Future Of Aeroplan – New Third Party Booking Website?

Future Of Aeroplan – Introduction

As most of you probably know by now, Air Canada is cutting ties with Aeroplan and launching their own loyalty program in 2020. I didn’t put much thought into this up until yesterday, and have been telling readers to continue earning and redeeming Aeroplan miles, as there are still some great redemption options to be had. Yesterday, however, Lucky from One Mile At A Time posted an article talking a little bit about the future of Aeroplan, as per some new information on their website, and it got me thinking a little bit about what the new program could look like after the separation from Air Canada.

Future Of Aeroplan – What We Know, And What I Think

Aeroplan has been incredibly quiet about future plans up until yesterday, when they released some ‘key commitments’ on their website.

While a little bit vague, I think there’s actually quite a bit of info when reading between the lines. Here are the 6 key commitments outlining the future of Aeroplan, with my interpretations below each statement:

The freedom to choose any seat on more of your favourite airlines. Starting in July 2020, you won’t be limited to seat inventory from one airline or one network when you want to redeem valued miles. Instead, you’ll be able to choose any available seat from more airlines to more destinations than today.

Simple enough – sounds like Aeroplan is opening up rewards to more airlines and alliances, where ticket prices will dictate award costs (similar to their market fare award tickets), which shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. My best guess is that Aeroplan points will be worth 1 cent a piece, though currently they are valued at even less than that when you use them to pay taxes and fees on reward tickets, so 1 cpp is probably best case scenario.

The power to reach your travel plans faster. With the ability to earn miles faster and redeem for flights on more of your favourite airlines starting in July 2020, including with future preferred partners, we’re committed to helping our members travel sooner than with other travel reward programs in Canada, just as we do today.

This one talks about reaching your plans faster through preferred partners. My best guess is Aeroplan will have certain airlines/hotels where the redemption rate might be slightly more favourable (as in 1 cent per point compared to 0.7 cents per point). I also wonder if they will keep Aeroplan status, and offer slightly better redemption rates for different tiers, such as 0.7 cpp for silver, 1 cpp for black and 1.5 cpp for diamond.

A complete travel offering in one place. Today, you can browse more car rental options than ever before. Tomorrow, an intuitive planning and booking engine will offer you a greater selection of accommodations, destination activities, vacation packages and inspiring content directly through our website and mobile app.

Again, this point is simple enough. It seems as though Aeroplan hopes to develop a search engine to offer a ‘one-stop-shop’ for everything travel, including flights, hotels, car rentals, vacation packages etc, for which you can redeem Aeroplan miles (likely an unfavourable rate).

Unmatched convenience & flexibility. When you earn fast and often, you can get to your travel plans sooner. The convenience of earning on thousands of everyday items in-store and online at over 150 partner brands, flexible payment options plus the ability to earn miles on all cash bookings made with Aeroplan means realizing your plans is easier than ever.

This commitment really stuck out to me, particularly the line ‘plus the ability to earn miles on all cash bookings made with Aeroplan’. After reading the previous statement, I was kind of curious why Aeroplan was planning to invest so much money in developing a groundbreaking search tool, considering their website has effectively been broken for years. Then it made sense. Aeroplan hopes to develop a search engine not only for Aeroplan redemptions, but for cash bookings also! But in order to draw customers from the already well-established third party booking sites, Aeroplan would have to offer some incentive, right? Earning Aeroplan miles on bookings seems like an easy way to do that. I expect a platform very similar to Amex travel, where you search for your travel purchase and are provided with the option to pay with your card and earn points, or redeem points for the purchase.

A more personalized journey. Enjoy a unique travel experience that is more rewarding and tailored to your needs as we proactively serve up suggestions, content and offers based on the things you like.

This key commitment sounds like the public relations people were just running out of things to talk about, and doesn’t provide much insight into the future of Aeroplan at all, other than to say you might get some targeted ads and promotions.

An altogether transformed user experience. Staying at the forefront of technological trends, we will reinvent your user experience at every level from mobile to online right up to the Aeroplan Contact Centre.

I think they’re saying here ‘we realize our website has been terrible and glitchy for years, but we’re committed to offering a service that works reliably’ and nothing more. They say they want to stay at the forefront of technological trends, but I’d be happy if they even tried to catch up. A website that regularly closes overnight, a call centre with obscene wait times and not open 24/7 is not cool.

Future Of Aeroplan – My Prediction

I first brushed these key commitments off as corporate speak, offering little to no information on what their plans were. However, after putting some thought into it, I think it’s actually quite clear. I believe Aeroplan will transform into a third party booking engine where users will be able to search for flights, hotels, vacation packages and car rentals, and choose to purchase with money and earn Aeroplan miles or redeem existing miles at a fixed value (revenue based).

 

Future Of Aeroplan – Bottom Line

I’ve heard a lot of people say Aeroplan would go the way of Air Miles – more of a retail rewards program where using points for travel would be almost entirely revenue based and offer very little value for travel hackers. I considered this to be true, but wondered how Aeroplan would compete with the already established programs offering essentially the same service.

I always assumed Aeroplan would transform into a revenue based program, and continue to have retail partners, but I never expected them to turn the Aeroplan search engine into a third party paid booking website. It makes sense though – they have the infrastructure (kind of), they have a widely recognized ‘currency’ to offer incentives on purchases, and they’re already immersed in industry.

I personally don’t want to see Aeroplan go away, but they’re certainly going to have to be competitive out the gates if they hope to pull customers from the established search engines already out there. I think there is a lot of potential if this is indeed the future of Aeroplan, but wonder if they have the vision to make it work.

Here’s hoping for some very generous earning rates on paid travel and indistry-leading redemption rates! In the meantime, continue earning and burning Aeroplan miles for high-value redemptions!

Do you have any predictions for the future of Aeroplan? Share your thoughts in the comment section below!