[Update: Uh-oh] Transfers from Amex to Aeroplan not going through quickly

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Update 9/21/23: Many readers have reported in the comments that they transferred to Aeroplan and transfers are not going through in a timely fashion. I had transferred to my own account on Monday and my transfer was instant, but later on Monday or on Tuesday morning, we started getting reports indicating something is wrong. Several readers in the comments of this post transferred points from Amex to Aeroplan and not only were those transfers not instant, but more than 24hrs later the points still haven’t been reflected on the Air Canada Aeroplan side. Amex is advising members that transfers can take up to 48 hours, but at this point I would recommend holding off on transferring to Air Canada Aeroplan until comments indicate that the issue has been resolved or what kind of timeline to expect.

Update 9/18/23: Transfers to Aeroplan are back. Air Canada Aeroplan is once again listed in the transfer partners and I just transferred successfully and booked an award. It’s a relief to see that this was fixed. H/T: Reader L Gross in the comments.

a screenshot of a hotel

The original post follows.

Frustratingly, transfers from American Express Membership Rewards to Air Canada Aeroplan are not available right now and we don’t yet know of a timeline for them to return. This is obviously a big disappointment for Aeroplan fans. As I was looking to make an Aeroplan booking this week, I’ve been checking each day waiting for this to get resolved, but at this point I’m losing hope for a speedy solution.

a screenshot of a message

I first saw this flagged yesterday morning in our Frequent Miler Insiders Facebook group. According to data points I dug up at Flyertalk and reddit, transfers from Amex to Aeroplan have been down since at least Tuesday, September 12th.

I would have initially expected this to be a short-term situation that might last for a few hours, that wasn’t the case here. Instead, Amex has removed Aeroplan from the list of transfer partner programs, with the only mention of the partnership on the transfer partner page being the error message shown above, which shows up at the top of the transfer partner page.

Aeroplan is among my favorite Amex transfer partners, and I had an award I wanted to book, so I am waiting anxiously for this one to return. That said, the way Amex has that error message up and removed Aeroplan from the main partner list makes me nervous that this issue is expected to take a long time to resolve. I hope I’m wrong about that and transfers come back very soon, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this lasts a while just based on the way Amex is displaying it.

There has been some weirdness with Star Alliance programs as of late. Turkish did not show any Star Alliance awards on their website for months (only relaunching them this week and of course with many flights missing that should be available to book), the LifeMiles website has been very glitchy on a good day (and for the past several days I have only been able to search for LifeMiles awards via the app), and now transfers to Air Canada are down. All that leads me to believe that this is most likely just an ongoing IT issue rather than foreshadowing any change in the partnership. I’m sure that the partnership will likely remain intact, but hopefully they restore these transfers soon.

Hopefully this is a case of an IT issue that can be resolved and we see transfers return, but in the meantime if you need Air Canada Aeroplan points, you’ll need to get them from Chase transfers, Capital One transfers, or Bilt transfers.

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vbscript2

Weird. I transferred 60k Amex to Aeroplan an hour or so ago. Amex website shows the transaction, but still shows pre-deduction MR account balance. Aeroplan website shows +60,000 points transferred from Amex… tomorrow? (Could be a time zone thing? I’m in Central and it’s after 11pm, so maybe their website is just using Eastern?) Account balance still shows 0 pts on Aeroplan, despite the +60,000 transaction being listed for… tomorrow.

(This is on Oct 24, 2023.)

Last edited 6 months ago by vbscript2
vbscript2

The points ended up posting to my account about 2 hours after I initiated the transfer.

Noah

DP just transferred 450K Amex to Aeroplan and was instant for me!

Ant

Just did a transfer from Amex to Aeroplan, it was instant.

Adam

Transferred earlier today. Instantly there.
Forget they charge 5k for stopover. Transferred another 10k. Instantly there.
Previously had transferred, so maybe only new transfers are getting stuck?

D C

+1 DP. 42 hours and waiting

WRS

Me too, initiated transfer 29h ago and miles have not arrived yet.

Ryan

Transferred 24hrs ago (9/20), Amex sent successful transfer email… still no Aeroplan points. Amex not interested in helping since it hasn’t been 48hrs.

Kim

same

Ryan

My points ended up posting in almost 48hrs. Messaged Aeroplan on Facebook while I was still waiting and they acknowledged there had been an issue but claimed resolved. Points eventually posted over 24hrs later.

Kim

Still waiting over 72 hours since the transfer on the evening of the 20th. Contacted Amex they said it shows as being accepted by Air Canada on their end. Refered me to the Air Canada help line which is of course closed.

Ryan

Just transferred again (9/23) and took around 30min to post.

unauthorized

Transferred on 9/18 and points posted to Aeroplan today. Escalated/created case with Amex yesterday, not sure if that helped any. Activity in Aeroplan shows as “Aeroplan Customer Service – Micellaneous – Promotional Bonus”.

Eric

Same exact situation for me. Got points in account from customer service after transfer 9/18 today. Got my award. All’s well that ends well.

A Bar

Same here, transferred Tuesday night still no miles after 48 hours.

L Gross

Transfered Amex to air Canada 2 days ago and still nothing. Amex is telling me it what was excepted, air Canada doesn’t show anything on thier end

Omer

was just told by aeroplan that they were made aware of an issue with Amex yesterday and the issue was cleared yesterday afternoon. All points should be posted within 48 hours since the fix.

ECR12

Amex had transfer bonuses to Aeroplan each of the last two Septembers but nothing right now. Think amex needs to woo us back after transfer delays, please sweeten the pot Amex decisionmakers!

Malia

I made a transfer Tuesday night. Its been about 40 hrs and the points are still not in my Aeroplan account. Amex says the transfer went thru on their side. I called Aeroplan. The rep said he got a memo this morning that there is a known glitch and hopefully my points will be there at the 48 hr mark.

Joe

Transferred last night and still has not shown up on the Aeroplan side. Called AMEX this morning and they said it was successful on their end. Currently on hold with Aeroplan, if they ever pick up.

Kyle

Same issue with me, Amex said no issue on their end though chat.

Jay

I transferred last night as well and was bounced between Aeroplan and AMEX with no resolution. Frustrated.

Anne

48 hours no points posted after transfer. Apparently a “known” issue with recent transfer after their “outage” issue with AmEx. My request was escalated with the supervisor team to look into this further. Unfortunately they are unable to provide a timing on when it will be resolved but informed me the supervisor would contact me directly once the ticket is escalated.

Omer

I had a similar situation. Was expecting an instant transfer but now going on 24 hours since I sent the points. No valuable support from Aeroplan or Amex.