Often buying points strategically can be a good value, especially for first and business class travel. Air Canada Aeroplan has just launched its latest promotion on purchased points, and it has the potential to be quite an attractive offer.
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 Thursday, July 17, 2025, the Air Canada Aeroplan program is offering a promotion on purchased points. It’s possible that members will be targeted for different offers — the accounts I manage show a tiered bonus of up to 100%, structured as follows:
- Buy 5,000-29,000 points, receive a 55% bonus
- Buy 30,000-79,000 points, receive a 75% bonus
- Buy 80,000+ points, receive a 100% bonus
Other people may very well be targeted for different offers, so you’ll want to check your account.
How much does it cost to buy Aeroplan points?
The first thing worth noting is that Aeroplan appears to have just increased the cost to purchase points before a discount or bonus. Prior to this promotion, you could purchase Aeroplan points for $0.035 CAD (~0.026 USD) each, while now the cost is $0.0375 CAD (~0.028 USD) each.
Any purchases made with US credit cards and US billing addresses aren’t subject to sales tax either. If you purchased 500,000 Aeroplan points with a 100% bonus, you’d receive a total of 1,000,000 Aeroplan points at a cost of $18,750 CAD (~$13,698 USD), which is a rate of 1.37 cents (USD) per Aeroplan point.
How many Aeroplan points can you purchase?
While you can purchase up to one million Aeroplan points per account per calendar year, there’s ordinarily a per-transaction limit of 250,000 points pre-bonus. However, during this promotion that has been doubled, to 500,000 points.
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.
Is buying Air Canada Aeroplan points worth it?
Aeroplan is one of my favorite frequent flyer programs out there. To cover a few of the basics:
- Award pricing is a combination of zone and distance-based
- There are no 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. Just keep in mind that Aeroplan now has dynamic award pricing on select partners, including Emirates, Etihad, FlyDubai, and United, among others.
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, Air Serbia, Virgin Australia, Air Dolomiti, Eurowings Discover, Gulf Air, Oman Air, Air Mauritius, Bamboo Airways, and Emirates.
Always look up award availability before buying points, to get a sense of what you can expect.
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, Bilt 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 bonus on purchased points. While people may be targeted for different offers, at least some people are eligible for a 100% bonus offer, which kicks in as long as you purchase at least 80,000 points in one transaction. This is an opportunity to buy points for 1.37 cents (in USD) each.
This could represent a good deal, and there are plenty of situations under which the math will work out for this promotion. Still, in general I’d only recommend buying points with a short term use in mind, as there’s always risk to holding onto points for longer periods of time.
Do you plan on buying Aeroplan points with this promotion?
100% for me. Thanks Ben!
My friend and I are only seeing an 85% bonus.
85% for me.
Change fees are too expensive. Paid $450 cad for three family members when their travel plans changed. I virtually never book on programs with change fees like that.
Agree with the other poster, the cents per point history would be helpful. I can figure it out myself but would be handy. There’s lots of moving parts as the award pricing changes as well I guess.
Hello Ben,
Just a brief heads up for you about links to this page on the OMAAT site.
I stumbled across this promotion via a pop up ad on my browser (not OMAAT). When I went to OMAAT, I was expecting it to be a listed item on your 'Deals' page but could not find it there. I did eventually find the item on OMAAT via the 'Recent News' page.
As a UK resident, I...
Hello Ben,
Just a brief heads up for you about links to this page on the OMAAT site.
I stumbled across this promotion via a pop up ad on my browser (not OMAAT). When I went to OMAAT, I was expecting it to be a listed item on your 'Deals' page but could not find it there. I did eventually find the item on OMAAT via the 'Recent News' page.
As a UK resident, I am glad I did find it as we cannot transfer to Aeroplan from UK Amex accounts so purchasing during a promotion is an important opportunity to acquire Aeroplan points.
Just wanted to highlight that the OMAAT site links might need verifying. Thank you for your content.
Bobby
Why for me also only 85% bonus
85% for me. But I’m not an influencer, just a lowly Super Elite 2 million miler.
I used 90k Aeroplan miles on air India and vistara to fly from Sydney to Frankfurt last year. Business on both legs with a stopover in Delhi. I’d always wanted to fly air India (for better or worse). Pretty sweet use of points.
I use point.me. It has never recommended a single Aeroplan award ever.
I recently redeemed 60K AC miles from TPE-BKK-NRT in EVA J and Thai F. The reps sounded very dubious about the pricing until they were able to confirm it lol
maybe add the CPM value on the history as well?
Given that airlines now sometimes change value of points they sell, just a bonus percentage can be misleading, this 100% bonus promo is worse than the 90% promo last month.
Real talk - have you seen good redemption value on Air Canada? I was scouting for a SEA>CDG NCE>SEA open jaw and got lots of saver options on FlyingBlue (120k full ticket redemption) on A350s with Af's new J - and Air Canada had nothing below 450k for J in the same month (July 2025).
They had worse redemption values than Delta for the same time frame. Perhaps I'm just not savvy, in which case, I hope the auctor or vox populi will kindly set me straight.
@ Air Canada Redemption Value -- If there's no saver level award availability, then you're absolutely right, award pricing is typically steep. The key to maximizing miles is finding saver level premium cabin award availability, typically on partner airlines.
There's no denying that this is becoming increasingly hard to come by, though. I wrote more about the general process of searching Aeroplan award space here:
https://onemileatatime.com/guides/redeem-aeroplan-points/
@ Air Canada Redemption Value -- If there's no saver level award availability, then you're absolutely right, award pricing is typically steep. The key to maximizing miles is finding saver level premium cabin award availability, typically on partner airlines.
There's no denying that this is becoming increasingly hard to come by, though. I wrote more about the general process of searching Aeroplan award space here:
https://onemileatatime.com/guides/redeem-aeroplan-points/
Why would an airline give away their high-earning product (seats in Business/First) to people like us, while they still have hope of getting big money for it? Mostly, they don't, until their system says "give up, boys, it's too late. Let the freeloaders have 'em, we'll never sell that many in the last days before the flight!"
"Real talk" - one of the best values in Aeroplan is North America to Asia in partner Business...
Why would an airline give away their high-earning product (seats in Business/First) to people like us, while they still have hope of getting big money for it? Mostly, they don't, until their system says "give up, boys, it's too late. Let the freeloaders have 'em, we'll never sell that many in the last days before the flight!"
"Real talk" - one of the best values in Aeroplan is North America to Asia in partner Business Class for 87,500. Don't search for Aeroplan award availability 5,4,3,2,1 months ahead of travel, as one would if paying cash. Most of them aren't for sale. Yet.
May I suggest? Sit down at your computer and do some searches for tonight, tomorrow, next day, day after that, and so on, up to ten days from the day you're sitting there, for the destination you want to travel to someday. Availability! Acceptable itineraries! Reasonable prices! Attractive partners! This is true on AA.com, Flying Blue, Aeroplan, you name it.
You think you need certainty months before your trip. You don't. You only need confidence in availability. I have confidence in availability. And if you do the exercise I've described above, so will you. If you must have a confirmed booking weeks before your flight, you're paying cash, or you're flying Air India.
I know I won't persuade anyone to change their actual behaviour ("that's great for DenB® but I have a job and I can't commit to vacay without knowing my flight's booked") but the logic is flawed. Book your Japan-bound flight 5 days before your Tokyo hotel stay begins. Book your homebound flight from Japan, 4 days before you must be back at work. If you believe this is "risky" you can learn you're wrong by doing the exercise I described above. Or browse seats.aero availability for various programs, looking only at the next week.
If you want to snark over the apocalyptic drop in Aeroplan availability, first look at last-days availability, which is the real measure. It's not "whether" they release seats, it's "when".
I agree with Den B. Although ACRV is searching for this month. Not like searching for June 2026.
I do the same thing. I’ll see quite a bit of Qantas and JAL space from syd to hnd and it gives me the confidence to wait till my days open up. American allows free cancellations, ditto lifemiles with a subscription. So I’ll book something close enough (perhaps with a stop). And then chop and change...
I agree with Den B. Although ACRV is searching for this month. Not like searching for June 2026.
I do the same thing. I’ll see quite a bit of Qantas and JAL space from syd to hnd and it gives me the confidence to wait till my days open up. American allows free cancellations, ditto lifemiles with a subscription. So I’ll book something close enough (perhaps with a stop). And then chop and change into better flights.
Also your flight search is very specific. Can easily position to LAX or Rome etc to open up more space.
85% max here too :(
85% max bonus for me.
+1
Their intra-european tickets devaluated from 20.000 miles to 25.000 miles and you guys never mentioned about it. I wonder why??
@ Ryan -- Which city pair are you talking about, because that would be news to me? If I didn't write about it, it's because I wasn't aware. I'm not sure if you're suggesting there's some sort of financial motive here, but I don't get any sort of a kickback if you buy Aeroplan points.
Noticed the same. Amsterdam - Istanbul was always 20K in J, now 25k.
@ Reyyan -- Hmmm, for what it's worth, Aeroplan's award chart has for years shown that a 1,000-2,000 mile flight in the Atlantic zone should cost 25,000 points:
https://cdn.onemileatatime.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Aeroplan-Award-Chart-6.jpg
So were they just not pricing it in line with the chart, or...?
Nope it was 20K just a few months ago now its 25K :(
@ Ryan -- I'm not doubting you, I just find it strange that the award chart has shown the higher pricing for at least a couple of years.
Sounds like a poor use of Aeroplan points, anyway.
Same here. Most of Gulf cities-CAI or IST used to be 20K (biz), now 25K(biz) while economy remain same (12.5K). Surprised to see this sudden change.