As you probably hear already, Air Canada moved closer to buying out Aeroplan for $450 million.
I was still holding out hope that this deal would fall through. I was really hoping to see what would happen with Aeroplan’s initiatives, especially with Porter Airlines. Guess it will essentially be business as usual with Aeroplan sticking to Air Canada.
In celebration of the new Maple Leaf Lounge at Saskatoon’s John G. Diefenbaker International Airport (YXE), I thought it would be appropriate to update this post.
There are many different ways to access the lounge.
After some more back and forth, it looks like Aeroplan is finally being bought out by the Air Canada, TD, CIBC, Visa consortium. Looks like me that Aimia was not happy with the initial offer that they rejected at the beginning of…
As Air Canada continues to phase out Aeroplan, they are putting more emphasis on creating their own loyalty program. Air Canada already has an elite qualifying program called Altitude. Some changes were made to their earning options in their Economy fare pricing. Some of the highlights are as follows:
Air Canada has sent out a request for proposal to offer a co-branded credit card (new reports from CBC and Financial Post). Since announcing that they will be discontinuing their partnership with Aeroplan, steps will be taken by both companies to move on from each other.
Most of the news has surrounded around Aeroplan, regarding who they will team up with next, what to do with Aeroplan miles, etc. Air Canada has remained relatively quiet until now. We know that they plan on launching their own loyalty program and they will need to team up with at least one credit card company to offer a co-branded credit card to make their program more valuable.
Based on the wording from an Aeroplan news release, it may seem like the the door is left open for them to renew their contract. I mean, there is still 3 years to go before it expires. So for the time being, it is business as usual for Aeroplan members.
From Air Canada’s perspective, they seem more firm that their plan is to launch its own loyalty program.
Is it just me or is there an increase in the number of passenger being bumped off flights these days? There are two recent stories in the past week involving Air Canada.
Dad and Two Kids Ordered Off the Plane
Air Canada is offering a bidding program to upgrade a passenger’s seat. The upgrades are based on availability for select destinations and scheduled flights operated by Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge, and under the Air Canada Express banner.
Bringing luggage onto the plane, whether checked-in or carry-on, has become such a complicated issue since the introduction of the pay-per use for the past few years. It seems like it will only get more problematic when costs are attached to carry-ons. As a result, the free checked bag offer from credit cards is only going to become more valuable.
Below is an updated list of credit cards that offer a free checked bag, ranked by annual fees:
CIBC is offering something called the Air Canada AConversion Visa Prepaid Card. A prepaid card is a card where you can use your credit card to pre-load the card with a specific amount of funds to be used at a later date. You can use this like a credit card (wherever accepted). The main difference between is that instead of a credit limit, where you use the limit first, and then pay off the balance when it is due, you have to preload the card with money, and you can only use what is loaded into the card. There is no credit limit.