York (the city you are interested in) in the low season costs 1150 miles. Using Google Flight Search, it is easy to see how much the lowest cost round-trip flight from Toronto to New York City is in the next 6 months - looks like about $270 including taxes - except with Air Miles you have to pay the taxes extra, so we need to compare BEFORE taxes, which is more like 158.00. So at 1 AM / $20, you will spend 20 * 1150 = 23,000 to get enough miles to be worth $158. That works out to a ROR of 158 / 23000 or 0.6%, which is pretty poor.. the Aspire rate is 2%. Now - the trick is the Airmiles Gold pays you 1 mile / $15 you spend at sponsors... so if you shop a lot at Airmiles sponsors, the rate goes up...but even if you work that out, it is still not 2%... 15 * 1150 = 17250, $158 / 17250 = 0.9%, less than even a 1% cash back card.