Through April 27, 2015 you can convert your points from many loyalty point programs to Aeroplan miles and earn up to 25,000 bonus Aeroplan miles. It is a unique structure where you will earn the bonus miles cumulatively based on all the points that ultimately are transferred from all partners.
You can transfer points from the following programs:
- Financial credit cards: CIBC Aventura® World MasterCard™ Card, CIBC Aventura® Gold Visa™, CIBC Aventura® Visa Infinite™, and Diners Club®Club Rewards® (although American Express is a transfer partner, they are not part of this bonus point promotion) – look at the transfer values here.
- Hotels/Car Rental: Starwood Preferred Guest®(1:1) Wyndham Rewards (5:1), Best Western Rewards (5:1), Choice Privileges (5:1), Coast Rewards (1:1), Club Carlson (8:1), Hilton HHonors (10:1), Le Club Accorhotels (Accor hotels) (2:1), Golden Circle Award (1:1), Hertz Gold Plus Rewards (6:5) – look at the minimum transfer values here.
- Points.com: Includes – Alaska Airlines, Audience Rewards, Best Buy Rewards, Cathay Pacific, TACA, Frontier, Esso, HawaiianMiles, Midwest Miles, MySmart Rewards, Priority Club Rewards, S&H Greenpoints, Icelandair Saga Club, Trident Privilege Program, Virgin America, US Airways
Out of all of those programs, you’ll find the best value in SPG points as they transfer at a 1:1 ratio and for every 20,000 points you transfer to a partner airline you’ll earn a 5,000 mile bonus. So this means if you transfer 80,000 Starwood points you’ll end up with 100,000 Aeroplan points which will then qualify you to get 25,000 bonus points, thus resulting in a total of 125,000 Aeroplan points. Marriott’s Nights and Flights packages could also be another transfer option. Most of the other programs will not make sense to transfer as you’ll lose value as the transfer ratios are not so great. But, if you have some orphaned points that you have no usage for it might make sense combine them all into Aeroplan.
I will be honest, I’ve never earned or redeemed an Aeroplan mile. They are a Star Alliance partner and you can check our their award chart here. This means you can use Areoplan points domestically on United as well. So if you are thinking about the Starwood conversion, if you typically use miles to fly United, transferring those points to Aeroplan might not be a bad idea. A few things to note with Aeroplan (the good and the bad): 1) On partner award flights fuel surcharges can be hefty; 2) When redeeming miles you are allowed two stop-overs; 3) You can fly to Europe in business class for 90,000 miles roundtrip
I personally will not be taking advantage of this promotion as I value my Starwood points too much and the other partners have a horrible redemption ratio. I also do not have an immediate need to use points and I do not like transferring points speculatively.
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