TD has revealed a new welcome bonus today for their TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite Card and it actually took us a little by surprise. We knew the last offer was going to end on January 17 and were guessing that we’d either see a continuation of the 10,000 points, a buddy pass and first year annual fee rebate offer or a move back to a typical higher points bonus with no pass. That’s where TD and Aeroplan surprised us as we got the best of both worlds in the offer! They’ve kept the buddy pass bonus, they’ve kept the first year annual fee waiver but boosted the welcome bonus points to 20,000! Now that’s truly a valuable welcome offer!
Recommended Reading: The New Air Canada Aeroplan Program All the resources you need
When you apply for and are approved for the card anytime between now and August 16, 2021 you can receive the bonus outlined above. You’ll get 10,000 points right off the bat when you make your first purchase on the card then once you spend $1,000 on the card in the first 90 days of having it you’ll receive an additional 10,000 point plus the Buddy Pass (more on the pass below!) On top of that you’ll receive an annual fee rebate on the primary card ($139 per year) plus a rebate for up to 3 additional cards ($75 each). All told the points and the buddy pass are worth no less than $540 but for most people the value should be much higher than that. We come to that valuation with a minimum value of 1.2 cents per Aeroplan point but most people will redeem at a higher value than that and putting the Buddy Pass value at $300 again however that is our minimum valuation whereby most people should get more value than that.
You may recall back in November we explained and evaluated the Air Canada Buddy Pass so I won’t go into as much detail about it in this post but in that post we provided examples of how the Buddy Pass could save a pair of people traveling anywhere from $400 to well over $2,000. Plus if you are a family of four or more you and your partner could each grab your own card (not primary + additional rather two primary accounts) so that you would have two Buddy Passes to use meaning an immediate doubling of your savings. The Buddy Pass is good for travel in Canada, the U.S., Hawaii and Mexico and must be redeemed within one year of it being issued but that travel can take place right to the end of Air Canada’s flight schedule which means you actually have close to two years to set foot on the plane utilizing your buddy pass.
Here’s just one example of the savings on a domestic flight, which in all likelihood is a more realistic redemption of the buddy pass if you plan on using it in the next 6 or months:
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| In this example the Buddy Pass would save you $396 on an Economy Flex booking for two people from Edmonton to Toronto in June. |
There’s one more limited time offer that comes with the card right now and that’s a bonus earn rate for Starbucks purchases. You will earn 50% Bonus Aeroplan points for each $1.00 in Purchases charged to
the Account at participating Starbucks® locations (the “Starbucks Bonus
Aeroplan Point”). All reloads on the Starbucks mobile app and in-store
purchases at corporate-owned stores are eligible. In-store purchases at
licensed stores are excluded from this offer. This offer runs until
November 7, 2021.
Now that we’ve covered the welcome offer let’s look at what the card offers as it’s standard earn rates and benefits:
The card itself earns 1.5 Aeroplan points per dollar spent with Air
Canada (any Air Canada purchase, prior to this it was only for Aircanada.com
purchases) It also earns 1.5 Aeroplan points for grocery and
gas station purchases and all other purchases earn 1 Aeroplan point per dollar spent on the card.
Recommended reading: Which credit card earns the most Aeroplan Points?
What following benefits:
- Preferred Pricing – Holders of these cards will receive discounts when redeeming miles for Aeroplan reward flights
- First Checked Bag Free
– Cardholders will receive their first checked bag free for themselves
and up to 8 other travellers on the same reservation. This benefit works
on both paid and award flights on Air Canada. - Elite Status Earning
– These cards earn 1,000 SQM (Status Qualifying Miles) and 1 SQS
(Status Qualifying Segment) for every $10,000 spent on the card(s) - Each Cardholder on the Account will receive a rebate of up to $100 CAD for a NEXUS™ application and/or renewal fee.
- Hotel/Motel Burglary Insurance coverage up to $2,500 per occurrence for
each Cardholder on the Account and eligible family members travelling
with the Cardholder. - Mobile Device Insurance coverage up to $1,000 for eligible mobile
devices in the event of loss, theft, accidental damage, or mechanical
breakdown.
The card also has Purchase Security/Extended Warranty, Flight Delay,
Trip Cancellation/Interruption and Lost/Delayed Baggage.
What
also should be noted is that benefits are shared with secondary (aka
supplementary/additional) cardholders. That means those who have cards
under the primary cardholder will also benefit from items like the first
checked bag free and the NEXUS benefit.
It does appear to me that the uptake on the new card in the first 2 months wasn’t what TD and Air Canada had hoped for hence the sweetening of the pot. I did say when the cards launched that the Buddy Pass provides great value but have always thought that it’s not the right time for it given the current global travel situation. Even with having nearly two years to travel on the pass there are so many unknowns in that time period that people don’t want to have that set end date as something to worry about. However now with 20,000 points that bonus alone isn’t far off from the 25,000 to 30,000 miles we saw on the pre-New Aeroplan version of the card which did not have a buddy pass. I’d be more inclined to get this card now even if I didn’t use the Buddy Pass – personally I’d consider the pass an extra bonus that if it went unused I wouldn’t disappointed due to the fact I did get those 20,000 points and no annual fee in the first year. Still, if you do you travel with someone else and know you will be
heading to a destination covered by the Buddy Pass then this is an amazing welcome bonus that provide huge value seeing that you
aren’t paying an annual fee in the first year.