Air Canada sells Aeroplan points directly to members. This creates some interesting opportunities for discounted Business and First Class travel across the Star Alliance network and on Air Canada’s other partner airlines including Air Mauritius, Vistara and Virgin Australia.
Air Canada is not the only Star Alliance member airline to sell points or miles. United MileagePlus, Avianca LifeMiles and Aegean Miles+Bonus also sell miles directly to the public – often with generous discounts and bonuses as well. But with Avianca LifeMiles notoriously difficult to redeem, United ditching award charts completely, and restrictive routing rules applying to Aegean Miles+Bonus redemptions, Air Canada Aeroplan is well worth a look.
Air Canada’s Aeroplan program adds another option for frequent flyers looking to purchase points that can be redeemed for premium cabin flights at a lower cost than buying a Business or First class ticket outright. In some cases, buying points from Air Canada during a sale could be very good value because the Aeroplan program has a relatively competitive award chart with unique sweet spots and partner airlines.
It’s easy to redeem Aeroplan points on the Air Canada website and there are no fuel surcharges when redeeming points. Plus, you can add a stopover to most award tickets for just 5,000 points!
This guide explains how to buy Air Canada Aeroplan points, and how to redeem them for award travel.
Contents
How to buy Air Canada Aeroplan Points
Air Canada Aeroplan points can be bought or gifted on the Air Canada website.
At full price, Aeroplan points cost CAD35 (~AU$38) per 1,000 points, or around 3.8 cents each in Australian currency. This price excludes taxes, which do not apply to Australian residents.
Aeroplan points can be purchased in blocks of 1,000 with larger increments applying to purchases above 10,000 points. There is a purchase limit of 250,000 points per transaction (this is sometimes higher during promotions). You cannot buy more than 1,000,000 Aeroplan points per calendar year, excluding bonus points.
A minimum purchase amount of 2,000 Aeroplan points applies per transaction. After buying, the points may take up to 72 hours to post to your account.
Beware that Air Canada Aeroplan points expire if there is no activity in your account for 18 months. You’ll need to earn or redeem at least one Aeroplan point, at least once every 18 months, to prevent them from expiring.
Special deals on buying Aeroplan Points
Air Canada tends to offer specials on buying Aeroplan points approximately every 1-2 months.
From 4 September until 10 October 2024, you can get up to a “mystery” 75-85% bonus when buying Aeroplan points. The discount gets higher as you buy more points:
- Buy 4,000-10,000 Aeroplan points and get a 50% bonus
- Buy 15,000-20,000 Aeroplan points and get a 60% bonus
- Buy 25,000-500,000 Aeroplan points and get a 75-85% bonus
Officially, Aeroplan is giving up to a 75% bonus with this offer. However, some accounts are getting even higher offers of 85% bonus points. You can see the offer available to you when logging into your Aeroplan account.
If you were to buy the maximum 500,000 Aeroplan points during this offer with 85% bonus points, this would cost CAD17,500 (~AU$19,225) and you would get 425,000 bonus points (so, 925,000 in total).
Note that a 30% discount is roughly equivalent to a 60% bonus, in terms of value. This isn’t the best offer we’ve seen from Air Canada recently, as they gave up to a 125% bonus during a limited-time offer in July 2024.
Keep in mind that the AUD/CAD exchange rate fluctuations impact the value of each offer, in addition to the value of the bonus/discount. As your purchase will be processed overseas, you may wish to use a credit card with no international transaction fees.
During most special promotions, Air Canada temporarily increases the maximum purchase limit to 500,000 Aeroplan points per transaction (excluding bonus points). There is an annual points purchase limit of 1 million Aeroplan points per calendar year.
Other ways to earn Aeroplan Points
Of course, you can also earn Aeroplan points by flying with Air Canada and its partner airlines, as well as shopping with program partners.
If you have points with a hotel loyalty program such as Marriott Bonvoy, you may be able to transfer points from there into Aeroplan. There are also several credit cards in Australia that let you earn points which you can transfer to Aeroplan. These include several CommBank Awards credit cards and the HSBC Star Alliance credit card.
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Redeeming Aeroplan Points for reward flights
Air Canada Aeroplan points can be redeemed for flights with Air Canada, its subsidiaries & any Star Alliance airline:
In addition, Air Canada partners with the following airlines outside of Star Alliance:
- Aeromar
- Air Dolomiti
- Air Mauritius
- Air Serbia
- Azul
- Bamboo Airways
- Cathay Pacific (limited routes only)
- Discover Airlines
- Emirates
- Etihad Airways
- Eurowings
- Flydubai
- GOL Airlines
- Gulf Air
- Juneyao Airlines
- Olympic Air
- Oman Air
- SunExpress
- Virgin Australia
- Vistara
- Various Canadian regional airlines
You can even combine flights operated by multiple partner airlines onto one award ticket. For example, if you live in Kalgoorlie, you can fly Virgin Australia to Perth and then another partner airline to London – all on one ticket.
Please note that, unfortunately, Etihad Business & First Class rewards have recently been unavailable to book through Aeroplan.
Aeroplan’s flight reward charts
When redeeming Aeroplan points for Air Canada flights (or itineraries including flights on Air Canada), dynamic pricing applies. This means the number of points you’ll need varies, depending on how much demand there is for that flight. However, this means that all seats are available for redemption on all Air Canada flights. The price will be within the range outlined in the new Aeroplan award charts.
Aeroplan redemptions on partner airlines cost a fixed amount of points, which are also outlined in the Aeroplan award charts.
Aeroplan charges the same number of points for partner airline redemptions, regardless of which partner airlines are used, except for itineraries including Emirates or Flydubai flights. There is a separate Emirates/Flydubai award chart, as shown below:
For the rest of the Aeroplan award charts, the world is divided into four zones:
In addition to using Aeroplan’s award charts, you can check how many points a reward flight is likely to cost using Air Canada’s Points Predictor tool.
There are no fuel or carrier surcharges when redeeming Aeroplan points, including for partner airline redemptions. This includes redemptions on Emirates! You’ll just pay airport & government taxes, and there is a fixed CAD39 (~$40) partner award booking fee.
You can add one stopover to any one-way award itinerary for an additional 5,000 Aeroplan points (excluding awards within North America). On round-trip awards, you can add a stopover in both directions if you wish. To add a stopover when booking on the Air Canada website, just use the multi-city booking tool.
Great value Aeroplan redemptions for Australians
Redemptions that may interest Australians looking to buy Aeroplan points include:
- Flights within the “Pacific” zone, which includes Australia, New Zealand, South-East Asia & North Asia are very reasonably priced in Business & First Class. For example, Perth-Tokyo on ANA, Cairns-Singapore on Singapore Airlines or Melbourne-Bangkok on THAI costs 45,000 points one-way in Business Class.
- Flights between Australia and Europe or Africa are good value in Business Class. You can fly in any direction – even via North America. For example, fly Business Class from Australia to Europe or Africa for 110,000 points.
- Most flights from Australia to North America cost 75,000-87,500 points in Business class. You can add a stopover in Asia for 5,000 points.
- Air Mauritius flights from Perth to Mauritius cost 60,000 points in Business Class.
- Most flights from South Africa to Europe are just 60,000 points in Business Class.
- Combine two or three one-way awards with stopovers to build a “round-the-world” itinerary.
If you’d like more information on Aeroplan award routing & redemption rules, Air Canada helpfully publishes a PDF document outlining its Flight Reward Policy on its website.
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How to book Aeroplan award flights
Most award flights can be booked on the Air Canada website. Just search for flights on the home page, and select the “Book with points” option to bring up award flights.
You don’t need to have an Aeroplan account to search for award availability, but the Air Canada website will prompt you to log in if you want to book a flight. If you do choose to log in, you’ll be able to see availability & pricing for other travel dates more easily when conducting your search.
In addition to Star Alliance award flights, the Air Canada website shows award availability on all major partner airlines including Etihad Airways, Virgin Australia, Air Serbia and Emirates.
Most available award flights show on the Air Canada website, but you may need to call Aeroplan to book flights that aren’t online. Before calling, you may wish to cross-check Star Alliance award availability on the United website.
Want to learn more about buying points for cheap premium cabin flights?
The Australian Frequent Flyer Training includes a comprehensive course on buying points for cheap premium travel. This course covers the most useful programs for Australians, including Air Canada Aeroplan.
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