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.
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, March 29, 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 bonus of up to 80%, as follows:
- Buy 4,000-29,000 points, receive a 45% bonus
- Buy 30,000-55,000 points, receive a 65% bonus
- Buy 60,000+ points, receive an 80% 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 maxed out the 80% bonus and purchased 500,000 points in one transaction, you’d receive a total of 900,000 Aeroplan points at a cost of $17,500 CAD (~$12,705 USD), which is a rate of 1.41 cents (USD) per Aeroplan point.
This has the potential to be a great deal, though I’d note that earlier this year we saw a 100% bonus on purchased points, which was obviously a better deal. It’s anyone’s guess when we’ll see another offer like that, though.
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 2x Venture miles on every purchase
- 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 an 80% bonus, which is an opportunity to acquire Aeroplan points for 1.41 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.
Do you plan on buying Aeroplan points with this promotion?
Instead of a bonus, you can get up to 45% discount on the purchase of points. If buying 500,000 points or fewer, it might actually be a better value at $9,625.00 CAD for 500k points.
80% of bonus is still TOO expensive. No way
Oman is gone
Etihad is spotty
Flights to India blocked
Routing rules so strict that computer always says no on anything with a worthwhile stopover
Online system pushes AC flights dynamically priced at 500k+ to Asia
$150 cancel fee $100 change fee PER DIRECTION PER PERSON
Buyer beware.
Totally agree.... Omans is gone, Emirates is too expensive, not much options with EY
Etihad availability seems to have been pulled
Inventory for Partner J awards has been very low for the past month. No Oman Air inventory and Etihad awards have been very limited with seemingly no availability past June. Emirates awards are too high and not worth it in my opinion. The only J awards that seem plentiful currently are those on Ethiopian. I'll pass on this round.
On a side note, with Etihad award devaluations, I wonder if we can expect higher...
Inventory for Partner J awards has been very low for the past month. No Oman Air inventory and Etihad awards have been very limited with seemingly no availability past June. Emirates awards are too high and not worth it in my opinion. The only J awards that seem plentiful currently are those on Ethiopian. I'll pass on this round.
On a side note, with Etihad award devaluations, I wonder if we can expect higher redemption on the Aeroplan side in the future, more in line with cost of Emirates awards.
Thinking of buying with the aim of SQ redemption for the EWR-SIN flight. Gonna risk waiting for a 100% bonus though.
SQ longhaul won't happen again.
There was some initial space when first opened up to Aeroplan but was snapped up in days
You're pretty confident for being entirely wrong.
https://i.postimg.cc/QNc6xtzj/Screenshot-20230313-234550-Chrome.jpg
Exactly. It’s sparse, but there. I’m flexible with dates so can just take whatever there is.