A new, user-friendly website. More ways to earn points. And 40 million points to give away.
Aeroplan is celebrating its 40th birthday this year with a 10-day party that involves giveaways and prizes galore. It’s also a time to reflect back on four decades of what has become one of Canada’s top loyalty programs.
In a one-on-one chat earlier this week, Scott O’Leary, Air Canada’s Vice President of Loyalty and Product, said Aeroplan had about 4 million members in 2020. Today that number is more than 8.5 million.
“Most of that growth is in the last 24 months,” he said. “It really had to do with the return of travel. Airlines started leaning a lot more into acquiring members into the program.”
Air Canada also added more ways for members to earn points without hopping on a plane.
“What we used to hear, and the way Aeroplan used to be, is that it was always a super generous program and always a leading travel program in Canada, and in the world. It was hyper-relevant if you found yourself travelling with any kind of frequency. Even if took you three to four years to accumulate a reward, you could still get there.
“But for someone who travelled only once a year, or maybe every two years, the feeling was the program wasn’t for them. ‘I’ll never amass enough points. It’ll take me over a decade.’ And that’s what’s changed.”
O’Leary said Aeroplan’s growth is attributable to several factors.
Scott O’Leary, Air Canada’s Vice President of Loyalty and Product
“We made sure our rewards themselves were rewarding. We’re in a very unique position to be able to offer outsize value for travel, not just on Air Canada but across our partners, be it hotel, car rental, what have you. We have great deals we can offer our members at very affordable amounts of points.
“We also invested in the customer experience. It’s a digital-first program. It’s super easy to interact with. You don’t need a PhD to figure out how to check your balance or use your points.
“As we talked to members, we spent the better part of two years talking to not only our members but the average Canadian consumer, and what we heard over and over again was, ‘Make it easier for me to earn the points and make it easier for me to redeem the points.’ You’ve seen us introduce a lot of partners outside of travel, such as Starbucks, Uber, Parkland Fuels, the LCBO, to make sure that there’s an Aeroplan earning opportunity as part of your everyday life.
“We’ve also dramatically improved our Aeroplan credit cards, which are an obvious way to have your points pile up more quickly. On top of that, we made it so when it’s time to redeem your points, you can redeem for as little as 300 points. And you can do that for things you enjoy every day, like a fuel discount or a Starbucks coffee.”
On top of that, Aeroplan lets members pool their points and share points across a family.
“Multiple individuals in a household might have a few points here and a few points there. But you add them together, you can get to your rewards faster.”
O’Leary said Aeroplan partners are divided into three types. There are everyday partners like Starbucks and Uber. They also have airline partners and travel partners outside the airline industry.
“We have just under 50 airline partners around the world. We have the Star Alliance airlines, but also airlines outside Star Alliance, such as Emirates, Air Mauritius and Virgin Australia.”
Non-airline travel partners include hotels and rental car companies.
“We have a partnership with Avis/Budget group, where status members, our premium credit card holders, have the ability to match their status to status with Avis, which means perhaps more car upgrades, streamlined service at the airport and what not. This is a territory where we’re going to continue to provide more opportunities for our members, not only to earn points and redeem points, but to improve their travel experience.
“We’ve also created multiple ways for our members to use their points. Our flight redemptions start at just 6,000 points. But you also can create some of the most luxurious itineraries in the world.
“There are millions of Canadians who are taking their travel budgets further as a direct result of the points they’ve earned in the Aeroplan program. You might be taking a trip you otherwise wouldn’t have taken, or you might fly in business class or visiting a lounge you otherwise wouldn’t have visited.”
O’Leary said there also are tangible benefits to being an Aeroplan member.
“You can get on any flight and enjoy free texting, just for being a member. That’s on any of our flights anywhere in the world.”
Major changes were made to Aeroplan a few years ago. Not everyone was happy with the alterations, but O’Leary said it’s a superior offering today.
“We’re absolutely confident that it’s a better program. Everything you need to know about Aeroplan or your account is one place. When it comes to using your points, it’s arguably easier as the results you’re seeing are the results you’d be getting if you picked up the phone. That wasn’t always the case. It used to be that what you saw online could potentially be a subset of what’s available.”
“Not every flight redemption is going to be that amazing value redemption,” O’Leary conceded. “But at least there will be an answer for you in points. Whereas perhaps in the past only the flights that had a bunch of open seats might have been made available for redemption. And now you have so many more flights and so many choices.”
O’Leary said Aeroplan members can accrue points with Air Canada Vacations purchases, and also can redeem their points on ACV trips.
“There are several bonus opportunities that you can enjoy as an Aeroplan member. When you’re shopping for a package on Air Canada Vacations there are many options you will see that have a lot of bonus points attached as a promotion. We’re doing a lot more of that with Air Canada Vacations, and it’s working very well. It’s helped us add more members, and, for our existing members, we’re finding those bonus point offers are really moving the dial in terms of creating a preference for Air Canada Vacations.
“We’ve also introduced the ability to earn status qualification through your Air Canada Vacations purchase. There’s going to be a percentage of your purchase that counts toward your elite qualification, and that is net new as of last year.”
O’Leary is pumped for Aeroplan’s 40th birthday party.
“This is a 10-day extravaganza we’re talking about here. I strongly encourage people to go to Aeroplan.com/40. There are about a dozen and-a-half offers. This is as rich or richer than what we do on Black Friday.
“You register once, and you also register yourself into a contest where we’re giving away 40 prizes of one million Aeroplan points. It’s one of the largest, single giveaways of frequent flyer points or airline loyalty points ever in history to date.”
So, he was asked, what comes next?
“There’s always something around the corner. You’ve seen us be pretty active the past couple years, so all I can say is stay tuned. Whether it’s creating more ways to earn points in your everyday life, to get more benefits because you’re an Aeroplan member, or to find more ways for you to use your hard-earned points, these are the types of things we obsess over every day.”
