Aeroplan Award Sale: Up to 25% Points Discount to North and Central America

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This promotion has ended; please review current/active promotions.

Air Canada is offering an award sale through its Aeroplan program, offering up to 25% off award flights to North and Central America. You need to book by September 29, 2023 and travel by March 31, 2024. Here's a look at the details and some sample flights to see how good this promotion is.

Aeroplan Promotion Details

Credit: Air Canada

Through September 29, 2023, Aeroplan members can get up to 25% off on awards to North and Central America through this flash sale.

Key terms

• Only valid on new bookings within Canada or between Canada and the U.S., Mexico, the Caribbean, Costa Rica, Panama, and Belize.
• Offer valid between now through September 29, 2023 at 23:59 PST.
• The travel period for the offer is between September 15, 2023, starting at 00:01 NST, through March 31, 2024, ending at 23:59 PST.
• You must be an Aeroplan member. You can join here.
• All flights in the itinerary must be operated by Air Canada, including Air Canada Rouge and Air Canada Express (Jazz Aviation LP, Sky Regional Airlines Inc., or Exploits Valley Air Services LTD).
• Not valid on codeshare or interline flights.
• Subject to availability.
• Taxes, fees, charges, and surcharges apply.
• Cannot be combined with other offers, transferred, or redeemed for cash.
• Eligible destinations include any destinations Air Canada, Air Canada Rouge, and Air Canada Express fly to, within Canada, to the U.S., Mexico, Central America, or the Caribbean.
• Full terms available here.

Route Highlights

The good

Air Canada has advertised the sale for flights within Canada, to the U.S., Mexico, the Caribbean, Costa Rica, Panama, and Belize.

Here's an example of some destinations and the one-way pricing you can expect flights to start at:

• Toronto (YYZ) to Orlando (MCO) from 7,500 points + CAD 109.
• Vancouver (YVR) to Honolulu (HNL) from 10,100 points + CAD 106.
• YYZ to Los Angeles (LAX) from 10,200 points + CAD 109.
• YYZ to Grand Cayman (GCM) from 10,600 points + CAD 66.
• YYZ to Punta Cana (PUJ) from 10,900 points + CAD 224.
• YYZ to San José, Costa Rica (SJO) from 12,500 points + CAD 159.
• YYZ to Panama City, Panama (PTY) from 25,000 points + CAD 207.

Let's briefly look at one of the example routes: from Toronto (YYZ) to San José, Costa Rica (SJO).

Although Air Canada advertises flights starting at 12,500 points + CAD 159, lots of searching reveals that prices on eligible flights really start around 14,900 points + CAD 89. This theme holds true for most flights in the promotion. The advertised “starting at” price is slightly lower than you'll most likely find when searching for yourself.

Here's a flight on Air Canada Rouge on October 11, 2023.

Credit: Air Canada 

For comparison, here's an Air Canada flight operated on April 23, 2024 — a month after the promotion travel window ends.

Credit: Air Canada

The mileage discount comes out to about 15% off. While it's not 25%, it's a nice decrease.

You can explore all eligible routes and dates here.

The bad

Unfortunately, availability can be hard to find. When you do find availability, it may not even be the cheapest option. Here's an example of one of the promotion's major points of frustration.

Say you wanted to fly between Raleigh-Durham (RDU) and Toronto (YYZ), a route eligible for the promotion. The Aeroplan website advertises the route as costing 10,000 Aeroplan points plus CAD 76 for a one-way economy ticket on a promotion-eligible date.

Upon running repeated searches on days when there's availability, you might find that a partner continually operates the cheapest award — and partners are ineligible for the promotion.

For example, the RDU to YYZ route costs the following when operated by United with a connecting flight on Air Canada.

Credit: Air Canada

And here's what the same route costs when solely operated by Air Canada.

Credit: Air Canada

While technically taking advantage of the promotion by booking the non-stop Air Canada flight, you would need to fork over an extra 2.6K Aeroplan points. If you're simply trying to book the cheapest award, the promotion might not necessarily save you very many miles.

How To Book Aeroplan Awards

There are some quirks to the Aeroplan website that you should know about:

• It may help to start your award search on United's website to find availability, as there is no 30-day calendar function. Unfortunately, you can view only a week of results at a time.
• You can filter for direct flights, exclude airlines, and also exclude certain connecting airports. This is important for finding the Air Canada-operated flights eligible for the Aeroplan award sale to North and Central America.
• You can search for awards without being logged in, but you will only see applicable discounts for your status if you are logged in.
• You can pay more or fewer points by offsetting with cash payments. This is useful if you are short of the points required and are willing to pay cash to make up the difference. Conversely, you can use extra points to cover the taxes added to the ticket at the end (though this usually isn't the most valuable use of Aeroplan points).
• Aeroplan does not add fuel surcharges to its own tickets.
• Aeroplan does not charge a flat fee for its award pricing on Air Canada flights. Instead, there is a range of points costs, which can fluctuate based on demand, holiday times, etc.
• See our complete guide to Air Canada Aeroplan for more details about awards.

Boosting Your Aeroplan Points Balance

If you find a good award and want to book, here are Aeroplan's transfer partners and transfer times data points:

You also can boost your Aeroplan balance by opening an Aeroplan co-branded credit card. In the U.S., you can apply for the Aeroplan^® Credit Card from Chase. And these cards are available in Canada:

• TD^® Aeroplan^® Visa Infinite
• American Express^® AeroplanPlus^®* Platinum Card
• American Express AeroplanPlus Corporate Platinum Card

Bottom Line

Air Canada's “biggest redemption sale of the year” isn't really that grand. The fine print is important — and helpful when managing expectations on a sale such as this. “Up to 25% off” means exactly as it sounds, with extra emphasis on the words “up to.”

If you have flexible travel dates, a few things might help you find better discounts. First, keep scrolling through all available dates for your desired North or Central American destination. You might find a date with a better deal. Second, if the pricing you find with Aeroplan isn't cost-effective, remember that other airlines might offer something better. United and Avianca frequently offer better pricing for lots of routes that are promotion-eligible — even for those same Aeroplan flights.

Did you find any good deals with this Aeroplan award sale to North and Central America? What did you book?

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