Aeroplan is the frequent flyer program of Air Canada and is a popular one for booking Star Alliance awards with. They will be making some changes in the coming year but they are a great program to use even now. As of today (May 7) they are getting into the business of selling miles on sale – and what a sale it is!
Buy Aeroplan Miles from 1 Cent Each
Link: Aeroplan Mile Sale
They are actually strutting this first sale in an interesting way. Here are the details for this sale which will go live at 10AM EDT today (May 7). Note, before this, the only way to purchase Aeroplan miles were if you already had 50% of the miles need for an award and they would cost 4 cents each (CAD).
This time, they are selling the miles for 3 cents each (CAD) before ether bonus kicks in. So, here is how it will work.
- For the first 10 million miles sold – with the bonus and after conversion, it will cost just under 1 cent US each (it is 1.39 cents per mile with the 115% bonus)
- For the next 100 million miles sold – with the bonus and after conversion, it will cost 1.1 cent US each (it is 1.57 cents per mile with the 90% bonus)
- Finally, after that – with the bonus and after conversion, it will cost 1.29 cent US each (it is 1.8 cents per mile with the 60% bonus)
Read: 3 Things I Like and Dislike About Aeroplan Awards
There is a limit on 250,000 purchased miles per member per transaction so the bonus will not count toward that. This will likely sell out very quickly at the 1 cent price as many people will want to grab these miles for premium awards. If you are paying with a US credit card, you won’t have to pay the attached sales tax either (otherwise, figure that number in with the above prices).
One more thing – Aeroplan will count 50% of the miles you buy towards elite status. If you have no status with them, buying 50,000 will earn you 25,000 elite miles as well which will get you basic airline elite status.
Risk or Reward?
Now, here is the tough question – should you buy? I am normally against speculative mileage purchases because programs change all the time. But, at this time in the world, most purchases would be speculative as we do not really have a handle on when normal international travel will resume.
The downsides to consider is that this could be a scenario where we see Aeroplan change the award chart next month or the following month. It has been a while since they have made real negative changes to it and there are some awards that are prime for devaluation.
For example, to fly between the US and Europe (western Europe), it costs 110,000 miles roundtrip. Within that trip, you can do a stopover which can add great value. With this deal, such a roundtrip business class award would cost $1,100 in miles. Keep in mind that some carriers like Lufthansa and Austrian do have fuel surcharges attached to them so you may want to use carriers like LOT, SAS, United, Turkish, SWISS. But, this post will show you how you can get those Lufthansa awards cheaper!
That is an amazing deal for a business class award. but keep in mind that there could always be a negative change before you are able to book the award you want! Remember that Aeroplan has extended their free cancellation period until the end of June as well.
So am I saying buy or no? I am saying that you should definitely consider it but keep in mind the downside if they decide to devalue the award chart.
I know any responsible points writer tell people they should never buy points speculatively, but only if they have a specific redemption to make. At this point, all travel seems to be speculative even if you see a flight into the future. It may sound nice that you can accumulate a lot of points at a deep discount now for use down the road, but let’s face it, with dynamic pricing, no award charts and no notice devaluations, there no reason to accumulate points on any airline anymore in the hopes of a future redemption. You can’t even trust that a UA point which is “worth” 1.something today will be worth that in a month – it will only be worth less. My advice would be to put all spending/points on cards with transferable partners. Except for outlier cases (probably most people who read these things religiously) I don’t see any reason to do otherwise. My thoughts are worth 2 cents until my next devaluation or I institute dynamic pricing on them.