Many travelers are irrationally rebutted by premium credit cards with high fees, but these cards offer huge welcome bonuses that more than compensate. Also, most premium cards offer incredible travel benefits that give a lot of value every subsequent year, like the American Express Aeroplan Reserve Card and its unlimited access to Air Canada lounges.
For years, we’ve had our ranking of the best credit cards in Canada with many sub-categories, but we’ve recently shared a new, more detailed page with the best Aeroplan credit cards in Canada.
So here’s our review of the American Express Aeroplan Reserve Card, as it’s the very best premium Aeroplan card for almost all travelers (along with the American Express Aeroplan Business Reserve Card that’s almost identical and doesn’t require having an incorporated business).
Overview of the American Express Aeroplan Reserve Card
Here’s our usual summary table with all the key information.
The amazing benefits are the highlight of this card, so I’ll exceptionally start with those instead of the welcome bonus.
Here are the American Express Aeroplan Reserve Card’s great benefits for Air Canada flights:
- Unlimited access to Maple Leaf Lounges for you and 1 guest (North America)
- Free first checked bag for you and up to 8 other travel companions
- Preferred pricing (discounts) on Aeroplan point redemptions
- Priority in upgrade and standby order
- Priority boarding
- Priority check-in
- Priority baggage handling
- Multiplier earn rate of 3 pts/$ (≈ 4.5%), including Air Canada Vacations
- Annual companion pass by spending $25,000 on the card
- Shortcut for those who already have elite status
- Rollover eUpgrades and SQMs for those who already have elite status
Other premium Aeroplan cards like the TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite Privilege Card do have all of these benefits (except the 3 pts/$ earn rate) and even give you 6 DragonPass passes for other VIP airport lounges, but they have a minimum income requirement of $150,000 (personal) or $200,000 (household).
The American Express Aeroplan Reserve Card has no minimum income, like all cards from Amex Bank (they’re the only ones who never discriminate based on income; all their cards are available to all incomes).
You also get a few other interesting benefits:
- Excellent travel insurance coverage
- Base earn rate of 1.25 pts/$ (≈ 1.875%) on all non-bonused categories
- $100 credit to get NEXUS for free (the fee will increase, so apply before October 1st)
- Priority security line and free valet parking at Toronto Pearson (YYZ)
- Automatic car rental elite status with Avis
- Amex benefits (Amex Offers, Amex Experiences, The Hotel Collection)
- Metal card (in case you care about that)
As for the welcome bonus, getting 69,375 Aeroplan points is also very enticing.
You’ll get:
- 60,000 points (welcome bonus after spending $7,500 in the first 3 months)
- 9,375 points (minimum earn on the $7,500 minimum spend requirement)
Based on our Flytrippers Valuation, that’s worth ≈ $1041, but it can be worth $1500+ easily if you want — Aeroplan points are rewards of the more lucrative type, with a value that is literally unlimited!
You get those 69,375 points for $599, one of the highest fees in Canada, giving you a great valuation of ≈ $442 for the American Express Aeroplan Reserve Card’s welcome bonus.
It’s very normal for the first reaction to a $599 fee to be negative, but it’s simply irrational if you think about it.
You’ve surely pre-paid $599 to get a roundtrip flight (or maybe 2 cheaper roundtrips), and you never hesitated for a second. Why would you? You pre-pay $599, but you get flights.
It’s the exact same thing by getting the American Express Aeroplan Reserve Card: you pre-pay $599, but instead of getting just 1 or 2 flights like in the scenario you’ve surely done in the past, you get 69,375 points that can give you 10 (!!!) short-distance one-way flights or even a one-way business class flight to Europe worth thousands of dollars (!!!!!!).
Oh, and while everyone is fine with pre-paying $599 for flights in cash, that scenario gives you absolutely no benefits whatsoever. Pre-paying $599 for MORE reward flights with the card also gets you a full year of unlimited lounge access and all the other benefits I just mentioned.
So, while many will think it’s not savvy to get this card with a $599 fee, frankly, what’s not very savvy is not wanting to pre-pay $599 for this card if you’ve ever pre-paid $599 for flights in cash.
The bonus will give you a decent return of ≈ 5.9% on $7,500 in spending! Lower than many other cards but still a lot better than the pathetic 1-2% earn rate you might have thought was good before you knew the most important thing about travel rewards: welcome bonuses are the key!
Now, I’ll share more details about the highlights, but as always, you also have 10+ tabs with all the information you could want about the card on our Flytrippers resource page for the American Express Aeroplan Reserve Card.
Welcome bonus structure
The American Express Aeroplan Reserve Card has a great welcome bonus.
While it’s true that there are cards with higher welcome bonuses right now, none of them have these amazing benefits, and most are for points of the more simple type that can’t give you outsized value.
And while many cards give you a few passes to VIP airport lounges (don’t miss our complete guide coming very soon), only premium Aeroplan cards give access to the Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge network, the largest in Canada.
You’ll get 69,375 points after spending $7,500 in the first 3 months (60,000 bonus + 9,375 at the base earn rate of 1.25 pts/$).
There’s also actually an optional renewal bonus of 25,000 points (≈ $375) if you renew your card ($599) and spend an extra $2,500 in the first month after renewal, but we didn’t include it in our Flytrippers Valuation of the offer.
Aeroplan points
We’re finalizing our updated and very complete guide about the Aeroplan program, but in the meantime, you can read the basics in our post about the 40+ Aeroplan partner airlines.
Aeroplan points are the most valuable because a flight’s price in points is NOT tied to the cash price, giving you unlimited potential value — at least on partner airlines. That means there’s obviously a limited amount of available seats since the price is limited and fixed by the price charts.
You can also use the points for any seat on any Air Canada flight, but then the value is often lower since it’s much simpler obviously. For everything in life, you either get more simplicity or more value.
Here is the value of the 69,375 points you’ll have by unlocking the American Express Aeroplan Reserve Card’s welcome bonus:
- ≈ $1456 to UNLIMITED: Specific flights in premium cabins (partners and Air Canada)
- ≈ $1040 to ≈ $1456: Specific flights in economy class (partners and Air Canada)
- ≈ $763: Any flight on Air Canada
- ≈ $693: Taxes on reward flights
- ≈ $693: Seat upgrades
- ≈ $693: In-flight Wi-Fi
- ≈ $693: Vacation packages
- ≈ $693: Hotels
- ≈ $450: Rental cars and activities
- ≈ $450: Merchandise and gift cards
You can see concrete examples of 18 good redemptions of Aeroplan points if you want some inspiration and our 2 extreme examples that give you $4000+ in value if you want to maximize.
Unlimited access to Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounges
Premium Aeroplan cards like the American Express Aeroplan Reserve Card are the only ones with access to Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounges, so the access works a bit differently than with other cards.
You must be flying on Air Canada or a Star Alliance partner to use your lounge benefit. With all the other cards with lounge access, you have access no matter the airline… but this is an Air Canada benefit to access Air Canada lounges thanks to an Air Canada card, so they want you to fly Air Canada (or their partners).
You have access no matter when you booked the flight (even if it was before you had the American Express Aeroplan Reserve Card) and no matter how you paid for the flight (even if it was in points or in cash without using the American Express Aeroplan Reserve Card).
It’s a benefit offered to you as a cardholder; it’s really not more complicated than that.
You are allowed 1 free guest. You can add an optional supplementary card (“joint” card) to your account for someone in your family for $199 to get an extra pair of accesses. You can access the 20+ lounges in North America, but not the 2 lounges in Europe.
We’ve shared a teaser about Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounges and we’ll have a detailed guide very soon.
Free first checked bag benefit
This benefit alone can save you a lot of money if you usually bring checked bags on Air Canada!
It’s very simple: you and up to 8 other travel companions on the same booking get the first checked bag free of charge on all flights where you check in with Air Canada.
No matter when you booked the flight (even if it was before having the American Express Aeroplan Reserve Card) and no matter how you paid for the flight (even if it was in points or in cash without using the American Express Aeroplan Reserve Card).
It’s a benefit offered to you as a cardholder; it’s really not more complicated than that.
It’s an Air Canada benefit, though, so you won’t get a free checked bag if your itinerary starts with a partner airline and you check in with the partner airline. If you check in with Air Canada, you’ll get the Air Canada free bag benefit.
We’ve shared a teaser about this free checked bag benefit and we’ll have a detailed guide very soon.
Preferred pricing
You’ll get slightly discounted prices for flights booked with Aeroplan points on Air Canada only. As I just mentioned, the price of flights on partner airlines is fixed and guaranteed by the price charts, so that’s already a better deal most of the time.
But prices on Air Canada are dynamic and generally tied to the cash price, and by having the American Express Aeroplan Reserve Card you’ll get a discount of a few hundred to a few thousand points on many flights.
It varies, so it’s hard to quantify this benefit’s value, but it’s for sure better than not getting a discount at all by not having the card.
Priority in upgrade and standby order
If you want to upgrade to premium cabins or standby on earlier flights, having the American Express Aeroplan Reserve Card simply gives you priority over otherwise equal travelers who don’t have a premium Aeroplan card.
By otherwise equal, I mean the order is still based on elite status and ticket fare class. But if 2 travelers are equal in status and/or fare class, the premium cardholder gets priority.
Priority boarding/check-in/baggage handling
This is all pretty straightforward.
Priority boarding is my favorite of the 3, as I love to get on board early and never even having to risk my carry-on being gate-checked due to full overhead bins. It’s a fun VIP feeling to go first, too, if you care about that.
Priority check-in is useless for me because I always check in online and never have a checked bag, but it’s really useful if you do have one.
Priority baggage handling is equally useless to me, but if you have one, you’ll have a priority tag on it and in theory, they’ll come out among the first.
Multiplier earn rate of 3 pts/$ (≈ 4.5%), including Air Canada Vacations
Hopefully, you know that welcome bonuses are the key to getting more rewards and that you can easily get 10% or more on all your spending.
But if you don’t understand or don’t want to maximize, earning 3 points per dollar on Air Canada flights and vacations is the best earn rate you can get for those purchases if you’re not unlocking a welcome bonus.
Annual companion pass by spending $25,000 on the card
Spending $25,000 on the same card is not something Flytrippers recommends at all.
But if you do, you’ll get a companion pass that gives you a discounted 2nd ticket by buying one at the full price. We’ll have a detailed post about this soon.
Shortcut for those who already have elite status
Airline status is a lot harder to achieve than hotel status (you can get the latter automatically just by having the Marriott Bonvoy American Express Card, the American Express Platinum Card, or their “business” versions).
But if you do have it already, having the American Express Aeroplan Reserve Card gives you a shortcut to requalify or to qualify for a higher status by giving you 1,000 Status Qualifying Miles (SQMs) and 1 Status Qualifying Segment (SQS) for each $5,000 spent on your card.
Rollover eUpgrades and SQMs for those who already have elite status
By having the American Express Aeroplan Reserve Card, you can roll over your eUpgrades for an extra 12 months, and you can roll over 200,000 Status Qualifying Miles (SQMs) to the following year.
Excellent travel insurance coverage
The American Express Aeroplan Reserve Card has all the main types of travel insurance coverage, including an amazing $1,000 for free hotels in the event of flight delays (instead of just $500 with almost all other cards).
C$100 credit to get NEXUS for free
All pro travelers should have NEXUS to avoid almost all wait times at airport security and at airport customs in Canada and the United States (and at major land crossings).
It’s completely free if you pay with the American Express Aeroplan Reserve Card, as you’ll receive a credit that covers the entire NEXUS fee (US$50).
Starting October 1st, the NEXUS fee will more than double to US$120, so the C$100 credit will not cover the whole fee — unless Amex announces an increased benefit by then.
Priority security line and free valet parking at Toronto Pearson (YYZ)
The security line benefit isn’t all that useful if you have NEXUS, but it’s a great benefit if you don’t (or if you’re traveling with travelers who don’t have NEXUS).
The free valet is good for those who live in the Greater Toronto Area and park at the airport. To be clear, the parking is not free, of course; it’s just that the valet fee is waived so you get the valet parking at the same cost as just the parking.
Automatic car rental elite status with Avis
If you rent with Avis often, you get elite status just by having the American Express Aeroplan Reserve Card.
Amex benefits (Amex Offers, Amex Experiences, The Hotel Collection)
To be fair, you can (and should) easily get those by having another (or many others) of the best American Express credit cards in Canada, but it’s all included with this card as well.
Base earn rate of 1.25 pts/$ (≈ 1.875%) on all non-bonused categories
Again, you shouldn’t care about this so much if you’re doing travel rewards the right way.
But if not, it’s a bit higher than the base earn rate on most cards.
Metal card (in case you care about that)
I’m personally always fascinated by how many people care about superficial things like this, but you do you.
If you enjoy showing off a fancy card, the American Express Aeroplan Reserve Card is an impressive metal card. It weighs just 13 grams, though — much less than the undisputed status symbol card, the American Express Platinum Card (17 grams).
Questions about the American Express Aeroplan Reserve Card
Please first check our card resource page, which has 10+ tabs with the answers to 99% of the many questions we receive about cards.
If your question is not answered there, it’ll be my pleasure to answer it; just fill out the question form at the bottom of that page!
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Summary
The American Express Aeroplan Reserve Card is by far the best premium Aeroplan credit card for most travelers. It gives you amazing benefits on Air Canada, including unlimited access to their VIP airport lounges in North America. Its welcome bonus is also very good!
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Valuation ≈ $442