Today, changes were announced to Aeroplan's policy when it comes to the expiry of Aeroplan miles. While not earth shattering, the changes are all positive.
The following changes were announced today:
Effective immediately, Aeroplan miles will now expire 18 months from the last date of activity in your account. Prior to today, Aeroplan miles would expire after 12 months of no activity in your account. As has always been the case, the expiry clock is reset for any activity in your account in which you earn, redeem, donate or buy miles;
Should your miles expire, you can request to have your points reinstated if you fly on an eligible Air Canada ticket or obtain an Aeroplan credit card within six months of expiry; and
If you purchased tickets on Air Canada prior to July 20, 2020, with travel commencing since January 2020 and you had to cancel your travel plans, any Aeroplan miles which expired since the beginning of the year can be reinstated to your account by calling the Aeroplan Contact Centre.
As noted, all of these changes are improvements. The six month extension of time so that points do not expire until 18 months of no activity in an account is beneficial to those who may not earn or redeem Aeroplan points on a regular basis.
More significant, in my view, are the additional means to reinstate expired points which will make things far simpler and less expensive for those poor souls who spend years collecting points only to inadvertently allow them to expire. Previously, you could only reinstate miles if you could demonstrate that you should have earned miles prior to the expiry date but that the miles were not credited to your account (i.e. you flew an Air Canada or Star Alliance flight but the miles were not credited). Similarly, you could also try to claim miles from merchants that you made purchases from and retroactively seek to have the miles credited to your account for purchases made prior to the expiration date. Alternatively, if you could not demonstrate activity in your account prior to the expiration date, your only option was to pay $30 and $.01 per mile to Aeroplan in order to have your miles reinstated.
The new changes to the Aeroplan program allow for relatively easy ways to reinstate the points to your account by either taking an Air Canada flight or obtaining an Aeroplan credit card (which also has the advantage of ensuring your points will never expire as long as you hold the card).
Of course, these changes to the Aeroplan program are not the main event we are waiting for (or perhaps fearing when it comes to the issue of points devaluation). We continue to await, in Air Canada’s own words, “…a transformed Aeroplan Program later this year”. Stay tuned.