If yesterday’s news is any indication – the relaunch Air Canada Aeroplan program that is slated to come to us later this year is something to look forward to. An email was sent out to all Aeroplan members on Monday that revealed some changes coming to Aeroplan’s mileage expiration policy. In the point and miles world there are two types of mileage expiration rules. The first is miles that expire based on time (a mile had a lifespan from the month it was earned) and miles that expire based on activity or lack there of. Many moons ago, Aeroplan had both, miles had a 7 year life span so no matter how active you were in the program you had 7 years to use up a mile from the month it was earned in and they also had a rule that your account would be closed and all miles in it forfeited if you had no activity in your account for 12 months. The 7 year rule didn’t last long – there were class action lawsuits filed against it and eventually Aeroplan relented and got rid of the lifespan rule. They did sooner and in better fashion than their biggest rival AIR MILES who waited until a few weeks before miles starting expiring at the end of 2016 in millions of members accounts and after millions had redeemed miles for things they didn’t want or aspire for.
So that left Aeroplan’s mileage expiration policy as an inactivity rule. That is, if you are not active in the program for a set amount of time the miles in your account would removed. The rule with Aeroplan up until yesterday was that you had to have mileage activity in your account once every 12 months and that activity simply had to be earning or redeeming one mile. Even with this simple way of keeping your account active we heard from many Canadian’s who lost there miles as they weren’t active with the program. The good news is that effective immediately Aeroplan’s inactivity rule has now been extended to 18 months to keep their accounts and miles alive. Keeping your account going is easy – you can earn miles not only by travelling you can shop online via Aeroplan’s eStore, redeem for so many different items, you can donate miles or buy miles as that became a viable option a few months ago. Another way to keep your account active is if with a card like the TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite Card as miles never expire for those hold an Aeroplan co-branded credit cards.
The other change to Aeroplan’s mileage expiration policy is the reinstating of miles should you happen to lose them after 18 months of inactivity. Aeroplan will reinstate all your miles within 6 months of your account becoming inactive if you simply fly on an eligible Air Canada ticket or apply for and are approved for an Aeroplan credit card. Prior to this you could reinstate your miles but you would have to pay to do so for a $30 fee plus 1 cent per mile reinstated which will remain in place if you can’t meet the other two options in those 6 months.
Again, some really good news coming of Aeroplan. They can be commended for the moves they have been making during the pandemic – not that the changes announced yesterday were a result of them however as a whole Aeroplan has really been doing things right since March.