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Aeroplan® Credit Card from Chase lets you earn 70,000 points after you spend $3,000 on purchases in the first 3 months your account is open.
This is one of the best airline co-brands, and the initial offer has gone up by 10,000 points. The card’s annual fee is $95.
Air Canada Signature Suite Toronto
Earn is 3x Aeroplan points on dining, grocery stores, and on Air Canada spend. In addition, it offers 500 bonus Aeroplan points for every $2,000 spent in a calendar month, up to 1,500 bonus Aeroplan points each month.
Cardmembers receive Aeroplan Elite 25K status for rest of the calendar year in which they get the card, plus the following year, and maintain that status by spending $15,000 on the card per year. Spending $50,000 on the card in a calendar gets a one-tier Aeroplan status upgrade, which even bumps a 75K member up to top published Super Elite status.
And cardmembers can redeem their points at 1.25 cents each toward virtually any travel purchase using the Pay Yourself Back (up to 50,000 points per year).
Air Canada Business Class
Air Canada Signature Suite Vancouver
Those with the card receive an ongoing 10% transfer bonus when moving points from Ultimate Rewards to Aeroplan when transferring 50,000 or more points, up to 25,000 bonus points per year.
Benefits include first checked bag free on Air Canada flights for the primary cardmember and up to eight other travelers on the same reservation; Global Entry, TSA PreCheck, or NEXUS credit every four years; and travel protections like trip and baggage delay coverage.
Air Canada Aeroplan gets you access to Star Alliance and to other airline partners – more partners than any other program – and airlines are generally combinable on a single award. Air Canada even allows stopovers on awards for 5,000 additional miles.
Naturally, Chase’s 5/24 applies to this card, so most will only find application success if they’ve been approved for 4 or fewer cards in the past 24 months.
I last got the bonus on this when it launched in Dec 2021. Can I get the bonus again now? It’s been over 24 months, but I have never really signed up for the same chase card more than once, so not sure how it works.
I signed on to this card during the prior promo of 75,000 + 25,000 miles/points, and am happy with it. I had been crediting AC flights to UA (my home airline) MileagePlus, but was looking to have an Aeroplan account as well, so this took care of that and got me a starter balance at the same time.
Getting to be an instant Silver with AC for up to two years is super great – IF you fly them with any regularity. 3x on groceries is good. But beyond that, I will re-review as the ongoing card benefits are limited for an A.F. card: basically, the free baggage benefit (which only applies if you credit the flight to Aeroplan – a potential opportunity cost) and access to a wider redemption award inventory (which I haven’t put to the test yet).
If you are US-based and often fly Star Alliance, stay with UA MileagePlus which has no surcharges, no change-fees, and no points expiration. But if you fly with AC with any regularity, I’d say go for the Chase Aeroplan card just for kicks, and then re-evaluate after two years.
@Marco I will disagree with you on MileagePlus. I’d narrow it to say if you fly UA a lot, stick with MileagePlan. If you are US based and fly overseas both LifeMiles and Aeroplan often have lower priced awards for overseas destinations which compensate for the fact that they have change fees. Also, the change fees for Aeroplan are very reasonable, especially when you consider they are in CAD.