Since relaunching in 2020, Air Canada’s Aeroplan program has become popular with frequent flyers for its wide range of partner airlines, reasonable reward flight pricing and the ability to buy Aeroplan points with regular discounts or bonuses.
Put simply, it’s possible to buy Aeroplan points at a good price, and redeem them easily through Air Canada’s website for valuable reward flights across Star Alliance and Air Canada’s many other partner airlines, which also include Virgin Australia and Etihad. It’s an attractive proposition.
So, it was slightly concerning to hear that Air Canada is changing its flight reward charts, effective from 1 September 2022. But the good news is that the changes are relatively minor, and they did at least provide a month of notice – albeit by alerting various North American travel bloggers, rather than with a notice on its website. It’s also the first time Aeroplan has adjusted its award charts since the program relaunch in 2020.
You can find Aeroplan’s current flight reward chart on the Air Canada website.
What’s changing in the Aeroplan flight reward chart?
Aeroplan uses a combination of region-based and distance-based pricing in its award charts. The cost of an award depends on the zone you’re flying within (or to/from), and the number of miles flown.
The four regions on the Aeroplan award chart are defined as North America, South America, Atlantic and Pacific. Australia is part of the “Pacific” zone, along with eastern Asia and New Zealand.
Most of the changes are slight increases to the number of points needed in higher mileage distance bands, or the creation of new shorter distance bands with reduced pricing.
A full list of the changes has been published in many other travel blogs, such as Prince of Travel, so there’s no need for us to republish the entire list here. But these are the changes that could affect award bookings to/from Australia:
| Origin Zone | Destination Zone | Mileage Band | Cabin | Airline | Old Points | New Points |
| Pacific | North America | 7,501-11,000 | Business | Partners | 85,000 | 87,500 |
| Pacific | North America | 11,000+ | Business | Partners | 105,000 | 115,000 |
| Pacific | North America | 11,000+ | First | Partners | 140,000 | 150,000 |
| Pacific | Atlantic | 7,000+ | Economy | Partners | 60,000 | 65,000 |
| Pacific | Atlantic | 7,000+ | Premium Economy | Air Canada | N/A | 80,000-110,000 |
| Pacific | Atlantic | 7,000+ | Business | Partners | 100,000 | 110,000 |
| Pacific | Atlantic | 7,000+ | First | Partners | 130,000 | 140,000 |
To give you some examples of one-way prices that are changing:
- A United Airlines Business Class redemption from Australia to the USA will soon increase from 85,000 to 87,500 Aeroplan points
- An Etihad Business Class redemption from Australia to North America (via Abu Dhabi) will increase from 105,000 to 115,000 Aeroplan points
- A flight from Australia to Europe on Etihad, Thai Airways, ANA or Air India will soon increase from 60,000 to 65,000 points in Economy; or 100,000 to 110,000 points in Business
As long as there are no further changes, this won’t have too much of an impact on Australian-based Aeroplan members. It just slightly pushes up the cost of a redemption to Europe or North America on Air Canada’s partner airlines.
You can discuss the Aeroplan program on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum: Aeroplan (Air Canada) is now selling points
