Often buying points strategically can be a good value, especially for first & business class travel. The Air Canada Aeroplan program has just launched a new promotion on purchased points, which I’d consider to be spectacularly good.
Aeroplan is one of my all-around favorite frequent flyer programs, thanks to the huge variety of airline partners, the ability to have stopovers on one-way awards for 5,000 points, and the generally great online booking experience.
In this post:
Promotion on purchased Air Canada Aeroplan points
Through Monday, May 22, 2023, the Air Canada Aeroplan program is offering a bonus on purchased points. It’s possible that different accounts are eligible for different offers. My account is showing a tiered bonus of up to 110%, structured as follows:
- Buy 4,000-29,000 points, receive a 60% bonus
- Buy 30,000-55,000 points, receive a 75% bonus
- Buy 60,000+ points, receive a 110% bonus
How much does it cost to buy Aeroplan points?
Ordinarily you can buy Air Canada Aeroplan points for $0.035 CAD (~0.026 USD) each, before any discounts or bonuses. Any purchases made with US credit cards and US billing addresses aren’t subject to sales tax either.
If you maxed out the 110% bonus and purchased 500,000 points in one transaction, you’d receive a total of 1,050,000 Aeroplan points at a cost of $17,500 CAD (~$12,984 USD), which is a rate of 1.24 cents (USD) per Aeroplan point.
This has the potential to be an exceptional deal, and is among the best promotions we’ve ever seen from the Aeroplan program.
How many Aeroplan points can you purchase?
While you can purchase up to one million Aeroplan points per account per calendar year (pre-bonus), ordinarily there is a per-transaction limit of 250,000 points pre-bonus. However, during this offer period that limit has been increased to 500,000 points pre-bonus.
Which credit card should you buy Aeroplan points with?
Air Canada Aeroplan points purchases are processed by points.com, meaning they don’t count as an airfare purchase for the purposes of credit card spending. Therefore I’d recommend using a card on which you’re trying to reach a minimum spending requirement, or otherwise, a credit card that maximizes your return on everyday spending.
In this case the best options are the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card (review) or Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card (review), which offer 2x miles and have no foreign transaction fees. Usually the Chase Freedom Unlimited® (review) or Citi® Double Cash Card (review) would also be good options for maximizing everyday spending, but the cards have foreign transaction fees, so wouldn’t be good options in this case.
- Earn 1% cash back when you make a purchase, earn 1% cash back when you pay for that purchase
- $0
- Earn 3% Cash Back on Dining
- Earn 3% Cash Back at Drugstores
- Earn 1.5% Cash Back On All Other Purchases
- $0
- Earn 2x Venture miles on every purchase
- No Foreign Transaction Fees
- 10,000 bonus miles every account anniversary
- $395
- Earn unlimited 2X miles on every purchase, every day
- No Foreign Transaction Fees
- Global Entry/TSA Pre-Check Credit
- $95
- 2x points on purchases up to $50k then 1x
- Access to Amex Offers
- No annual fee
Is buying Air Canada Aeroplan points worth it?
Aeroplan is one of my favorite frequent flyer programs out there. The new Aeroplan program was launched in late 2020, and it’s completely different than before:
- Award pricing is a combination of zone and distance-based
- There are no more fuel surcharges for any award redemptions
- You can have a stopover on a one-way award for an additional 5,000 points
- Aeroplan has more airline partners than any other program out there, including partnering with many non-Star Alliance airlines
There are lots of phenomenal uses of Aeroplan points, and this is a program that I redeem through regularly.
On what airlines can you redeem Aeroplan points?
One of my favorite things about Air Canada Aeroplan is that the program has more airline partners than any other frequent flyer program, and you can redeem points on over 45 airlines. In addition to Air Canada belonging to the Star Alliance, Aeroplan also partners with airlines that include Etihad, Azul, Vistara, Air Serbia, Virgin Australia, Air Dolomiti, Eurowings Discover, Gulf Air, Oman Air, Air Mauritius, Bamboo Airways, and Emirates.
I expect Aeroplan’s list of airline partners will only continue to grow over time, and to me that’s really exciting.
Are there fuel surcharges on Aeroplan awards?
Many consumers are frustrated by the practice of airlines adding carrier imposed surcharges to award tickets. In the case of Aeroplan, there are no fuel surcharges on award tickets, meaning you shouldn’t expect to pay big fees when redeeming points.
How much are Aeroplan points worth?
Everyone will value points currencies differently, but personally I value Aeroplan points at ~1.5 cents each. However, I tend to value points pretty conservatively, and there are many ways to get way more value from Aeroplan points than that.
Do Aeroplan points expire?
Air Canada Aeroplan points only expire after 18 months of inactivity. However, any account activity that leads to earning or redeeming points (including buying them) would reset the expiration.
What other ways can you earn Aeroplan points?
While buying Aeroplan points could represent a great deal, keep in mind that there are lots of other ways to earn Aeroplan points. Most significantly, Aeroplan is transfer partners with American Express Membership Rewards, Capital One, and Chase Ultimate Rewards, making the currency pretty easy to acquire.
On top of that, in the United States there’s the Aeroplan® Credit Card (review), which is pretty lucrative.
Bottom line
Air Canada’s Aeroplan program is offering a promotion on purchased points. You can currently buy points with up to a 110% bonus, which is an opportunity to acquire Aeroplan points for 1.24 cents each (in USD).
Aeroplan points are valuable, and there are plenty of situations under which the math could work out with taking advantage of this offer. I think there’s merit to buying Aeroplan points with this offer.
Do you plan on buying Aeroplan points with this promotion?
Aeroplan has expensive change fees I oared to alaska mileage plan. Also I’ve found I couldn’t cancel a booking online using safari, getting error messages and then tried to ring their call centre multiple times and got put on hold. Adding to that Aeroplan charged my credit card three times when I tried to cancel the flight online and got those error messages. Advice - use chrome if trying to cancel aeroplan bookings online.
*compared
Ben, you earlier posted that Aeroplan provides fixed pricing on all it's partner airlines, but not Air Canada. Whenever I search though, I keep finding dynamic pricing for partners, such as over 300,000 for NYC to UAE business class.
Has dynamic pricing been initiated or am I searching wrong?
So Ben -- which would you pick --- Avianca LifeMiles at 155% bonus or Aeroplan at 110% bonus?
You should pick the one that has the availability on the trip you want to book, then buy the miles and book immediately.
Generally, I'd say Aeroplan all the way!
Reason: If things go off-course with LifeMiles bookings, things get messy (and expensive).
In over a decade have never even once found an award on aeroplan. Then again am not an avgeek expert. But I have booked awards on SQ,CX,BA, AF,EY,NH,JL,AA,UA. My most frequent route is SFO-NRT and back. Would be great if point.me would add a feature that ANY time an F award available on this route would shoot out an email. Since I make six trips a year dates are very flexible…
Just completed a trip on EY Business ADL-SYD-AUH-LHR using Aeroplan miles.
Easy as pie, just spent some time scrolling through all the options, but there is a filter to use where you can get rid of all the dross (like 3rd rate airlines and mixed cabin).
All pretty easy, only sometimes the flight you want is towards the bottom of a large set of offerings.
I like using Aeroplan to book certain awards. On your particular redemption I would probably use Virgin Atlantic though. Either way I would go about booking it on Air Canada the same way as I would with Virgin.(because the UI on Air Canada is inferior to United) I would look at the United Calendar option and find saver flights on ANA and then look at those specific dates that I find on the Air Canada flight.
Deval coming later in 2023.
Its been confirmed by AC insiders on AC board
Devaluation is coming.
I honestly don't understand why almost every comment on this website is negative/pessimistic. Some of you guys must be fun at parties.
Not a good deal. Devaluation likely coming like all other programs
So you don't think it's a good deal now or you don't think it's a good deal because of something that might happen in the future?
Not likely. Guaranteed.
If you have an award that you need to book now who cares if a devaluation is coming! Air Canada has also been really good at giving an advanced warning on their devaluations unlike other programs.