Soon Smithereens will no longer be able to collect Air Miles at Safeway.

The grocery chain is dropping the Air Miles program in favour of something else.

The parent company of Sobey鈥檚, which also owns Safeway, is launching a new loyalty program, joining Bank of Nova Scotia and Cineplex as co-owner of the Scene+ program.

The Scene+ program will launch in Atlantic Canada in August and will finish rolling out across the rest of the country by early 2023, the company said.

Scene+ customers can rack up points when purchasing movie tickets from Cineplex, meals from Recipe Unlimited Corp. restaurants like Swiss Chalet and Harvey鈥檚, and when banking through Bank of Nova Scotia.

The points can be redeemed for purchases made with these businesses and others.

Social media users were outraged at the news.

Some said the points were not useable here while others were sad they wouldn鈥檛 be able to fund their trips out of Smithers with the Air Miles.

Some commented they will be doing their grocery shopping other places once the program is dropped.

Manager of the Smithers Airport Rob Blackburn said only time will tell if the change in the loyalty program will affect the airport operations.

鈥淲e have seen many changes in the points systems over the years,鈥� he said.

鈥淎t this point, it is too soon to tell if the change will affect us or not. Often the changes take a year or two before we would note any change in travel plans.鈥�