DEAL: Buy Air Canada Aeroplan Points with a 30% discount (1.77 cents/mile) until Sep 3

Business Class on Air Canada’s B787 (Source)

Through Tuesday, September 3, 2024, the Air Canada Aeroplan program is offering a promotion on purchased points. It appears that the standard offer is for up to a 30% discount, though it’s possible that different members are eligible for different offers. The 30% discount is tiered as follows:

• Buy 10,000-19,000 points, receive a 15% discount

• Buy 20,000-75,000 points, receive a 20% discount

• Buy 80,000-95,000 points, receive a 25% discount

• Buy 100,000-250,000 points, receive a 30% discount

Air Canada Aeroplan Promotion (Source)

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 we purchased 250,000 Aeroplan points with a 30% discount, we’d receive a total of 250,000 Aeroplan points at a cost of $6,125 CAD (~$4,439 USD), which is a rate of 1.77 cents (USD) per Aeroplan point.

While some promotion is better than no promotion, it’s important to emphasize that this pales in comparison to some past offers that we’ve seen from the program.

How many Aeroplan points can you purchase?

While you can purchase up to one million Aeroplan points per account per calendar year, there is a per-transaction limit of 250,000 points pre-bonus.

Is buying Air Canada Aeroplan points worth it?

Aeroplan is one of our favorite frequent flyer programs out there. To cover a few of the basics:

• Award pricing is a combination of zone and distance-based

• There are no 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 we redeem through regularly.

On what airlines can you redeem Aeroplan points?

One of our 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.

Book Vistara’s Business Class with Aeroplan miles (Source)

Unfortunately, Aeroplan has been having issues with some partner awards, in particular for travel on Etihad Airways. So, unfortunately at the moment those redemptions largely aren’t possible. Always look up award availability before buying points, to get a sense of what you can expect.

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, we value Aeroplan points at ~1.5 cents each. However, we 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.

Conclusion

Air Canada’s Aeroplan program is offering a 30% discount on purchased points, which is an opportunity to purchase points for 1.77 cents each. It’s possible that some accounts may be eligible for different offers, so you’ll want to log into your account to see what’s available to you.

While this is better than no promotion, it’s not nearly as good as some of the past offers that we’ve seen from the program. Aeroplan points are valuable, and there are plenty of situations under which the math could work out with taking advantage of this. In general, we’d only recommend buying points with a short-term use in mind, though, as there’s always risk to holding onto points for longer periods.

This information was first published on onemileatatime.com.