The Globe and Mail reports in its Wednesday edition that the boardroom turmoil at Aimia, the company that used to run Aeroplan, makes for a sad conclusion to what it once was. Guest columnist Andreas Souvaliotis writes that Air Canada's frequent-flyer program had long been celebrated as one of the stickiest and most successful in the world. It offered an exceptionally simple promise to investors: A frequent-flyer program contains so much untapped value because it can easily be transformed into an Air Miles-like loyalty coalition for the rich. Air Canada quickly spun off Aeroplan -- and the new venture was instantly valued at more than $2-billion. Both unicorns have since vanished from the market. Air Canada was able to repatriate its bruised but essential frequent-flyer program after buying it for pennies on the dollar through a spectacular showdown, leaving Aimia as an empty shell with virtually no business assets other than cash. In a similar move, BMO was most recently able to snatch the remnants of the Air Miles program through a bankruptcy sale. Canadians still love their points. What had happened to Air Miles and Aeroplan was not the fault of the business model but the bad individual decisions the companies made.