Air Canada has announced that it will launch it’s own loyalty program in 2020. In 2002 Air Canada spun off their Aeroplan loyalty program as a separate corporate entity (and eventually sold to Aimia). Air Canada & Aeroplan/Aimia have had an exclusive contract since Aeroplan was spun off, this contract will expire after June 29th, 2020.
- Until June 30th it will be business as usual and Aeroplan members will be able to earn and redeem Aeroplan miles on Air Canada (or Star alliance partners).
- After June 30th miles earned from Air Canada (or Star alliance partners) will be credited to Air Canada’s new loyalty program
- After June 30th Aeroplan miles will stay be able to be redeemed for Air Canada flights with with Air Canada stating that pricing will be competitive with other third-party rewards programs
My advice? If you have Aeroplan miles, try to use them sooner rather than later. I suspect this will be easier said than done as everybody will be looking to do the same. I’ve always thought that spinning off loyalty programs was a mistake and I think this cements that opinion, I don’t think it’s good for consumers or the airline themselves.
So far it’s also disappointing how Air Canada plans to implement these charges. It would be nice for either Aeroplan miles to be transferable to the new currency (and Aeroplan would be unlikely to agree to this) or for both programs to run side by side for several years. That way consumers could continue to earn Aeroplan miles towards a redemption they had planned or start earning the new currency if they had recently made a redemption. I’m sure there will be lots of promotions for both companies to acquire customers, but I don’t see Aimia’s Aeroplan surviving long term.
Hat tip to VFTW
I remember reading a post at some point about maximizing Aeroplan miles and not having to pay those ridiculous fees on most of their award flights. That’d come in handy again, on account of thise news.
A detail that drives a former English teacher crazy. While this is fine
“So far IT’S also disappointing how Air Canada ”
The apostrophe in the title is not fine and should be
“Air Canada has announced that it will launch ITS own loyalty program in 2020.”
Fixed, sorry Larry :(.
For me the question is what will replace Aeroplan as the go-to transfer program from Amex to Star Alliance. ANA, round trip only?
Definitely a good question, this is still 3 years away and it will take some time to get sorted out. I would like to hope that AmEX will simply partner with Air Canada and its new program and we’ll be able to transfer to there, and so not much will change, that’s the logical outcome- Air Canada will need AmEX to be their co-brand issuer anyways. But anything is possible, the best thing about this is we were given 3 years notice, which is quite a bit, and should hopefully be enough for most of us to use up our miles until we get more information on how this will all shake out.
Are there any other major hotel or airline reward programs that have also sold their reward program to a third party, that might entail a similar risk?
Not that I know of off the top of my head, anybody else know?
Legitimate question, then. What do you base your statement on when you say “I’ve always thought that spinning off loyalty programs was a mistake and I think this cements that opinion, I don’t think it’s good for consumers or the airline themselves.”?
It may be that it’s unsustainable for the loyalty program to exist as a separate business from the airline, but it doesn’t seem to be too bad for consumers. If anything, it may have kept the program from devaluing more than others (compare United).
I think consumers are in a pretty awful situation now in terms of Air Canada wanting to launch a new loyalty program, I was more referring to that.
Not fully in the way Air Canada has, but there are airlines who have sold partial, and majority stakes.
http://www.lek.com/sites/default/files/AirlineFrequentFlyerProgram_LoyaltyProgramEffectiveness_LEK-ExecutiveInsights-1723.pdf