Writer's Block Cured by Twitter
They say that confession is good for the soul. So I’ll admit something. I’ve had writer’s block for a while. I just couldn’t think of something interesting to write. Until Twitter helped me. I’m sure you’ve heard all about Twitter as it’s the latest and greatest social media sensation. Oprah’s on it. Ashton Kutcher is on it. Even Borat is on it.
So recently I read a terrific article in the Toronto Star (full disclosure: my employer is owned by Torstar which also owns the Toronto Star) by Ellen Grossman. She wrote about a situation where Aeroplan charged the widow of an Aeroplan member to transfer his accumulated Aeroplan points to her account as she wanted to take her grandchildren to Disney World. You read correctly. They wanted to charge the widow almost $2k to transfer her deceased husband’s Aeroplan points to her account. When the Toronto Star asked Aeroplan about it they had no comment.
I was so stunned I tweeted (posted) about the article in Twitter. The next thing I knew my tweet (post) got re-tweeted (re-posted) by at least ten other people. All of them very smart and talented people. Some of whom I’ve never met before. In fact a few of them are respected journalists for the Globe & Mail and La Presse respectively. None of my previous Twitter meanderings generated such a ‘viral’ effect. I now had something interesting to write about for my next post. And so here we are.
I’m an Aeroplan fanboy and I’ll admit it. The credit cards I use are because of it. The gas I buy at Esso is because of it. I buy Tropica orange juice because of it. I fly on Air Canada because of it. I have friends who work at Aeroplan and at agencies who represent them. A couple of years ago my wife’s Aeroplan account was de-activated because she hadn’t used it within the required amount of time and she was at risk of losing thousands of points. She missed the deadline by a matter of days so I emailed the President of Aeroplan, Rupert Duchesne, and he graciously re-instated her points without penalty. So as you can see, I’ve had a good relationship with Aeroplan over the years.
Which is why I’m torn by the article by Ellen Grossman. It really bothered me and based on the re-tweeting it bothered many others as well. I just don’t get why such a respected brand would act that way. The optics in this situation look nothing short of ridiculous from a marketing or branding perspective. As Mathew Ingram succintly tweeted “Stay classy Aeroplan – soak those widowers for all you can get.”
So is the morale of the story that spouses should tell their partners their Aeroplan account information? So in the event of an untimely demise their spouse/partner can still book reward tickets otherwise they will have to pay penalties to re-acquire Aeroplan points? (Naturally I would never do or advise such a thing as that would be a contravention of Aeroplan’s rules that members must agree to when they sign-up.)
It just doesn’t seem right Aeroplan. Even to a fanboy like me. Even if you did help me cure my writer’s block.
