Until now, the Aeroplan program’s new rules about multiple welcome bonuses, which we shared with you over a year ago, were mostly “in theory”. They’ve become quite “in practice”: several people who didn’t follow the rules have had clawbacks of 10,000 points in their accounts. This should honestly be considered a big win, but as is almost always the case, many don’t see it the right way (and are wrong, as they often are 😉).
Just to be clear: obviously, it would be better if the rules didn’t exist or if they had continued not to be applied. Of course.
But for them to make a clawback of just 10,000 points is extremely positive as opposed to taking back the whole bonus (which is often 4 to 5 times that amount, like with the current amazing enhanced offer available with our link but not on the bank’s site directly).
Here are the details.
Basics to stay up-to-date on news and rules
I’m going to do an important sidenote to start.
I have to say that I’m very surprised at how many people are surprised that these Aeroplan rules exist, for 2 reasons:
- We shared them with you over a year ago
- We wrote them on our resource pages for each Aeroplan card (at the very top in the summary table, no less)
Shared over a year ago
In connection with the first point about our very old post on the subject, make sure you sign up for our free newsletter specifically about travel rewards. This is not our main/normal/regular newsletter. It’s a newsletter just for those interested in travel rewards.
Yes, for some reason I’ll honestly probably never understand, there are a fascinating number of people who don’t want to get free travel. And so a lot of our travel rewards content is sent out only in our special travel rewards newsletter, not in the main newsletter. If you’re not sure if you’re receiving the newsletter, just enter your email address and you’ll get it for sure.
We send out at most one travel rewards newsletter a week at the moment, so that’s really the bare minimum of time you should devote to travel rewards if you want to be a pro: just open one newsletter a week and read the headlines at least. You don’t have to read every post, of course. But at least the headlines of every update or guide to make sure you don’t miss anything important. It’ll take you less than 5 minutes.
You would have seen the post on the “new” Aeroplan rules and another guide on the eligibility rules for all Canadian cards. I’ll come back to these 2 items below, but anyway, if you’ve read our simple infographic that summarizes the basics of travel rewards, you know that one of the 6 most important things is to invest more time to get more out of this wonderful world. One newsletter a week, just the headlines. It’s not very long.
On our resource page for every Aeroplan card
Regarding the second point about our card resource pages, again, this is the bare minimum you should do before applying for any card every time you apply for one during the year: read the summary table at the top of our card resource page.
The vital essentials are there, like the eligibility rules for the welcome bonus. You know that welcome bonuses are the most important thing if you want to earn more free travel! So you need to check whether you’re eligible, that’s the basics. We spell it out for you clearly and simply, right in the summary table at the very top.
By the way, to keep the top summary table concise, there isn’t everything. But if you just scroll down a bit, you’ve got 10+ tabs with every conceivable information about every card!
We receive hundreds of questions (we’ll answer every one, but we have a backlog) and seriously, at least half of the answers are always on the card resource pages. We’ve spent hours and hours gathering all possible information in one spot, so all you have to do is read!
Now let’s look at the eligibility rules specifically.
Basics of Aeroplan welcome bonus eligibility rules
All banks in Canada allow you to earn welcome bonuses on the same card an unlimited number of times! That’s right! An unlimited number of times! But there are 2 exceptions: cards issued by Amex Bank (American Express) and Aeroplan cards (since last year).
So for Aeroplan rules, it’s still pretty simple, even if it looks complex at first glance. Like almost everything else in the world of travel rewards basically; there’s nothing complex about it; you just need to take a little time to learn.
There are different levels of Aeroplan cards. The levels are based on the cards’ annual fees and whether they are personal/business cards. Nothing complicated there.
The rules are that you can earn one welcome bonus per card level. It’s very simple.
I’ve made this infographic for those who are more visual (you can also click on it to go to each card’s resource page).
So everyone can get 4 Aeroplan welcome bonuses, and those who have a real registered business (even if you’re just self-employed) can have 5 Aeroplan bonuses. One welcome bonus per line on this chart; simple as that.
(Everyone can also get 6 welcome bonuses for American Express Membership Rewards points that are transferrable to Aeroplan at a 1-to-1 rate! The Aeroplan rules obviously only apply to Aeroplan cards!)
So one Aeroplan welcome bonus per Aeroplan card level. That’s in theory.
In practice, it’s not always applied rigorously (like many of the eligibility rules for welcome bonuses). For example, American Express has a similar rule (1 per card though, not per level… so 17 Amex welcome bonuses in total). But a few years after you’ve earned the bonus for a specific card, they often “forget” and you become eligible again in practice.
Until now, Aeroplan didn’t really apply its new rules.
Anyway, that’s all in our guide to welcome bonus eligibility rules (which was sent out in our newsletter specifically on travel rewards).
Aeroplan change in practice
Now Aeroplan has clawed back 10,000 points from those who didn’t play by the rules.
Again, like I said, it’s really not that bad! It could have been a lot worse if they had clawed back the whole bonus!
For example, here’s the TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite Card‘s welcome bonus structure (the enhanced offer via our link and not on the bank site I mentioned above):
- 10,000 points Bonus after 1 purchase (no minimum amount)
- 15,000 points Bonus after spending $7,500 (in a maximum of 180 days)
- 25,000 points Bonus after spending an additional $4,500 ($12,000 in a maximum of 12 months) and renewing the card
If you had applied and weren’t eligible, you still keep 40,000 points (≈ $600) that you shouldn’t have according to the rules!!!! We can agree that it’s still not so bad as a bonus! Even without the little 10,000-point bonus!
Essentially, Aeroplan only clawed back this portion of 10,000 points because it didn’t come with a spending requirement.
If the new rule really does allow you to get the biggest portion of bonuses again in practice, it’s frankly even great news compared to being limited to never getting another of the same level! It would make it much easier to get even more of those points that are worth the most, and so much more easily!
Getting 40,000 points is better than getting 0 points. You’ve got to know how to do the math in the world of travel rewards; that too is another of the 6 most important things in our simple infographic summarizing the basics of travel rewards.
We don’t know if it will be like this in the future too, or if they went easy as a first warning or whatever. To be continued; we’ll keep an eye on this for you, obviously. And we’ll let you know in the newsletter about travel rewards, of course!
Finally, some disgruntled travelers have launched a class action lawsuit against Air Canada over the clawback of 10,000 points.
Do you know that Air Canada, like any rewards program, is not obligated to let you participate in their program. It’s theirs. It’s up to them.
Personally, I wouldn’t risk getting involved in that. First of all, I don’t see how they wouldn’t have the right to decide the rules of their own program. They decided it was a welcome bonus per card level. This was known and published and public for months.
Those who didn’t follow the rule still got to keep most of the bonus, the clawback was just 10,000 points! Learn to accept your victories and to move on!
Actually the class action might even make things worse! It might lead them to completely deny repeat bonuses, instead of the status quo that is much better. All that because of 10,000 little points… Remember basic math? Getting 40,000 points is a lot better than getting 0 points…
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