Air Canada Aeroplan has just launched a bonus on points transfers from one of the program’s hotel partners. This has the potential to be valuable, though it’s not necessarily how I’d choose to acquire Aeroplan points.
In this post:
Convert Bonvoy points to Aeroplan with 15% bonus
Between October 1 and October 31, 2024, Air Canada’s Aeroplan program is offering a 15% bonus when you transfer Marriott Bonvoy points to Air Canada Aeroplan.
There’s no registration required, but rather you just need to make an eligible transfer, and then the bonus points will be posted on Aeroplan’s end. The one major catch is that it can take 8-10 weeks from the end of the promotion period for the bonus Aeroplan points to credit, so you may have to be patient.
This promotion is specifically for points transfers from Marriott Bonvoy to Air Canada Aeroplan, as transfers from Aeroplan’s other hotel partners don’t qualify. Marriott Bonvoy points ordinarily convert into airline miles at a 3:1 ratio, and you ordinarily receive a bonus of 5,000 points with the airline for every 60,000 Bonvoy points transfered.
In other words, if you transfered 60,000 Marriott Bonvoy points you’d first receive 20,000 Aeroplan points. Then you’d receive a 15% bonus, for an additional 3,000 points, and then you’d receive another 5,000 points, reflecting that you transfered 60,000 points. In the end, you’d get 28,000 Aeroplan points for 60,000 Bonvoy points.
Based on my valuation of points, I consider Marriott Bonvoy points to be worth 0.7 cents each, while I consider Air Canada Aeroplan points to be worth 1.5 cents each.
There are lots of ways to earn Aeroplan points
There’s a lot to love about the Air Canada Aeroplan program, including the stopover policy on awards. The major consideration here is that there are several ways to efficiently earn Aeroplan points:
- Aeroplan is 1:1 transfer partners with Amex Membership Rewards, Capital One, and Chase Ultimate Rewards
- There’s the Aeroplan® Credit Card (review), which offers a great bonus and some unique perks
- Lastly, Aeroplan often sells points at a reasonable cost
Personally I’d rather acquire Aeroplan points through one of those methods, rather than transferring them from Marriott Bonvoy, even if this ratio isn’t bad. That’s simply because there are so few ways to efficiently acquire Bonvoy points, so I prefer to save them for redemptions at luxury hotels.
Bottom line
Aeroplan has launched a bonus for points transfers from Marriott Bonvoy. Aeroplan is offering a 15% bonus on these transfers, so this means you could convert 60,000 Marriott Bonvoy points into 28,000 Air Canada Aeroplan points. Some people might find this to be worthwhile, though personally I’d rather acquire Aeroplan points using other means.
Do you plan on taking advantage of this Aeroplan transfer bonus?
As an Gulf-based expat, I find Aeroplan program quite useful. I purcahsed at the rate of 1.14c or 1.25c during prevoius promotions. If they keep to sell at this rate, no need to transfer valuable UR pts to Aeroplan. I would rather transfer to Avios with 30% bonus for QR flight for Europe.
You would have to be crazy to transfer to Aeroplan. It's on par with Etihad in terms of the insane redemption options available.
Want to fly from SFO to YYZ/YUL on a Wednesday departing at 2am? 480,000 points for basic economy.
"Partners", if you can even call them that, are rarely available, or only available in the most inconvenient routing possible.
The program is gold plated garbage
Partners are mostly blocked.
Wonder why blogs keep pumping Aeroplan without any warnings