Lucrative Aeroplan Purchased Miles Promotion, But Timing Is Everything

Aeroplan miles will soon be available for their cheapest price ever. This is the sort of the deal I would jump on in a heartbeat during normal times, but we don’t live in normal times any longer…

The Deal: Aeroplan Miles As Cheap As $0.01/Each

On May 7th at 10:00AM ET, Aeroplan will launch a promotion on purchased miles that is better than anything we have ever seen in the past:

1. For the first 10 million Aeroplan Miles sold, members get a 115% bonus; equivalent to $0.014 CAD/mile + sales tax OR $0.01 USD/mile;
2. The next 100 million miles sold, members get a bonus of 90%; equivalent to $0.016 CAD/mile + sales tax + $0.011 USD/mile;
3. All miles sold after this will get a bonus of 65%; equivalent to $0.018 CAD/mile + sales tax OR + $0.013 USD/mile

The sale will run through May 13th at 11:59PM ET. You can buy the miles here. There is no sales tax for U.S. residents.

As icing on the cake, a portion of each purchase will be donated to The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health Foundation (CAMH), Canada’s largest hospital specializing in mental illness and addictions.

Timing Is Everything

An Aeroplan spokesperson told me that this promo was originally planned to launch in March, but held back onto until now. Indeed, much has changed since March. In fact, we live in a whole new world.

Deals like this remind me of the US Airways days…those blissful days of huge purchased miles promotions that netted lucrative multi-segment routings around the world in premium cabins.

But here we are in a new era and it is anything but clear what travel will look like later this year and into 2021.

Furthermore, we are expecting the launch of the new Aeroplan program this summer. Perhaps that will change now (the spokesperson declined to speculate), but I have to imagine that some of the sweet spots on the award chart will disappear.

And that leaves me in a state of quandary. If I can continue to redeem one-way business class tickets to Europe for 55K miles or one-way first class tickets or 70K, this is simply a no-brainer. But if those redemption amounts change in a big way this August or become more restricted, I’ll be left in a worse position, especially considering some of the great premium cabin deals we’ve seen lately.

CONCLUSION

This is an excellent promotion, especially if you see some award space you can book now. But should you stock up on miles using this promotion? Weigh the risks…and remember that we’ve seen unannounced devaluations from Alaska and United, who also aggressively sell miles. I will not personally be buying miles unless I can lock in Christmas space to Germany now.