Air Canada Aeroplan members can now redeem their points to book reward flights on Emirates. As with all Aeroplan redemptions, there are no fuel or carrier surcharges payable on any route – just a CAD39 (~AU$42) partner airline booking fee!

Air Canada’s Aeroplan program has become a bit of a “dark horse”, emerging in recent years as a highly valuable frequent flyer program. This is largely due to Aeroplan’s enormous number of useful partnerships, good value award charts, lack of fuel surcharges and the ease of booking reward flights on the Air Canada website.

As Air Canada is a Star Alliance member, you can of course redeem Aeroplan points across Star Alliance. But you can also use points to fly with Air Canada’s many other partners including Virgin Australia and Etihad Airways.

Many of Aeroplan’s partners are not part of any alliance. This includes Bamboo Airways and Air Mauritius, which fly to Australia and often have lots of Business Class award availability. Plus, you can combine flights with any of Aeroplan’s partner airlines onto a single award ticket.

If you don’t yet have any Aeroplan points, you can buy them directly from Air Canada – often with bonus points. Australians can also indirectly earn Aeroplan points with credit cards, including through the new HSBC Star Alliance credit card.

Air Canada’s new partnership with Emirates

Officially launching in November, the new partnership between Emirates and Air Canada includes codesharing and an interline agreement. Emirates Skywards and Aeroplan members can earn points when flying on the other airline. There are also some reciprocal lounge access benefits for frequent flyers of both airlines.

But perhaps the most exciting part about this partnership is the ability to redeem Aeroplan points for Emirates flights, without paying Emirates’ exorbitant carrier charges!

Australians can already redeem Emirates Skywards miles or Qantas Frequent Flyer points to book Emirates reward flights. (This is subject to availability, which has admittedly been limited lately.) But the taxes & charges on an Emirates Business or First Class reward ticket from Australia to Europe, Africa, North America or South America can now be over $4,000 per person. This is outrageous and a disgrace.

When redeeming Aeroplan points, however, you’ll just pay any legitimate third-party taxes and a CAD39 (~AU$42) partner award booking fee.

Redeeming Aeroplan points for Emirates flights

At this stage, you can use Aeroplan points to book Emirates flights in Economy or Business Class.

Aeroplan will introduce First Class reward seats on Emirates in 2023. But for now you’ll still have to use Emirates Skywards miles or Qantas points if you want to book Emirates First Class.

If an Emirates Saver Classic Reward is available to book using Skywards miles, you should also be able to book that seat using Air Canada Aeroplan points. However, Emirates does not make Flex Plus Classic Rewards available to book through partner airlines.

This works exactly the same way for Qantas Frequent Flyer Classic Reward bookings on Emirates. Therefore, Qantas Frequent Flyer and Air Canada Aeroplan members should receive access (at least in theory) to the same reward seats on Emirates.

Emirates reward seats are already available to book on the Air Canada website. You can even add a stopover of up to 45 days in Dubai, if you want, for an extra 5,000 Aeroplan points.

At this stage, Aeroplan rewards on Emirates are priced the same as rewards on any other partner airline. But from next year, once Emirates First Class awards become available to Aeroplan members, different pricing will apply to Aeroplan awards that include an Emirates flight/s.

Aeroplan has updated its flight reward chart as follows:

At the time of writing, we found an Emirates Business Class award seat from Melbourne to Lisbon on the Air Canada website for 110,000 Aeroplan points + CAD138 (~AU$148).

The above booking would increase in price to at least 120,000 Aeroplan points in early 2023.

At the time of writing, the same Business Class itinerary was available on the Qantas website as a Qantas Classic Flight Reward. But this would cost 159,000 Qantas points + $1,789 in taxes & carrier charges. That’s an extra co-payment of $1,641 per person – and this is just for a one-way booking!

Once Aeroplan members get access to First Class award seats on Emirates, it would cost 300,000 Aeroplan points to fly Emirates one-way from Australia to Europe. That’s compared to 227,500 Qantas points each way, although there are much higher carrier charges when redeeming Qantas points on Emirates.

While Emirates reward availability to/from Australia is limited at the moment, there are currently seats available for travel around 9-11 months in the future. You can also sometimes find reward seats available for last minute travel when booking around 1-4 days before departure.

Join the discussion on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum: Emirates Award Bookings Now Available

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 90 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include economics, aviation & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.