News Releases

TORONTO, May 16, 2008 – Can't get that iPod you had hoped for from your bank? Don't despair. AIR MILES Collectors at BMO Bank of Montreal can get an iPod, a digital camera, even a big screen TV. In fact, BMO has made it easier for collectors to earn points faster so that they can get any one of more than 800 popular merchandise items quicker through its partnership with the AIR MILES Reward Program.

Since 1992, BMO Bank of Montreal customers have earned enough AIR MILES to:

•   fly across Canada more than 250,000 times (British Columbia to Nova Scotia)
•   take 67,500 trips to Australia (from Ontario)
•   acquire 621,000 Apple iPod Shuffles

“Our unique position as a founding sponsor of Canada's most comprehensive loyalty rewards program has a very strong appeal to the more than nine million households that collect AIR MILES,” said Lynne Kilpatrick, Senior Vice-President, Personal Banking, BMO Bank of Montreal. “This is not about just giving customers an item for opening an account. This is about rewarding our customers for their business on an ongoing basis.”

Last summer BMO integrated its customers' Everyday Banking Debit Cards into its AIR MILES program to give customers who have both a BMO debit card and BMO Mosaik MasterCard with AIR MILES an opportunity to increase their monthly reward totals by as much as 40 per cent, simply by doing more business with BMO.

“That not only means they can collect reward miles faster; it also means they can redeem sooner, and with more than 800 redemption items to choose from, our AIR MILES customers can get just about anything they aspire to…even an iPod!” said Ms. Kilpatrick.

No other rewards program offers collectors as much choice, both in terms of where they can shop to earn points (100 brand name coalition sponsors with more 10,000 retail and service outlets) and the wide range of redemption options from air travel to merchandise and services.

“Our value proposition is very simple – giving our customers more ways to collect means they're always collecting – when you buy with your BMO debit card or BMO Mosaik MasterCard with AIR MILES you're always collecting AIR MILES reward miles,” said Ms. Kilpatrick.

“BMO is the only bank that can help you collect faster and redeem quicker and we want AIR MILES Collectors who aren't banking with BMO to come and talk to us to see how they can benefit,” she said.

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