Safeway is having a 28 day auction of items using AirMiles. Every time you bid you need a code from a little card the cashier gives you when you buy something. There are about 30-50 items up for bids on a 4 day cycle. The first cycle just finished. There is also a daily "Group Buy" that starts every morning at 9:00am Mountain Time (8:00 AM in BC).
So far the group buys have had excellent value. Fpr example they've twice offered 32 GB iPODs for 750AMs ???? (approx. value $85 incl. tax). However, there is a limited number available and the demand was so great on this item the system crashed both days. The other items were less popular (Today's was a Hoover vacuum ret. value $200 could be had for 600 AMs = $70).
At this point the 30-50 item auction is a waste of time. People are bidding far too much. Someone bought the $500 with enough AirMiles that could have bought them $1,300 worth of gas. They lost over $800 in value. There is also an iPOD 32 GB in the 4 day auction. Someone bid around 10,000 AMs for it. They could have gone to the AirMiles website and got a 32 GB for around 4,000 AirMiles. They wasted hundreds of dollars worth of AirMiles.
Anyway, you need cards from the cashiers to make bids or buy into the group buy. I believe every time you bid requires a new code.
Here's the site:
http://www.safewayeauction.ca/
Oh, and I just got back from Safeway. My favourite cashier gave me 7 code cards. It always pays to be nice, friendly and chat up Safeway's cashiers, especially the older ones. I always call them by name too.