(EXPIRED) 25% transfer bonus from hotel points to Aeroplan

Aeroplan (the current loyalty program of Air Canada) is offering a 25% bonus on hotel points converted to Aeroplan miles. The fine print makes it unclear as to whether or not Marriott Travel Packages will qualify for the bonus. They might qualify according to the wording, but it will be a bit of a gamble this time around. Starpoints should still be a solid option for conversion. Update: As pointed out by nabeelj in the comments, Marriott has added a point to their hotel and air packages excluding Aeroplan bonuses.

The Deal

• 25% bonus when you convert hotel points to Aeroplan Miles before April 16, 2018
• Direct link to this promotion

Key Terms

• Bonus is valid on points transferred from eligible hotel loyalty programs between March 12, 2018 and April 16, 2018 at 11:59pm EDT
• Total miles received from conversion must be 5,000 or more before the bonus to qualify for the 25% bonus
• Bonus miles may take 4-6 weeks from the end of the promotion (April 16) to post to your account
• From the full terms: Please note that some hotel loyalty programs have hotel and flight redemption packages where Aeroplan Miles are issued. It is at the discretion of each Hotel Program if these miles are deemed a conversion of points to miles or simply a bonus earned for the redemption.
• See full terms on the promotion page

Quick Thoughts

Most of the transfer ratios won’t make sense unless you’re topping off an account for a valuable award and you have hotel points that will otherwise expire unused.

That said, the best option for these conversions is usually Marriott Travel Packages (See: Why are Marriott Travel Packages a good deal?) if they count. In review, Marriott Travel Packages enable you to convert Marriott points for a set number of airline miles and a 7-night Marriott certificate. For example, 270K Marriott points normally gets you 120,000 Air Canada Aeroplan miles and a 7-night Category 1-5 Marriott certificate.

In years past, these packages qualified for conversion bonuses — meaning that such a package would yield a total of 150,000 Aeroplan miles. However, last year Aeroplan included terms excluding Marriott Travel Packages (See: 30% transfer bonus from hotels to Aeroplan….with one big exclusion). Interestingly, this time around they chose not to explicitly exclude those packages, instead saying:

Please note that some hotel loyalty programs have hotel and flight redemption packages where Aeroplan Miles are issued. It is at the discretion of each Hotel Program if these miles are deemed a conversion of points to miles or simply a bonus earned for the redemption.

On the one hand, the skeptic in me says that they made this intentionally ambiguous so as to pass the buck after the bonus fails to post. On the other hand, Greg took this wording to mean: “you’ll only get the bonus if it looks to us like the conversion is coming from a hotel program”. Since these conversions have worked that way in the past and qualified for the conversion bonus, one could make the argument that they will likely work again. After all, Aeroplan could have just kept the language explicitly excluding the Marriott Travel Packages, but they chose not to do so. It’s a gamble.

Update: Marriott has added an asterisk to the Flight + Hotel package including Aeroplan to exclude transfer bonuses as shown below:

If you’re not into rolling the dice, conversions from SPG are still a good value if you transfer in blocks of 20,000 Starpoints. That’s because SPG adds a 5,000 mile bonus when you transfer 20K. Thus, 20K Starpoints will normally get you 25,000 Aeroplan miles. After the 25% bonus, you’ve have 31,250 miles. Converting 20K SPG points to 31.25K Aeroplan miles is a great deal (the equivalent of earning 1.56 miles per dollar if you earned those 20K Starpoints from normal 1x spend).

Also note that Air Canada will be cutting ties with Aeroplan in 2020 in favor of a new airline loyalty program run by the airline. Be sure that you have plans in mind to use these miles before then.

As always, we’ve added this to our Current point transfer bonuses page.

H/T: Frequent Flyer Bonuses

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