Air Canada Aeroplan is an awesome frequent flyer program for a variety of reasons. With incredible sweet spot opportunities, stopovers, and reasonable award flexibility, there's a lot to get out this top tier program.
In this guide article, we will delve into earning Aeroplan points, sweet spot redemptions, stopovers, and award cancellation policies.
How To Earn Aeroplan Points
Fly Air Canada / Partner Airlines
Traditionally, the most obvious way to earn Aeroplan miles is by flying directly on Air Canada. Aeroplan miles are calculated based on the distance and fare class you travel.
You can also earn Aeroplan miles by flying on Air Canada partner airlines, including their Star Alliance partners and non-alliance partners. While Air Canada has a total of 53 partners that all have their own partner earning charts, for the most part, the general miles earned calculation is based on the class of service and distance traveled.
Credit Card Transfer Partners
Aeroplan points are reasonably easy to come by, since they are transfer partners with many significant issuers.
- American Express (1:1)
- Capital One (1:1)
- Chase (1:1)
- Bilt (1:1)
- Marriott (3:1)
Issuers will sometimes even run transfer bonus to Air Canada, meaning you could get a lot more value out of your points then. In the past, we've seen crazy transfer bonuses of up to 150% from Bilt. Chase and AMEX usually offer more modest transfer bonuses of around 20%.
Buy Aeroplan Points
You can also purchase Aeroplan points directly from Air Canada. While buying points at their face value price is generally not recommended (3.5 CAD CPP), with Aeroplan purchase promotions, buying large volume of points can actually be quite a deal. For example, currently (as of the date of this article, April 4), you can buy Aeroplan points with up to an 80% bonus. After accounting for CAD to USD conversions, this comes out to about 1.4 cents per point... and that's for buying points directly.
In some cases, it can actually make a lot of sense to straight up purchase Aeroplan points, especially with deals like that.
Aeroplan launched a cobranded credit card with Chase a few years ago specifically targeting US customers. While this is actually a very smart business play by Air Canada, the Aeroplan card is actually a really good way to earn more Aeroplan points. Here's a quick summary of its benefits:
- Pay Yourself Back (PYB): Redeem Air Canada points for 1.25 cents per point against statement balance
- Receive a 10% bonus after you transfer 50,000 or more Ultimate Rewards points in a single transaction to Aeroplan
- Benefits when flying on Air Canada (e.g. free checked bag)
- TSA Precheck/Global Entry credit
How To Earn Aeroplan Status
Aeroplan has five published tiers of status that can be earned through a very complicated system comprised of Status Qualifying Dollars (SQD), Status Qualifying Miles (SQM), Status Qualifying Segments (SQS), and EDQ (Everyday Status Qualification). To make things more complicated, these metrics are entirely different from earning Aeroplan miles, so there's a lot of moving parts to keep track of.
With status, you can get access to priority customer service, complimentary seats, priority check-in/standby, lounge access, upgrades, and more. Getting 50k status is especially useful, as it grants you Star Alliance Gold status, which is incredibly versatile for traveling on Star Alliance partners.
Air Canada Partners
As a part of the Star Alliance, you can earn Aeroplan miles when flying on any of these carriers. The number of miles you earn varies on the distance and the fare class you fly.
As a part of the Star Alliance, you can earn Aeroplan miles when flying on any of these carriers. The number of miles you earn varies on the distance and the fare class you fly.
Aeroplan also has a number of non-Star Alliance partners that are also eligible to earn Aeroplan miles. Some of these include Bamboo Airways, Emirates, etc.
Aeroplan Award Chart: How Award Flights Are Priced
What many frequent flyers like about Air Canada Aeroplan is that its awards are based on a standardized chart (or table). This means that all the pricing algorithms are pretty transparent.
According to Air Canada, the world is subdivided into four "zones." Based on the cumulative distance of your award flight and the two zones you're originating/arriving, your award ticket will fall into a specific price bucket.
From these charts, some very savvy travelers have identified extremely valuable deals called "sweet spots" that take advantage of award pricing relative to the distance traveled. However, since these opportunities are so far and few between, they can be very difficult to find. This is why Roame exists—to help speed up searches and make it easier to find these elusive awards.
Aeroplan Sweet Spot Redemptions
North America <> Singapore On Singapore Airlines Business Class
This is among one of the most famous/high-value Aeroplan award redemptions.
When flying to/from Singapore, you are considered to be flying between the North America and Pacific zones. For all nonstop flights to Singapore from the United States, they fall right within the 7,501–11,000 miles distance bucket. This means the flight prices in at just 87,500 miles each direction, which is an incredible steal considering the flight typically costs several thousands of dollars.
Europe <> Asia On Star Alliance Business Class
When flying to/from Europe/Asia, Aeroplan can still carry significant weight. Especially considering the fact that flying between Europe/Asia is not a common route for US-based travelers, you should definitely be able to find easier redemptions here.
For partner flights flying 5,001–7,000 miles, you can score business class flights for just 80,000 pts and first class flights for just 100,000 pts.
Based on the award chart, you could fly any of these 12+ hour long routes starting at just 80,000 miles one way:
- Frankfurt <> Singapore on Singapore Airlines business class
- Paris <> Bangkok on Thai Airways business class
- London <> Bangkok on EVA Air business class
- London <> Haneda on ANA business class
- Frankfurt <> Seoul on Lufthansa business class
Found using Roame SkyView
North America <> Africa On Star Alliance Business Class
In Air Canada's oversimplification of the world, they consider Africa as part of the "Atlantic" zone, which means you can score some interesting redemptions when taking advantage of the award chart. As Aeroplan notes, points required for partner airline flight rewards are based on the actual distance flown between origin and destination. So that means a layover factors in the cumulative distance of each leg when determining the award pricing.
So, for instance, you could fly on Ethiopian Airline's business class nonstop route to/from ORD/ADD (~7,500 miles) for just 90,000 Aeroplan miles one-way. That's not bad considering it's about a 14 hour flight.
Given Air Canada prices based on distance traveled, you could also start thinking about layovers (as long as you remain within the distance band < 8,000 miles). For instance, you could first fly to Europe (as a layover) and then to Africa, all for just 90,000 Aeroplan miles.
Intra North America Economy Flights
Since Air Canada is a distance based award system, there can be high value award opportunities when booking flights within the United States. For instance, you can book partner awards to/from Hawaii for just 12,500 points. There's actually a pretty good chance that this pricing is actually better than booking with United directly!
Air Canada Stopovers
One of the most beloved things about Air Canada's frequent flyer program is the ability to add a stopover for just 5,000 miles. Stopovers can be for up to 45 days and can be pretty easily ticketed online (no agent required).
To book an Aeroplan flight with a stopover, you'll need to select the Multi-city/Stopover flight option before completing the search. Then, in the search criteria, you simply enter the individual flights you want to take. Make sure to verify each individual flight has availability before trying this; otherwise, it won't produce award results you're looking for.
Air Canada Award Cancellation Policies
As you may have noticed, Air Canada really likes its established tables and charts. This table here outlines all the award cancellation fees for all their fares.
Air Canada's award cancellation fees aren't horrendous by any means, but can be steeper for some fares more than others. If you are willing to pay more points for the flexible rates, you'll be able to easily cancel and reinstate your points.
Conclusion
Air Canada Aeroplan is a popular frequent flyer program for a reason. With incredible redemption opportunities and the ability to add stopovers, Air Canada has a lot to offer and should be on the radar of anyone interested in using and redeeming their points for significant value.
