According to a report in The Vancouver Sun, a class-action lawsuit is underway against Aeroplan that revolves around its practice of deleting accounts that do not have any activity within a 12-month period. The suit has been filed by Alma Pasker, a 82-year-old widow who lost her husband’s 70,000 Aeroplan points by not keeping the account active. Complicating matters is that Mrs. Pasker does not own a computer so had no way of knowing that her husband’s points were set to expire. She was in the process of transferring his points into her account when the account was closed. She had made several calls to Aeroplan during this process and not one representative told her that her points were in danger of expiring. She only found out that they were all gone when she attempted to spend the points to take a flight with his ashes to see family.

Mrs. Pasker and her late husband at one time had a co-branded credit card, but they let that go because the annual fees were high and they did not think it worth keeping when her husband stopped flying as much because of his ill health.

Owen Falquero, a Montreal-based lawyer with the Merchant Law Group, is representing Mrs. Pasker and maintains that the policy change for account activity was poorly communicated. And even if Mrs. Pasker did have a computer and could receive emails, he maintains that members get so many “junk” emails that he feels that form of communication is not adequate. “You might get 14 emails a month, 13 of them about the credit cards you can get,” he said. “And they expect you to read carefully through the 14th?”

The case should get a hearing in May that will determine if it’s allowed to proceed to class action.