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.
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.
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.
Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
DP just transferred 450K Amex to Aeroplan and was instant for me!
Just did a transfer from Amex to Aeroplan, it was instant.
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?
+1 DP. 42 hours and waiting
Me too, initiated transfer 29h ago and miles have not arrived yet.
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.
same
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.
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.
Just transferred again (9/23) and took around 30min to post.
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”.
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.
Same here, transferred Tuesday night still no miles after 48 hours.
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
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.
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!
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.
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.
Same issue with me, Amex said no issue on their end though chat.
I transferred last night as well and was bounced between Aeroplan and AMEX with no resolution. Frustrated.
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.
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.
I just transferred a bunch of points to take advantage of a business class redemption award alert I have been waiting months for. Unfortunately it’s been an hour and no points are reflected in my Aeroplan account. I did immediately get the email from Amex confirming the points were transferred.
Searched reditt and it seems like someone else had the same issue today, and Amex confirmed they had sent the points, but Aeroplan told the person they could not see the points on their side!!!
Hopefully this is not a new issue in transferring points between AMEX and Aeroplan. But BEWARE!
Try the app. I’ve run into this before and the points were visible in the app and I could book there.
Thanks Nic. I did check and nothing showing up in the app either. I should have mentioned that in my original post.
It’s now close to 2hr since the transfer and no points showing up on web, or app. Also not seeing it when I log into my wife’s acc and check the Family acc
Having same issue. Been 1.5 days now. Amex says 48 hours. Hoping it’s not an issue either, but already had a price increase on ticket I wanted.
It’s a mess!! Still no points in Aeroplan account. Only reason I did the transfer was for biz class seats that I had been waiting for months. Now I’m going to have 140,000pts stuck in Aeroplan and no immediate use for them, and no biz class award booking!!
SO everyone should be cautious when transferring form AMEX to Aeroplan, as clearly there are still issues
Got the same issue. I just transferred 12hrs ago, so technically still within the SLA but this is frustrating.
appears they were open for ~24 hours, and now aeroplan is not accepting them, though amex still allows the points to be sent. agent basically confirmed it (not sure if they were referring to the prior shut down or this *new* one)
+1 Initiated a transfer last night, and points are still not showing. The representative mentioned that they’re usually instant, but can sometimes take more than 48 hours. Not sure what’s going on…
Stanley, they lying to you. Their systems are messed up and we paying the price as they get their act together.
It’s ok if you didn’t have an urgent/scarce redemption to complete, as they have to sort this out at some point in time. But for those, like me, who got an alert after months for a specific biz class redemption, this is a complete DISASTER!
What a disaster! Completely unacceptable to remove the pints from our Amex acc and not ensure that the functionality is in place for Aeroplan to credit the miles!!
If the award redemption is gone by the time they get their sh… together then I’m going to see what they say when I call Amex Plat service dept. and insist I want the points put back in my AMEX acc. Likely tell me to bugger off, but I’m going to kick up a storm, as this is totally unacceptable
Just got sucked into the same issue. Transferred a two hours ago, and nothing. Rep told me to wait 48hours. But the award flight I wanted to book will most likely not be available by then ♂️♂️♂️
Just got off with Amex after 48 hours. They “opened a case” and will hopefully get it resolved in 2-3 days. Hope my award is still there. Ugh.
Hi Eric – did they give any indication on what ‘resolution’ might mean?
I have an award booking in mind, and if the AMEX transfer won’t go through (e.g. if the resolution is that they will refund the transfer), I can transfer points from other banks to Aeroplan too. Worse comes to worst, Aeroplan miles are relatively easy to redeem if the transfer does eventually go through.
I thought the same thing, but just told them I wanted the Aeroplan points into my account. Hoping it gets fixed in a day or so and I get the award ticket. Also not sure the problem is Amex to Aeroplan transfer or any card to Aeroplan transfer. Good luck. This is my first use of Aeroplan for a trip next summer. All was good until my last transfer to grab an upgrade. Worst case, kids stay in coach lol!!
I transferred some points from Chase at the same time and it was posted right away. So very likely an AMEX specific issue. I just hope we all won’t get into a finger-pointing scenario between AMEX & Aeroplan…
Also below is what the AMEX agent said using the in-app chat support, though I’m taking it with a grain of salt for sure.
I faced this problem for more than 3 months and it is really frustrated.
You couldn’t transfer to Aeroplan? I’ve not heard of anything like that — transfers were definitely working before last Tuesday. This issue only lasted for a week.
I can send you the prove of it since June, 13th. The rep always said to me that their system are perfectly operated. The higher level reps are very rude to me blaming it for my fault that I need to call the airline and fix it myself. After back and forth calling more than 20 times for more than 75 days and 3-4 calls with the airline, they just start reasoning to me. But I cannot transfer my point still.
Excellent – thanks for the update! Both of the flights I had my eyes on are still available after this 6-day issue, thankfully.
Back up and working
Transfer from AMEX to Air France was successful this morning.
Air France has nothing to do with this post. Transfers to Air Canada Aeroplan have been down. This has nothing to do with Air France. Those transfers have been fine.
Have to disagree, Nick. I have been trying for over a week to transfer AMEX points via Aeroplan to Air France. I called AMEX and was told Aeroplan was down ( not just transfers to Air Canada ). Transfers have not been fine until yesterday when system was working again.
You must be confused.
Aeroplan is the name of Air Canada’s loyalty program. It is called Air Canada Aeroplan. Transfers from Amex to Air Canada Aeroplan were down for a week.
Air France’s loyalty program is called Flying Blue (Air France / KLM Flying Blue in long form). Transfers from Amex to Air France / KLM Flying Blue were not at all affected and have been working fine.
You can not transfer points from Air Canada Aeroplan to Air France Flying Blue. You can not book Air France flights with Air Canada Aeroplan miles. There is absolutely no connection between Air Canada Aeroplan and Air France.
This post is about the fact that transfers from Amex to Air Canada Aeroplan were not working from 9/12 through 9/17, but they started working again on 9/18/23. That’s all.
I called Amex yesterday and was told ‘we are working to resolve the problem’. My issue with this is Air France has a current offer to receive an additional 25% points when you transfer from Amex to Air France/KLM. The offer is only good until September 22nd. Very bad customer service.
How is the problem with Aeroplan related to the Air France/KLM bonus?
I am unable to transfer Amex points to Air France to take advantage of their 25% additional points offer. Have not tried Aeroplan transfer in last 24 hours, have you?
Yes the whole article is about how Aeroplan transfer is completely unavailable with the error message in the article. It’s still happening. I check often.
Citi?
I see Citi has been removed from the article now. Glad I’m not crazy