Air Canada’s Aeroplan keeps on adding more travel partners to program – namely airlines which shows they are hyper focused on the program being a true frequent flyer program rather than the coalition program they had been known as for the better part of almost two decades. In 2020 alone the program added four new airline partners Etihad, Azul, Vistara and Air Serbia and as of January 19 you can add Virgin Australia to that list.
Virgin Australia is already a code share partner of Air Canada’s but the partnership did not go beyond that. Now it will and Aeroplan members will be able to earn and redeem Aeroplan points on flights with Australia’s second largest airline. Like all airlines around the world the pandemic hit Virgin Australia hard with the airline going into bankruptcy protection last April which was followed by new ownership and a restructuring of the airline. The airline now operates mostly as a domestic airline with international flights to New Zealand, Bali, Fiji and several other southwest Pacific islands.
This partnership is most definitely a forward looking now seeing that Australia is essentially closed to travel from Canada but when travel does resume the connectivity Virgin Australia provides from the three cities Air Canada serves, or rather will hopefully serve again is great.
Here are the Aeroplan earn rates for travel on Virgin Australia:
Also if you are flying in Virgin Australia solely within the land down under on a revenue ticket issued by Air Canada you will earn Status Qualifying Miles (SQM) and Status Qualifying Segments (SQS), as well as Status Qualifying Dollars (SQD).
On the redemption side flight rewards on Virgin Australia will fall into Aeroplan’s partner award chart and can be combined with flights on Air Canada or other partner airlines. As with any partner bookings reward flights that include Virgin Australia will incur the partner booking fee.
Title image via Virgin Australia