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 also easy to redeem Aeroplan points on the Air Canada website, there are no fuel surcharges when redeeming points, and 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.
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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$39) per 1,000 points, or around 3.9 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 30,000 points. There is a purchase limit of 250,000 points (sometimes higher during promotions) and 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 every 1-2 months.
From 23-29 January 2024, Air Canada is giving bonus points when you buy at least 3,000 Aeroplan points in a single transaction! The bonus amount gets higher as you purchase more points, with up to 85% bonus points available if you buy at least 40,000 Aeroplan points.
The bonus amount depends on the number of points that you purchase:
- Buy 5,000-55,000 Aeroplan points to get a 50% bonus
- Buy 60,000-90,000 Aeroplan points to get an 85% bonus
- Buy 100,000-500,000 Aeroplan points to get a 110% bonus
During this offer, as is often the case during special promotions, Air Canada is temporarily increasing the maximum purchase limit to 500,000 Aeroplan points per transaction (excluding bonus points) and 1 million points per calendar year in total.
If you were to buy the maximum 500,000 Aeroplan points during this bonus points offer, it would cost CAD17,500. That’s around AU$19,650 at the current exchange rate.
Note that a 100% bonus offer is roughly equivalent to a 50% discount offer, in terms of value.
Air Canada’s previous promotional offer, in November 2023, was 50-110% bonus points on purchases of at least 5,000 points. However, to get the highest amount of bonus points you would have needed to purchase at least 100,000 Aeroplan points.
This offer is fairly typical for an Aeroplan offer. You might be able to get a better deal by waiting until the next promotion. However, the AUD/CAD exchange rate fluctuations impact the value of each offer in addition to the value of the bonus/discount. 😉
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
- 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 Hobart, you can fly Virgin Australia to Sydney and then a Star Alliance 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. Since September 2022, it’s possible to book stopovers on the Air Canada website by making a multi-city booking.
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, Melbourne-Bangkok on THAI or Sydney-Ho Chi Minh City on Bamboo Airways 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.
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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