Often buying points strategically can be a good value, especially for first & business class travel. The Air Canada Aeroplan program has just launched its latest promotion on purchased points. This is being marketed as a Black Friday sale, and it’s also a mystery bonus, meaning that different members may be eligible for different bonuses.
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 Wednesday, November 29, 2023, the Air Canada Aeroplan program is offering a bonus on purchased points. Different members are being targeted for different offers, and it appears that members are being offered in the range of a 100-125% bonus when buying a minimum number of points.
Typically you need to purchase 100,000 points in one transaction (pre-bonus) to unlock the highest percentage bonus.
How much does it cost to buy Aeroplan points?
Ordinarily you can buy Air Canada Aeroplan points for $0.035 CAD (~0.025 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 were eligible for a 100% bonus and maxed that out with the purchase of 500,000 points in one transaction, you’d receive a total of 1,000,000 Aeroplan points at a cost of $17,500 CAD (~$12,660 USD), which is a rate of 1.27 cents (USD) per Aeroplan point. That’s the absolute minimum value proposition here.
Meanwhile if you’re targeted for a 125% bonus, you’d get 1,125,000 Aeroplan points for $12,660, which is a rate of 1.13 cents per Aeroplan point (in USD). That’s pretty amazing!
We see Aeroplan promotions on buying points every so often, and this is a fantastic bonus, among the best offers we see from the program. So if you’ve been considering buying Aeroplan points, this is a great time to do so.
How many Aeroplan points can you purchase?
While you can purchase up to one million Aeroplan points per account per calendar year, 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.
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) (Rates & Fees) or Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card (review) (Rates & Fees), 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.
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.
Unfortunately Aeroplan has been having issues with some partner awards, in particular for travel on Etihad Airways and Oman Air. So unfortunately at the moment those redemptions largely aren’t possible. 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, 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. This is a mystery bonus, though it seems like some people are being targeted for a 100-125% bonus, which is an opportunity to acquire Aeroplan points for 1.13-1.27 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. In general I’d only recommend buying points with a short term use in mind, though, as there’s always risk to holding onto points for longer periods.
Do you plan on buying Aeroplan points with this promotion?
My offer maxxed out at 100%.
Bought 110,000 regardless, for long-haul bookings for late-2024.
Decent partner awards in Bus. are harder to come by, especially since Etihad seems to have pretty much removed themselves from the picture.
Emirates F awards (when they do pop up), are extortionate and totally off the agenda, expecially given their uncompetitive J class seats.
Ben talks about Aeroplan's long list of partners, but how does one find these partner awards? If I shop for flights across the Atlantic using miles, I only get results for AC metal. And for the most part, the redemption levels are horrible (over 200k miles for one-way business class). I am using the Air Canada website (based in Canada). If I try a city that AC does not serve, I get zero results.
I had 100% bonus. P2 had 120%.
Coincidentally, saw that Aeroplan had great availability (on singapore airlines) on their JFK-FRA route, which we needed to book. So pulled trigger.
Points posted to P2's aeroplan account within ~30 minutes.
Pass for me. I'll always have a hard time forgetting how Aeroplan treated us regarding covid ticket refunds.
I have a great idea for OMAAT, lets fly on a airline and earn miles and status.
Huh?
This is like going on a stock trading blog and commenting, “I have a great idea: let’s work a minimum wage job to make money.”
This earns more in referral links ;)
Why else would all blogs mercilessly promote Aeroplan without noting any of the many negatives associated with Aeroplan.
Agree with Bob. My experience with Aeroplan has been very disappointing including a major fail getting my husband to try to create an aeroplan account -- it got stalled for some reason and we have never heard back from them.
Perhaps Ben can share how he finds all these wonderful award opportunities while many of the rest of us rarely can find anything of value.
Also I did not receive any notice about the bonus on purchased miles -- it took me over 5 minutes perusing the Aeroplan site to find the appropriate page. OK I was targeted for $125% bonus but they sure made it difficult for me to find that out:-(
All the useful partners are blocked.
Nobody will ever pick up the phone.
Cancel/change fees are ridiculous and per person, per segment
You re buying a pile of garbage
A thread of truth, exaggerated into nonsense.
The blocking of ANA, EVA, and Thai most(all?) of the time is a serious issue that mamy blogs(omaat included) don't seem to mention. Phone wair times seem to be around 1.5-2.5hrs. Change cancel fees are high in general and very high for a NA carrier. Idk about the per segment though, he likely means per way.
Dont forget the blocking of Etihad, Oman, Gulf Air, Air China, most of LH/LX/AV/CM when competing on AC routes.
But if you are willing to pay 200k for crappy AC TATL flights, then by all means, the bonus is awesome!
@Scott is EVA still blocked? Or that they're only releasing 1J to partners?
Anyone planning on PYB with bought miles? Doesn't seem against TOC:
Only Aeroplan Points earned under the Aeroplan Program, the Chase Aeroplan Card, and Chase Ultimate Rewards® can be used for Chase Pay Yourself Back. Points converted from other programs are not eligible.
wondering the same thing. uf i was only targetted for 100%. But yeah there is 10% to be gained here if you get 125% and buy to use for Chase PYB
Targeted 125% bonus for over 100k purchase. Cannot resist the temptation.
Thanks for the heads up, Ben. For the sake of data points, this is the offer I received :
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(a) Earn 50% bonus Aeroplan points when a minimum of 5,000 Eligible Aeroplan points and up to a maximum of 50,000 Eligible Aeroplan points are bought (no bonus Aeroplan points will be issued if less than 5,000 Aeroplan points are bought).
(b) Earn 85% bonus Aeroplan points when buying 60,000 Eligible Aeroplan points...
Thanks for the heads up, Ben. For the sake of data points, this is the offer I received :
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(a) Earn 50% bonus Aeroplan points when a minimum of 5,000 Eligible Aeroplan points and up to a maximum of 50,000 Eligible Aeroplan points are bought (no bonus Aeroplan points will be issued if less than 5,000 Aeroplan points are bought).
(b) Earn 85% bonus Aeroplan points when buying 60,000 Eligible Aeroplan points and up to a maximum of 90,000 Eligible Aeroplan points are bought.
(c) Earn 110% bonus Aeroplan points when buying 100,000 or more Eligible Aeroplan points.
===
I will probably end up buying some Aeropoints to redeem tickets on TK metal, as I don't have enough Cap1 points to transfer to TK.
My bonus is showing 110% when purchasing 100,000 pts or more.
Was just targeted for 125% bonus on 100k+ point purchases. So I can buy 225k points for $3500 CAD or $2538.39 USD, which works out to a shade over 1.1c/point. Seems like a decent deal but I'll wait to jump on as the promotion lasts until the 29th.
Take a close look at Aeroplan's fees associated with award tickets before buying or transferring points. They are very high and makes BA's fees look modest comparison.
I agree they charge a lot of junk fees, especially for flights to/from/through USA, but I don't think they are anywhere clost to BA. Care to give an example for your claim?
YOW-YZF, 14-16 August, Flexible award in business, 125K points with $750 in fees or 164K points, no fees. Last year I had similar 2 tickets for 95K points and approx $200 in fees, but was canceled because of fires.
Also their cancellation and change fees are very high as well and there are long wait times if you need to ring their call centre.
Are they? The only other * Alliance program that sell miles consistently for cheap is Lifemiles and they too have expensive cancel/change fees.
For another data point, my bonus is showing 120% when purchasing 100,000 pts or more. The other tiers are the same.