Today, Air Canada Aeroplan announced that it will be reconfiguring its award chart starting March 25th, 2025. Although the “partner chart” will remain the same and still have the same fixed pricing, some partners will now be included under a different category that includes Air Canada flights…and that chart will be dynamic, but without the maximum pricing that the current Air Canada chart has now.
United, Emirates, Flydubai, Etihad Airways, and the regional Canadian partners Calm Air, Canadian North, and Provincial Airlines will all fall under the new “Air Canada and select partners” category. The chart that covers it will offer “starting” and “median” award rates, but importantly, no maximum…and median amounts won’t be shown for flights outside of North America or for first class (only a “starting at” value).
Aeroplan also says that, as a result of these changes, it will be offering greater availability on the “select” partners and that Etihad business class awards will again be bookable systemwide. Also, both Aeroplan elite members and credit card holders will have discounted redemption rates available to them.
What’s Happened
- Air Canada Aeroplan is changing its award chart for both its own flights and the following partners (see above for the new North American version of that chart):
- United, Emirates, Flydubai, Etihad Airways, and the regional Canadian partners Calm Air, Canadian North, and Provincial Airlines
First off, here’s the good stuff:
- Aeroplan gave its members almost two months notice before the changes.
- Elite members and Aeroplan credit card holders will have access to discounted award redemptions.
- Supposedly, there will be more partner availability as a result of the changes.
- The “starting at” amounts will be the same as they are currently for Air Canada
- Etihad business class availability is coming back online.
- There’s no changes to the rest of the (fixed) partner award chart.
and here’s the bad:
- There’s no longer any maximum award pricing for Air Canada or the “select” partners
- Median pricing won’t be displayed for awards outside North America, nor for first class…only a “starting at” price. The sky is, quite literally, the limit.
- Many of the listed median amounts are just below the current maximums for Air Canada awards (below is the current North American award chart as a comparison):
Quick Thoughts
In general, we don’t like dynamic pricing because it’s more difficult to get outsized value for points or to know what to expect for pricing. While I appreciate that Aeroplan will still have award charts and will also display median pricing for North American flights, not having maximums or medians for international and first class awards seems to be designed to allow those to float freely according to price without much transparency.
Even the median prices on North American awards suggests that pricing is going up. For example, an Air Canada economy award between 501 and 1500 miles currently costs between 10,000 – 15,000 points. Once the new chart takes effect, that starting price will remain the same and the new “median” price will be 13,600 points. If that truly is the median, meaning that 50% of all awards will price above 13,600, it seems likely that a good chunk will be well above the current maximum of 15K.
That said, prices do go up and award redemptions become more expensive as they do. It’s like death and taxes. No notice, overnight award price changes have become so common that getting almost two months from Aeroplan is a refreshing change. In addition, cardholder/elite discounts will mean that both of those groups of people should have access to even cheaper awards than they do right now, since presumably at least some amount of flights will actually be available at the “starting at” price. Increased United partner availability, depending on what “increased” means, could also be extremely useful for both US- and Canadian-based Aeroplan members.
So, all-in-all, this looks like mixed bag. Dynamic award pricing is rarely good for consumers, but there are a few things to like as well. For me, the jury will be out until we see exactly what the reality of those free-floating international “select partner” flights will be.
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What does Etihad first class award availability being unchanged mean in practical terms? I thought that their availability in first class to/from the USA was nonexistent anyway these days.
To get an idea of how this will go Emirates is currently the only partner airline dynamically on Aeroplan. Availability is great but at prices you’d never pay. think 700k for a one way first class flight. Also the elite member and credit card discounts are minimal. Don’t get your hopes up on that one. I qualify for both and the discount is usually around 200 aeroplan points.
That’s exactly the situation I’m afraid will happen for the rest, given the lack of published median and maximum prices.
From my perspective there’s almost nothing to like here unless I’m misunderstanding things. From what I’m – perhaps mistakenly – getting, the prices for lots of awards are certain to go up, very possibly by a vast amount; Aeroplan will offer more availability but not at the saver level so if you are willing to spend insane amounts of miles then there’s lots of availability; Etihad business class space will become available again but we don’t know the price and won’t until the new pricing has already taken place; this opens Pandora’s Box for more devaluations both with no maximum prices and more partners being shifted to variable pricing.
The notice is fairly agreeable but the vague promise of lower priced awards are unlikely to be fulfilled for when, where, and in what cabin members want to fly.
Its really unfortunate but not surprising – most of these are codeshare partners for cash bookings and I suspect that plays into the decision; United availability has been terrible and generally only available for J class within 4/5 days of departure so it will be interesting to see if this makes an impact.
I would bet this was the rationale. All the Star Alliance partners had been getting squeezed on UA availability, but Aeroplan needs access to a decent amount of that space for their “normie” members (I.e. not people being courted in the US credit card market) to be able to get around North America. It was probably the only thing that they could do.
[…] 今天各大外国博主（比如VFTW，FM和TPG）都报道了加航Aeroplan宣布从2025年3月25日开始，扩大动态定价的范围。除了加航自身以外，以下这些航司被加航叫为select partner，也会加入动态定价: […]
No one wants to pay more but I’d pay more if it translates into partner award availability. It’s the bugaboo we have to deal with.
How’d that work out when FlyingBlue made the exact same promise on business class awards last month?