Air Canada’s Refreshed Credit Card Is Fascinating

This week, the Chase Air Canada Aeroplan Card underwent a major refresh with (stop me if you’ve heard this before) an increased annual fee and new benefits. This one is not going to be a LazyPoints favorite, for reasons I’ll get into, but my points-nerd side can’t resist talking about some of the interesting benefits this card now offers. 🤓

The Unique Benefits

First, the card offers elite status just for holding the card. That’s unique. While many airline cards accelerate the path to status or offer status as a welcome bonus, this is the first card I’ve seen offer it as an ongoing perk of the card. And that, in turn, can also make Hyatt status easier to obtain.

Second, it offers a 15% discount on award itineraries with at least one Air Canada-operated segment. With a quick Roame search, I found a qualifying business class flight to Munich for 75,000 points. With the discount from this card, it would only require about 64,000 points. And with a transfer bonus from a partner like Amex, Bilt, Capital One, or Chase, the cost could be even lower. Chase currently has a 20% transfer bonus, so that $2,000+ flight would require about 54,000 Chase points and $57 in fees. 

Finally, the card kept Pay Yourself Back, the ability to redeem points toward travel at 1.25¢ each. You can redeem points earned with the card, earned from Air Canada travel, or transferred from Chase at this redemption rate, which is, in my opinion, the best fixed redemption value in the credit card market. 

The Downsides

Alas, this card won’t be a lazy favorite.

Mainly, it’s expensive. For its $195 fee, the main benefits are semiannual $50 credits with Air Canada and the points discount. Even if you maximize the $100 in credits, you’d still need to get more than $95 of value from the award discount or other perks just to break even. 

And deals are hard to find. I’ve never found good value in economy with Air Canada, at least compared to the competition. And while I found a small handful of lower-cost business class awards that would qualify for the discount, they are very scarce, and likely to get more so once people start looking specifically for routes with an Air Canada segment to take advantage of the discount. Now, Pay Yourself Back is a great backstop—it may be one of the simplest ways to get good value from your points—but if you can’t take advantage of the award discount, you might end up paying $195 for the privilege of using it. 

Meanwhile, while it’s cool to get automatic status, the status isn’t very useful outside of Air Canada itself. There’s almost no benefit to the base-level Star Alliance status that comes with this card, and the reciprocal perks with United only include priority check-in and boarding. Those are nice, but free baggage and (especially) seat selection are the real prizes with United, and this card alone won’t help you there. 

Lazy Take 

I’m always intrigued when credit cards offer unique or special perks, and the Aeroplan Card certainly delivers on that front. It might be worthwhile if you fly Air Canada regularly, or if you earn a lot of points and want to build your strategy around Aeroplan. But I’m not sure it makes much sense for less engaged travelers like me. 

This week on the blog 📝

If the Aeroplan Card isn’t for you, this week I highlighted a few airline credit cards that can be great for points travel and justify their annual fees even if you never take paid flights with the co-branded airline. 

Quick Points of the Week ⚡

New partnerships 🤝

Hyatt and Delta are joining forces. The hotel chain previously had a tie-in with American Airlines, albeit one that offered little value to most travelers. Details about the new partnership are scarce, but elites will apparently be able to double dip, earning benefits with both programs on eligible Delta flights and Hyatt stays. (One Mile at a Time) And it’s possible to get elite status with Delta or Hyatt with credit cards alone.  

Enter to Win 🎟️ 

“Cruise with Points” sweepstakes. Marriott is offering a grand prize of a $5,000 cruise and 100k points—enter to win by signing up for their cruise email list. (Marriott)

FYI ℹ️

Earn extra points on Marriott stays. The chain has a promotion where registered members can earn up to 4,500 extra points per qualifying stay through November 22. It’s probably not worth making or changing plans—but it’s a good reminder to always check for possible hotel promotions to activate when you have an upcoming stay. (Award Wallet)

Did you know❓

Add your passport to your Apple Wallet. Apparently, you can now create a passport-based digital ID in Apple Wallet for use at supported TSA checkpoints. I was able to easily add my passport, but I haven’t tested it personally yet. (From the Tray Table)

Sign up bonuses of the week 🎯

What a week for bonuses!

First, Hilton Amex cards have best-ever offers: 70,000 points + a free night on the no-fee Honors, 130,000 plus a free night on the $150-fee Surpass, and 200,000 on the $550-fee Aspire (which includes a free night annually). Those free night certificates are pretty cool. I’ve written about this general deal before, and I love it on the Honors and Aspire. 🔥🔥 I’m not a fan of the Surpass, but if you want one, this is a great time to get it. 🔥

Next, the Capital One Venture Rewards is offering 75,000 miles plus a $300 hotel credit (when booking through Capital One) after spending $4,000 in the first three months. That’s over $1,000 in travel value and is arguably the best-ever offer (a previous one offered 75k plus a $250 credit that could also be used on flights and rental cars). There were reports that this $95-fee card was adding a $100 annual hotel credit, but that hasn’t been confirmed on the Capital One website yet. That’s a huge difference-maker in the long-term value proposition of this card, so until that’s confirmed I’m not as excited about this offer as I could be, especially since 75k is the standard offer and we’ve seen similar bonuses on this card recently. 🔥 

Finally, the aforementioned Air Canada Aeroplan Card is offering 75,000 points after spending $4,000 in the first three months, plus another 40,000 bonus points after spending $20,000(!) in the first 12 months. This matches the best-ever offer on modest spending and is the best we’ve seen on big spending. 🔥

Other great sign-up bonuses this week

50,000 points + $300 Bilt Cash + Bilt Gold status on the Bilt Palladium (our take: 🔥🔥🔥)

Up to 80k points + $250 on the Delta Gold (our take: 🔥🔥🔥)

150k points + $250 on the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant (our take: 🔥🔥)

Up to 90k points + $300 on the Delta Platinum (our take: 🔥🔥)

Up to 50k points + two flight certificates on the Delta Reserve (our take: 🔥🔥)

60k points on the Choice Privileges Mastercard (our take: 🔥) 

90k points on certain Avios-earning cards (our take: 🔥) 

125k miles on the Citi AAdvantage Executive (our take: 🔥)

Up to 100/175k on the Amex Gold/Platinum (our take)

How we rate bonus offers. 

Lazy Picks ✅ (Sponsored)

Award search tools are great for evaluating credit cards, too. While the main benefit of tools like Roame or Seats.aero is their ability to simplify the process of finding award flights, I also find them invaluable when choosing a credit card. They are a great way to assess what sort of pricing and availability you might expect with different loyalty programs, and whether perks like award flight discounts are likely to pay off. 

Enjoy the weekend! 🦥

All this Air Canada talk has me ready for fall. 🍁

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