Aeroplan miles, what will happen?

No body knows ATM.
I will use them next 2 years.

Imperial Oil is also ending its relationship with Aeroplan, so you will not be able to earn Aeroplan points at Esso stations after May 31, 2018.
The ship is sinking fast.

If I need to keep my AP miles at one year mark, I just put $3 gas at Esso station to keep my accounts alive. Now, I am keeping my points in my AmEx account until I need AP miles for a ticket.

After hearing Esso's no longer partnering with Aeroplan, I hedged my bets and burned some on gift cards. Something's better than nothing.

The program might enjoy a resurgence and find new partners, or it might be extinct in 3 years.

wakame wrote: ↑ I have a lot of aeroplan miles. What will happen to them after june 2020?

Que sera, sera. Nobody really knows. I decided to cash in most of my points for a trip to Europe next month, getting a pretty low value for them. I have switched my loyalty over to an RBC Westjet Mastercard for now, since I do enough North American travel to get full value from Westjet's $99 companion flight and the free checked bag offer. They also have about the best Hawaii flights from Toronto. While Air Canada has most of the international destinations, Westjet has a bunch of 787's on order that are going to enable some pretty interesting long haul routes for them.

I always do two stops using 25k AP miles anywhere in North America. e.g. YYC - LAX - YYZ - YYC

wakame wrote: ↑ I have a lot of aeroplan miles. What will happen to them after june 2020?

They will likely become even more worthless. How many millions do you have?

Mars2012 wrote: ↑Maybe others have a different experience but I found Aeroplan an even more useless rewards program than Airmiles, and that's saying something. I'm letting them expire. It seems more merchants are letting it go too; use up those points if you have them.

I have used Aeroplan for travel for many years and find them useful for that.
Aeroplan will still be able to be used for flights because they are separate company form Air Canada. Aeroplan can and may still "buy" seats from Air Canada or other airlines for travel so, you will not lose on the travel aspect.
There are also many other ways ro spend you Aeroplan miles, from products, to goods, to event tickets to gift cards.
Letting them just expire is like giving money to Aeroplan. Use them.

McKinsey wrote: ↑ They will likely become even more worthless. How many millions do you have?

They can be used to purchase many things....why not use them?

Pete_Coach wrote: ↑ They can be used to purchase many things....why not use them?

I'm not telling them OP NOT to use them, subtly telling then to use them up now prior to 2020.

Aside from gift cards, is there anything that is exceptionally worth redeeming aeroplan miles for?

Would the Esso Gifts card not be available later on? I'm thinking of using my points for them after we spent them on travel.

If OP has any intention of travelling, best to start redeeming points ASAP. Otherwise there is a risk of sudden devaluations or outright cutbacks to the program which could reduce or eliminate many of the redemption options.

Aeroplan redemptions for gift cards or merchandise are only a last resort alternative to getting value from points before they expire, otherwise it's a waste of points.

While I haven't looked into this yet, another alternative is to convert the points into another reward program like a hotel chain

Mars2012 wrote: ↑ I've never tried redeeming for anything. I got Aeroplan when we were doing a lot of travelling as a family and now that we've stopped doing that, I got sick of keeping track of accounts since they expire after a year without a purchase. How many do you need to get anything? I think I have around 40K, not sure how many the rest of the family have but I know a couple of them have expired.

40K gets you tickets to almost anywhere in Canada.

choclover wrote: ↑ Aside from gift cards, is there anything that is exceptionally worth redeeming aeroplan miles for?

Have you looked at their website? there are many thing you can redeem them for. Hotels, car rentals, gift cards, event tickets, prioducts etc. Now, exceptionally worth? That is up to you to decide what it exceptional to you.

choclover wrote: ↑ Aside from gift cards, is there anything that is exceptionally worth redeeming aeroplan miles for?

No.

Gift cards generally have a value of 0.74c/mile (e.g. 6750 for $50 etc).
It's time consuming and difficult to figure out the value when you redeem for merchandise, since often it's actually hard to figure out the precise model of the merchandise being offered (a problem in itself!). But every time I've gone to the effort, it has worked out less than gift cards. My hypothesis is that Aeroplan uses the same valuation as for gift cards, but does a shitty job negotiating on price with the vendor, i.e. it pays close to vendor list price (and then converts to Aeroplan points to sell to you) while the vendor sells for less (in $) through other channels like Amazon, etc.
Ditto booking hotels directly for Aeroplan points; any time I've bothered to check, the value (vs Expedia etc) was only 0.5-0.6c/mile this way.

Therefore, you receive "exceptional value" only if you successfully book flights on Aeroplan. I wrote the following in 2015, and I think it's still true:

houska wrote: ↑

• 0.8-1.5c for the "typical" redemption many people try for - a vacation trip to Europe or a Sun destination in Economy.
• 2.5,3,4c+ for intercontinental business class (or even first). However, these tickets are very hard to get unless you have high frequent flyer status and/or are very lucky and/or spend a lot of time unearthing the convoluted option that will work. And the value depends on how much cash you would be willing to pay for the ticket (that's why I don't really accept 10c+ valuations)
• 2c+ for last-minute short-haul tickets in North America, which can be very expensive and where Aeroplan miles can be very good value if you need to fly for personal reasons at short notice

All flight redemptions often involve a lot of playing around with connections and schedules, and waiting and watching. And sometimes phoning in to change a ticket for a better one later on. Bottom line is that Aeroplan is (still) an attractive program for i) truly frequent travelers who fly Air Canada anyway, ii) tinkerers who will enjoy finding specific earning (e.g. credit card bonuses) and redeeming (as above) opportunities. It is a crappy program for diligently "saving" miles from monthly credit card spend and the occasional flight with the idea that you will miraculously be able to take your family of 4 to Orlando for March Break "for free".

One of the challenges of valuing points -- and why people consistently *over*value them -- is that limited availability and intransparent choices.
Hurrah, you got a business class ticket "worth" 6c/mile. But would you have ever paid that amount in $, or would you have taken a different routing on a different airline where you could get a cheaper ticket? Or downgraded to premium economy. Would you really buy that specific model Hitachi mitre saw available on Aeroplan, or would you have bought a different and more suitable one for you? Would you really have paid sticker price for another Sonos Play:5, or would you have bought a used one from Kijiji or made do without? And if you stock up on e.g. Home Hardware gift cards, would you really buy everything at Home Hardware, or you're going to do that when you have the gift cards but at least sometimes you would have bought something for sale at Lowe's?

houska wrote: ↑ It's time consuming and difficult to figure out the value when you redeem for merchandise, since often it's actually hard to figure out the precise model of the merchandise being offered (a problem in itself!). But every time I've gone to the effort, it has worked out less than gift cards. My hypothesis is that Aeroplan uses the same valuation as for gift cards, but does a shitty job negotiating on price with the vendor, i.e. it pays close to vendor list price (and then converts to Aeroplan points to sell to you) while the vendor sells for less (in $) through other channels like Amazon, etc.

I've sorta confirmed my hypothesis.

Sonos does not price discount. Its Playbar sells for $899+tax everywhere. Aeroplan has it for 141,000 points, which (using 13% HST) works out to 0.72c/mile, compared to 0.74c/mile for gift cards.

Aeroplan offers the Samsung 65" curved TV, model UN65MU6500FXZC, for 298,000 points. Vendor list price at several websites is $1949, which with 13% HST works out to 0.74c/mile. However, its current sale price at Amazon and a few other places is $1289 which (with 13% HST) works out to 0.49c/mile. Therefore I think Aeroplan took the vendor list price, added tax, and converted to Aeroplan points at ~0.74c/mile, just as for gift cards. Trouble is, even a semi-informed customer can do better - plus choose whether this is exactly the TV they want.