift. Last week I went to check to see if I had enough aeroplan miles and was informed that they had all been revoked.

Since I had not received any hard copy letters from Aeroplan, I had not heard of any new policy changes from your company. Yes I did get several emails from Aeroplan over the past year but since they were generic form letters and junk mail, they ended up in my junk mail folder and so I didn't get them (by the way, I get over 1500 junk mail letters every month and cannot read them). In fact, looking over my junk mail now, I can see that I was notified that my miles were to expire in October of 2007. If I had been made aware of your policy changes, I would have most certainly kept my account active. Without any hard copy letters sent to me, I never did get notification of my impending losses. In fact, I had lost about 22000 of the 57000 aeroplan miles one year earlier and wasn't even notified about that. That's a bit bit of an oversight, wouldn't you agree?

I feel that all twelve years of my savings have been taken away from me because of some internal Aeroplan policy change of which I wasn't made aware of. It's as if the bank which holds my savings came up with a similar policy that untouched accounts over one year would revert the savings away from the client back to the bank. It's absurd, I know, but it's similar to you taking my aeroplan miles away from me. I understand that you have had hundreds of complaints about this, and would add that my discussions with one of your client representatives (Valaria in Vancouver @ 1-866-812-6436) was not very helpful. Unfortunately Valaria would only give me her first name.

I understand that your company had changed the contract under which aeroplan miles were to be administered but unfortunately, your form letters did not get through. If I may, I would like to suggest that any significant policy changes that impact your clients in such a dramatic way should at least warrant a hard copy letter to all participants. I am writing this email in the hope of getting all my aeroplan miles reinstated with no costs to me, now that I am aware of your new rules. If there was more care in contacting me regarding my impending losses, I would assume the loss myself, but since, as I have already stated, your form letters simply aren't personal enough to be considered anything more than just junk mail.

I have lost 198,000 points because of inactivity. I realize this is probably now old news for many but is anything being done Aeroplans heavy handed tactics. Any help or contact regarding such things as class action suit would be appreciated!

All of my air miles have been removed from my account at Aeroplan because of no recent activity. I was not notified because they did not have my recent addresses. They did have my phone number and city of residence. When I called they said they have no leniency and they don't care if I want to hold this against Air Canada.

So much for having been a loyal customer!