Buy Aeroplan Points with Up to 115% Bonus
Aeroplan first launched their Buy & Gift Points feature in May 2020, and they’ve quickly developed a reputation for creative promotions.
So far, we’ve seen them offer an opportunity to earn Status Qualifying Dollars (SQD) on purchased points, a gifting bonus, and some very high bonuses of 100% or more.
For this round, you’ll earn various tiers of bonuses once you’ve purchased a minimum number of points. From now until November 28, 2022 at 11:59pm Pacific Time, you can earn up to a 115% bonus when you buy or gift Aeroplan points.
Buy Aeroplan Points with Up to 115% Bonus
Normally, Aeroplan sells points with a base price of 3.5 cents per point.
With this promotion, you’ll earn a targeted bonus of up to 105%, 110%, or 115% when you purchase a certain threshold of Aeroplan points.
With each of these bonus levels, the effective cent-per-point (cpp) acquisition costs are as follows:
- 105% bonus: 1.71 cents per point
- 110% bonus: 1.67 cents per point
- 115% bonus: 1.63 cents per point
These are all lower than our current target redemption valuation of 2.1 cents per point, making it a good rate at which you can buy Aeroplan points if you have a concrete future use in mind.
If you purchase a lower amount than the threshold for the maximum bonus under your targeted offer, you may receive an 80% or 60% bonus instead. For example, here’s the full breakdown of the targeted offer on my account:
- By 100,000+ points, receive a 115% bonus
- Buy 50,000–95,000 points, receive an 80% bonus
- Buy 10,000–45,000 points, receive a 60% bonus
These smaller bonuses would be equivalent to an acquisition cost of 1.94 or 2.19 cents per point, which would fall just below or just above our target redemption value of 2.1cpp, respectively.
As usual, buying or gifting points doesn’t contribute to your Aeroplan Elite Status. We’ve previously seen a promotion for buying points which also counted towards Status Qualifying Dollars (SQD), but that’s not the case this time around.
How many Aeroplan points can you buy?
Since the launch of the Buy & Gift Points feature, Aeroplan has been allowing each member to buy up to 1,000,000 points per calendar year. That’s an enormously generous limit, much higher than other loyalty programs offer for buying points.
(Note that gifting points refers to buying points for another Aeroplan member, not transferring your existing points. You can gift up to 500,000 points per year.)
Usually, Aeroplan imposes a limit of 250,000 base points per transaction, although for this promotion the limit is increased to 500,000. Bonus points don’t count towards your yearly limits for buying and gifting points.
With this promotion, the most that an Aeroplan member could buy in a single transaction is 500,000 base points + 575,000 (115%) bonus points = 1,075,000 points. This would cost you a total of $17,500 (CAD), which you could then do again if you haven’t already met the maximum number of purchased points this year.
Surely, this is a steep price to pay, but not unreasonable if you frequently fly long-haul routes in business or First Class, given that those points would easily score you a number of round-trip journeys anywhere in the world in premium cabins.
Which credit card should you use to buy Aeroplan points?
As Aeroplan points purchases are processed by Points.com, you won’t be able to earn category accelerators on Air Canada or travel purchases.
Note that buying or gifting Aeroplan points with a Canadian credit card will result in GST/HST being added to the total, which would erode the value of your purchase.
Therefore, the ideal way to make your purchase would be to use a US credit card, in which case GST/HST is not levied. You could use this opportunity to make progress towards a minimum spending requirement on a new US credit card; otherwise, use a card that offers a strong return on everyday spending.
If you must use a Canadian credit card, you’ll be acquiring Aeroplan points at approximately 2 cents per point, depending on your provincial tax rate. That’s still not a terrible rate, as it’s pretty much on par with our current valuation.
Who Should Buy Aeroplan Points?
There are some situations where buying Aeroplan points can be beneficial.
Travel on Long-Haul Partner Airlines
Although the purchase price of 1.63 cents per point is lower than our current valuation of Aeroplan points at 2.1 cents per point, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re guaranteed to get the same value for your booking.
Before buying points, it’s important to consider Aeroplan’s dynamic pricing model, where award ticket prices on Air Canada flights are still a bit unpredictable. Points costs rise and fall, more closely mirroring cash costs, so there isn’t as clear an advantage to buying points and making a points booking.
Instead, you can benefit by flying on Air Canada’s partner airlines, where award tickets are at a fixed points price based on distance and region. There are certainly many more sweet spots to be had where you can stretch the value you get for your up-front cash costs.
In general, I wouldn’t speculatively buy points if you tend to travel on dynamically-priced routes. There’s a lot more risk in making a speculative points purchase if you can’t guarantee the value you’ll get – in that case, I’d prefer to earn the slow way.
On the other hand, if you’re confident that you’ll often have opportunities to redeem points above the price you pay, now is as good a time as any to load up.
Families Who Share Points
With Aeroplan’s Family Sharing feature, you can easily purchase points on multiple accounts within a household and use them together.
That’s especially the case if you want to purchase more than the maximum of 1,000,000 Aeroplan points per account per year.
You can purchase points on up to eight Aeroplan accounts under the same Family Sharing pool (including any distant uncles if you don’t have a partner or kids), and redeem them out of your own account for your own trips. Across all linked accounts, your family could purchase up to 8,000,000 points per year.
Other Ways to Earn Aeroplan Points
Although this is a great deal on paper, there are no shortage of easy and affordable ways to earn Aeroplan points. You should always consider if you can reach the balance you want, on the timeline you’ll need it, in other ways.
Credit Cards by TD, CIBC, and American Express
By my count, Canada has no less than 20 credit cards that either earn Aeroplan points directly, or earn points that can be transferred to Aeroplan. That’s an enormous number of welcome bonuses you can collect, not to mention some strong ongoing earn rates on everyday spending.
In particular, the main cards you should be looking at are any co-branded Aeroplan credit card from TD, CIBC, or American Express, or any American Express card that earns Membership Rewards which can be transferred to Aeroplan at a 1:1 ratio.
Generally, signup bonuses are the most affordable way to “buy” points. The fastest way is via premium cards with high fees and higher bonuses. Plus, you’d get all the perks of being a premium Aeroplan cardholder.
| Credit Card | Best Offer | Value | |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
85,000 MR points | $1,503 | Apply Now |
 90,000 Aeroplan points
$599 annual fee
|
90,000 Aeroplan points | $1,449 | Apply Now |
 90,000 MR points
$499 annual fee
|
90,000 MR points | $1,646 | Apply Now |
 105,000 Aeroplan points
$599 annual fee
|
105,000 Aeroplan points | $1,921 | Apply Now |
 75,000 MR points
$199 annual fee
|
75,000 MR points | $1,561 | Apply Now |
On the other hand, if you prefer to keep costs down and earn points more slowly, the TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite Card and the CIBC Aeroplan Visa Infinite Card are great choices. Both are almost always offering a first-year annual fee waiver, along with a decent-sized welcome bonus. The best cost to acquire points is no cost!
It’s worth noting that some Aeroplan credit card offers distribute the welcome bonus on a monthly basis, not all at once. Therefore, if you need the points right away, it might be better to take advantage of this Buy & Gift Points promotion, even at a higher cost than a new credit card.
US Credit Cards
The Chase Aeroplan Card is one of the best ways to earn award travel at a great price. For an annual fee of $95 (USD), you’ll get a welcome bonus worth up to 70,000 Aeroplan points. That’s a spectacular rate to acquire points, at roughly 0.14 cents per point (USD).
American Express US Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, and Capital One miles can also be transferred 1:1 to Aeroplan. However, all of these programs have a much wider variety of unique transfer partners that are otherwise unavailable to Canadians.
With so many other ways to earn Aeroplan points in Canada, I prefer to save my US transferable rewards for other purposes. I’d only transfer them to Aeroplan as a last resort for a quick top-up.
Aeroplan eStore
You may also turn to the Aeroplan eStore for bonuses on online purchases at many popular retailers, ranging from technology to sportswear companies.
High bonuses can often be found around big shopping days. Keep an eye out things like Back to School promotions, and then dates like Thanksgiving and Christmas/Boxing Day.
You can access the shopping portal from your Aeroplan account. Unfortunately, there have been many technical difficulties since the new website launched over a year ago, and points haven’t been awarded reliably.
While this is a good way to pad your balance, I wouldn’t count on it for an urgent top-up. Even though there’s a lucrative Black Friday promotion currently, the bonus points may not arrive in your account immediately.
Previous Promotions
As you decide whether this promotion is a good opportunity for you to meet your travel goals, here’s a look back at Aeroplan’s past bonuses on purchasing points:
|
Bonus |
Cents per point (CAD) |
Start Date |
End Date |
|
Up to 115% more purchased points |
1.63 |
November 14, 2022 |
November 28, 2022 |
|
Up to 85% more purchased points |
1.89 |
September 29, 2022 |
October 9, 2022 |
|
Up to 85% more purchased points |
1.89 |
August 30, 2022 |
September 3, 2022 |
|
Up to 100% more purchased points |
1.75 |
July 8, 2022 |
July 20, 2022 |
|
Up to 85% more purchased points |
1.89 |
May 9, 2022 |
May 20, 2022 |
|
Up to 100% more purchased points |
1.75 |
March 9, 2022 |
March 22, 2022 |
|
Up to 100% more purchased points |
1.75 |
January 27, 2022 |
February 2, 2022 |
|
Up to 80% more purchased points |
1.67 |
September 27, 2021 |
October 11, 2021 |
Conclusion
Aeroplan‘s 115% bonus promotion on 100,000 or more purchased points, and any of the other lesser bonuses currently offered, are all good rates for buying Aeroplan points. However, unless you need an urgent top-up for a specific high-value redemption, there are better and cheaper ways to acquire points for discounted award travel.
With a higher base price on purchased points introduced this year, we’ve also seen higher bonuses more frequently. Therefore, these promotions are comparatively a much stronger opportunity to buy points.
If you’re interested in buying points, make sure you purchase before November 28, 2022 to take advantage of this offer.
The post Buy Aeroplan Points with Up to 115% Bonus appeared first on Prince of Travel by Josh Greenberg.
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