Please take action before December 28th!! Pass on the information to your family members.
The BC College of Pharmacists is attempting to prohibit British Columbians from collecting AIR MILES and other loyalty rewards in connection with prescription purchases. Safeway strongly disagrees with the proposal and believes that restricting the awarding of Air Miles and other incentives would be unfair to our customers. If you agree, please “like” this statement and e-mail PROREGADMIN@gov.bc.ca to share your thoughts with the College of Pharmacists and BC Health Minister. (Like is on Facebook, if you have account, go to Safeway for the Like) Otherwise, please send email.
You have until December 28, 2012 to ensure your voice is heard. Your comments will be reviewed by the BC Minister of Health before a final decision is made. The College’s proposed bylaws are posted at oak.ctx.ly/r/1jzp
[quote=“Cityofrain”]Please take action before December 28th!!
The BC College of Pharmacists is attempting to prohibit British Columbians from collecting AIR MILES and other loyalty rewards in connection with prescription purchases. Safeway strongly disagrees with the proposal and believes that restricting the awarding of Air Miles and other incentives would be unfair to our customers. If you agree, please “like” this statement and e-mail PROREGADMIN@gov.bc.ca to share your thoughts with the College of Pharmacists and BC Health Minister. (Like is on Facebook, if you have account, go to Safeway for the Like) Otherwise, please send email.
You have until December 28, 2012 to ensure your voice is heard. Your comments will be reviewed by the BC Minister of Health before a final decision is made. The College’s proposed bylaws are posted at oak.ctx.ly/r/1jzp[/quote]
The ‘Like’ feature on FB does NOTHING other than indicate agreement/interest on subject mmatters. The pen (or email in the internet era) is the mmighty sword!!! Unfortunately a lot of people will not take the timme to write/email. =( . There is power in numbers: IE…the Canadian province that raised such an uproar over the introduction of the HST that the gov’t reversed it’s decision!!! Does anyone remmember what province that was???
Here is a link I found with a small explanation on the pharmacists/BC Health Stand. bcpharmacists.org/search.php … s=airmiles
Good luck Airmile Memmbers!!!
isabelydancer00
It’s already illegal in some provinces. I don’t think you should add incentives to buying medicine.
How about Safeway stop selling bullshit homeopathic “medicine” if they are so concerned about their customers? They even have it on the same shelf as real medicine. Now that is unfair to Safeway customers. Equating magic water with real medicine should be a crime.
I am a huge airmile supporter and a loyal Safeway shopper as a result. However, I use their pharmacy as a convenience not because of the airmiles. And being relatively healthy I don’t get a lot of airmiles from their pharmacy so it wouldn’t be a big issue with me. (I am more concerned about an earlier thread describing the difficulty of redeeming flights at specific days.)
On top of that, base points (e.g 1 mile for every $20) is not going to get you very far. You have to maximize the bonus specials and be very careful and selective of what you buy when doing so. The pharmacy offers 7x the base miles to encourage more customers.
I have no problem with Safeway encouraging people to use their pharmacy by offering their incentive. I don’t think it is an ethical issue. (The products that Mig is referring to may be an ethical issue but that is separate from airmiles.)
But here is where it does get ethical. When I buy my prescription medicine, I am rebated 80% at the till through my Blue Cross insurance. For a $100 worth of medicine, I pay $20 (7 airmiles) but I get airmiles based on the full $100 (35 airmiles). In other words my insurance company is paying for 80% of the airmiles I receive at the pharmacy. Shouldn’t Blue Cross be getting those airmiles and then perhaps using them to pay for flights for their insured clients who need to fly to get treatment rather than charging higher premiums to pay for the same service.
And still sort of on topic. While reading a news article on this issue, I found a link to this Blue Cross site (pharmacycompass.ca/) which gives consumers an idea of the cost of medicine in their area at various pharmacies. The site isn’t perfect. i looked up a couple of medications that our family had recently used. For one only Shoppers was listed but all of the Shoppers in the region. Interestingly, Terrace was more expensive than Rupert and both were more expensive than Smithers and Kitimat.
For the other medication, I was able to compare our Safeway to our Shoppers (in this case Safeway won) and to Terrace’s Save On which had the better deal.
My point here. Assume that our Overwaitea has similar pricing to Save-On. If I had bought my meds at the Rupert Safeway, even when the price was higher and I am doing that only because my insurance company is paying for a bunch of air miles, is that fair and ethical?
Just an FYI this proposal is for any incentive programs on any prescriptions so that means SaveOnMore points and Shopper’s Optimum points on prescriptions as well. This is not just an Safeway/Airmiles issue.
the article states ppl that don’t pay for their own medication would be cut off at least that is what was in the Vancouver Sun, and in a way it makes sense, if the government or insurance companies pay for your medication why should you get the points for it.
The Sun got it wrong. The Pharmacare covered portions of prescriptions have been except from any reward or loyalty program since July 4 2011. We are talking about any prescription, or medication getting covered from YOUR out of pocket expense, and not getting any Save on points, Airmiles, Optimum points etc. This is hitting everyone, not just the low income, disability & seniors like the other cutback did. It is a blanket policy for all British Columbians.
Why does it matter who is actually paying for the prescription? The loyalty points are a matter between me and the pharmacy, not between the payer and the pharmacy. The vendor offers loyalty points to attract me as a customer. The Pharmacists organization is simply trying to protect small pharmacies who can;t afford to be part of loyalty programs from the larger chain stores.
I have very large prescription costs per year covered by Fair Pharmacare and Pacific Blue Cross. I indirectly pay for both those coverages through taxes and union contract benefit costs. Why shouldn’t I collect Air Miles offered by Safeway in return for doing business with their pharmacy?
Next thing you know we will all have to go to the pharmacy that charges the lowest cost (and perhaps the highest dispensing cost) if the govt and Pharmacists have their way.
Well Airmiles are becoming a joke out of Rupert, unless you can book far ahead and most of my plans are not drawn up months in advance… I am now having to pay for tickets much of the time, so for myself I could care less what happens… In the past it was great to have lots of Airmiles, but like all good things, they end eventually…