Aeroplan

[star72232]

I've seen some posts about Air Miles bonuses, etc, but nothing about Aeroplan. Anyone have any tips other than signing up for a credit card?

 

[hcortesis]

Credit card signups seem to be where you will get your largest bonuses.

 

[Donald - my hero]

All I can say about Aeroplan is ... run away, run away!! It takes forever and a day to earn the smallest thing and then it takes even longer for them to actually get it to you!

 

[hcortesis]

Aeroplan's best value is in the use of flights (executive class to Europe especially). But securing flights is often difficult at normal reward levels.

 

[bltman]

Aeroplan is fine if you are able to get enough points to earn their "Distinction"status (not to be confused with Air Canada's Altitude status with Aeroplan). Once you earn distinction status, if you travel, you can get bonus points converting Marriott (you can set your hotel reward to autoconvert) and Starwood points to Aeroplan. With Aeroplan, the best way to earn points is by credit card. Charge everything you can to the card.
Aeroplan penetration to stores is not great (not surprising given target audience is different than airmiles). Before Sobey's switched to Air Miles, you used to be able to convert Sobey's points to Aeroplan points. If you knew what you were doing and followed the weekly bonus Sobey points offerings coupled with bonus aeroplan offers, you could game the system. People purchased hundreds of dollars of canned beans, tomato paste and KD at Sobey's over the years, coupled them with aeroplan multiplier offerings and got thousands of Aeroplan miles (averaging under a cent a mile). It was a sad day when Sobey's switched.

 

[starvenger]

It was also a sad day when they switched my local Sobeys to a FreshCo, although I got over that pretty quickly.

As for aeroplan, I'm fine with them.

 

[The_McMillans]

We use our aeroplane points to supplement our car rentals and hotel stays. My husband earned many points flying to Australia and back.

 

[hcortesis]

Yes, car rentals and hotels are also a pretty decent use of points

 

[gilsan]

I get alot of points shopping online through https://www4.aeroplan.com/estore/ They often have 5X the points promotions and have online retailers I use anyways like Chapters and Old Navy. You can also get bonus aeroplan miles shopping online through Costco. The majority of my miles come from using my aeroplan visa to pay for everything.

I have had good luck getting the flights I want for low points. I usually need to keep checking their site regularly until the flight I want comes available, but so far my persistance has paid off. I also often will book the legs of my trip seperately. You can save miles doing it that way.

 

[Susan2771]

We have used ours twice now towards cruises. This year we had enough aeroplan miles to put $1000 towards our cruise balance.

I do have an aeroplan credit card. We also fill up at Esso which offers aeroplan miles.