I’ve been in Canada for the past week and the big travel news here is that Air Canada has decided not to renew its contract with Aimia Inc, which runs Aeroplan. Aeroplan is Air Canada’s rewards program, which I didn’t realize was a separate company. It turns out that starting in June of 2020 Air Canada is going to bring its loyalty program in house, meaning that those Aeroplan miles better be used up by June 2020. This article by The Financial Post does a great job answering all of your questions but the gist is that you don’t need to panic—and to just use your miles within three years.
Here’s Air Canada’s dedicated page where the airline plans to keep members informed as it develops its new loyalty program.
FYI: The photo above is of Vancouver, B.C.
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Last year we saw a huge issue with Air Miles – another loyalty program here in Canada – that was forcing members to use their points by the end of the year that were more than five years old or else they would lose them. Our Government stepped in to prevent that from happening as they considered these points to be “services owed to members,” but Air Miles essentially devalued their points and are still suffering for this poorly planned policy.
Air Canada at one point tried to do something similar years ago until they backed down due to public outrage. This “new” loyalty program is just another way for them to sidestep the issue of owing free flights to Aeroplan members as most members now collect miles through other Aeroplan partners instead of Air Canada directly. Will be interesting to see what develops here as we approach June 2020. My guess is Air Canada will try to buy back Aeroplan – which they created back in 1984 – as Aimica’s stock plummets over the next couple of years since this announcement would essentially make Aeroplan useless if Air Canada were to leave.