Chase is offering a 20% bonus on transfers from Ultimate Rewards to Air Canada Aeroplan through July 31, 2023.

• You can take advantage transferring points from Sapphire Preferred and Reserve; Ink Plus and Business Preferred; Chase Corporate Flex; and JPMorgan Reserve.

• This stacks with the 10% bonus Chase Aeroplan cardmembers receive when transferring 50,000 or more Ultimate Rewards points to Aeroplan in a single transaction by December 31, 2023 (capped at 25,000 bonus points per calendar year).

Last fall Chase offered a 30% transfer bonus to Aeroplan, so not their best offer ever, but still very useful.

Air Canada is part of the Star Alliance, so you can use your miles for travel on member airlines like Lufthansa, Swiss, Asiana, ANA and Turkish. What’s more Air Canada Aeroplan doesn’t add fuel surcharges to awards any longer, and their awards are often cheaper than United’s – for instance East Coast to Europe in business class on Lufthansa costs 60,000 miles one way versus ~ 30% more via United.

You can combine Star Alliance and other partner airlines into a single award. Air Canada has a plethora of airline partners outside of Star Alliance that you can redeem your miles with. One of my favorites is Etihad. And you can actually include both Star Alliance airlines and other partner airlines in the same award ticket, almost always bookable on their website.

For about 10,000 more points you can get for refundable awards that come with special club access on Air Canada business class transoceanic departures via Toronto and Vancouver. Air Canada Signature Suite lounges are not open to upgrading passengers or regular award passengers to keep them exclusive, and they offer some of the best lounge dining in the world. Here’s their Toronto lounge and their Vancouver lounge.

While many programs have eliminated stopovers – the ability to spend time in a connecting city along your journey – Aeroplan maintains them for generally just an extra 5000 miles each. And you aren’t limited to just one!

The program is also a great opportunity to combine your family’s Chase points in one place, since Aeroplan offers family points pooling. And Aeroplan is also an American Express, Capital One, and Bilt transfer partner so you can pool points from various transferable points programs towards a single award. (Also have your family members get a Aeroplan® Credit Card and use their points for your travel, heh).