Air Canada Completes Acquisition of Aeroplan
It’s official. Aimia Canada Inc. (owner of Aeroplan) is now sold to Air Canada for approximately $497 million (Press releases: Air Canada, Aimia).
Deep down inside, I had still hoped that the deal would fall through, because I was excited for all the initiatives that Aeroplan was planning in my interview with their CEO, for life after Air Canada. I really wanted to see Aeroplan compete with Air Canada, as competition is usually a positive for consumers.
Instead, I will try my best to look at the positives of this new deal, which takes effect in 2020. From now until then, it will be business as usual.
Going forward, I hope that we will see an enhanced Air Canada / Aeroplan program. Perhaps starting with eliminating taxes and fuel surcharges on Air Canada award tickets?
More importantly, what would you like to see happen beyond 2020 with a fully integrated Aeroplan/Air Canada loyalty program? Please share in the comment section below!
I want more partners to show up on searches – not just AC… I’d also love to be able to search “Europe to YYZ” for instance.
Definitely! It does feel like slim pickings on partner airlines. Aeroplan usually blames it on the other airline for not having inventory released to them.
Air Canada talked a good game about creating an even better reward program after they announced that they were going to split from Aeroplan. Now they have no incentive to do so. My guess is that they’ll take the path of least resistance and make only cosmetic changes.
My hope is that they’ll find more retail partners because my Aeroplan card is collecting dust in my wallet.
I hope so too. They lost quite a few partners.
I think it was always Air Canada’s plan to do this takeover. But they wanted Aeroplan to be de-valued first to pick it up for a better price. Kind of crazy to think though, that it cost half a billion dollars. As long as our points don’t de-value I’m ok but it sure would be great to have some new opportunities to earn points again.
You are probably right!
Best program for me right now continues to be the full AMEX Membership Rewards on the Gold Rewards Card…yes it is $150 per year, but allows you so much flexibility in switching to different programs…Aeroplan, BA, hotels, etc. Most valuable points as far as I’m concerned. Transfer them to whichever program you want, when you want/need them.
Definitely hope there is a continued partnership with AMEX.