Aeroplan, Air Canada’s loyalty program is selling points with up to a 105% bonus if you purchase 80,000 or more points. Purchasing 80,000 points would net you a bonus of 84,000 points, costing $2800 CAD(Canadian Dollars) or about $2,100 USD. This gets you down to about 1.28 cents per point. If you’re truly daring and want to spend a boat load of cash, you can buy a maximum of 500,000 points and receive a bonus of 525,000 points. This would give you a cool 1,025,000 points for a grand total of $17,500 CAD ($13,176 USD). For a little over 13,000 dollars, you can be a points millioniare.
Should you bite?
Unless you plan to buy points and quickly redeem, I don’t suggest speculatively purchasing points. For the same reason I do not suggest speculatively transferring points, most loyalty programs can alter their award charts without advance notice. The sudden devaluation or the lack of award space could leave you in a pickle.
On the other hand, if you are looking to book a trip and Aeroplan has solid options that fit your needs this could be a good idea. For example, business class flights to Taiwan can be had for just 80,000 points. Make this a stopover and and add another stop over in Seoul before ending in Hong Kong and you could have a nice multi-city ticket for just 90,000 points all in business. ( you still need to book a separate ticket home). There is potential to get solid value using points purchased, but be sure to have flights in hand.
What Credit Card to Use?
It looks like Aeroplan is selling miles through Points.com so your purchase won’t code as airline. I would use your best everyday spend earnings card for this purchase if you do choose to buy points.
Final Thoughts
Aeroplan is selling miles with up to a 105% bonus bringing the cost per mile to a nice 1.28 cents. While this could be a fantastic deal, I would not suggest speculatively buying points as airlines can change their award chart at any given time. This deal is great for those who are looking to book a flight through Aeroplan as they have an amazing award chart and a generous stopover policy. If you do plan on buying miles, make sure your desired flights are still avalaible and have a back up plan. You never want to be out of $2,000 and have 170,000 points sitting with no easy way to redeem.
