The Aeroplan Credit Card's current two-part sign-up bonus is expected to end shortly. If you've been thinking about applying, I would make a decision now. With the current bonus, you can earn:
While the first part of the sign-up bonus is obviously worth earning, the second part depends on your current situation.
If you would put that spend toward other sign-up bonuses, it would be hard to justify earning ~1.5x on the remaining $16,000. However, if you don't plan on getting another card for a bit or you have enough spend for both, this could be worth considering.
Keep in mind that the Aeroplan Card earns 3x on dining and at grocery stores. If you were to spend the remaining $16,000 on 3x categories, you'd earn ~4.5x when you factor in the 25,000 bonus points. If you need Aeroplan points, this could be a great way to supplement your balance.
Not bad for a card with a $95 fee.
Other Aeroplan Card Benefits
Of these benefits, my favorite is the 10% transfer bonus since it can be stacked with an Ultimate Rewards transfer bonus. For example, Chase is offering a 20% bonus for transferring points to Aeroplan through January 15, 2024. If you transfer 50,000 Chase points, you'd get a 30% bonus. That would bring you to 65,000 Aeroplan points.
Marriott Bonvoy has officially changed Suite Upgrade Awards to Night Upgrade Awards.
For context, Marriott Platinum members get a Choice Benefit when they hit 50 nights and one of those options has been 5 Suite Upgrade Awards. Additionally, if you earned Marriott Titanium status, you'd get another Choice Benefit at 75 nights. Again, you could choose 5 Suite Night Awards.
Each one could be used to upgrade a single night of a hotel stay, in theory. However, many hotels rejected requests to use them and some hotels weren't even eligible. Thus, this "benefit" was often frustrating to use for members.
As of today, Marriott has moved to Night Upgrade Awards which allow you to request upgrades to higher category rooms in addition to suites. I imagine they're hoping this will help more upgrades clear to limit customer frustration. However, I would expect properties to clear upgrades into nicer rooms while still playing games with upgrades to suites.
On the positive side, Night Upgrade Awards will be available at five additional brands:
Members will now receive a confirmation or denial of an upgrade three days prior to arrival. Previously, it was five days prior to arrival. One would hope that later notice will mean that properties will be able to more accurately project what rooms/suites will be available. Though, I wouldn't be surprised if they still choose to leave suites empty and try to upsell people at check-in.
As with many program changes, we'll see how it's implemented.
We've known Emirates Skywards was going to devalue its partner award rates since October of last year, but it still stings. If there's a silver lining, it's that economy awards haven't been devalued - pretty weak silver lining, if you ask me.
Only the business class redemption rates took a hit. I'm sure they'll spin at as a 9-25% rate increase, but only flights of no more than 250 miles were increased by 9%. All of the other rates were increased by 19-25%. For the math nerds among us, the median increase is 21%.
Alas, this means we can no longer book Korean Air to Seoul or Japan Airlines to Tokyo in business class from Los Angeles for 88,000 Emirates miles one-way. Instead, we'll now need 105,000 miles. Ouch.
While Emirates publishes an award chart for all of its partners, the chart is actually the same. Here's a link to an example.
Marriott Bonvoy has released some targeted promo offers for Q1 2024. I wasn't targeted with any offers, but I've seen reports of several offers so far.
If you get an offer, DM me on Instagram and let me know what you get! I'll update this post
Points Wire Note:
The double elite nights promo is one of my favorites. I had it last year and it helped me make some serious progress toward Lifetime Platinum status. It's definitely worth checking to see if you have an offer on your account. Whether it's an offer worth pursuing will depend on the exact offer. Some are great if you happen to have a stay, while others are so good that it's worth prioritizing Marriott stays.
Whenever I hear that a program is making changes or "enhancements", I immediately brace for negative changes.
Well, American surprised me. They've announced several changes and they're not making it harder to earn elite status or increasing award rates.
How civilized!
Some changes that are coming for AAdvantage members that caught my eye:
Direct link to AA's program updates
We'll see how things unfold this year and if they announce any further changes, but I'll give American credit for actually making improvements!
Frequent Miler: "Delta is out with a new status match challenge for 2024 and it’s pretty darn generous. If you have elite status with a competing airline and have plans to fly Delta this year or next, this status match challenge is well worth considering. If you match early in the year and complete the challenge, you could get two full years of elite status!"
Eligible airlines for status match:
Direct link to status match/challenge
Points Wire Note:
If you have status with an eligible airline program, this is actually a great status/match challenge. I would expect Delta to make some awful changes to elite status in the next couple of years, but you can still get some value out of it in the meantime!
Please keep in mind that SkyMiles still has terrible redemption rates if you're starting/ending in the U.S.
One Mile At A Time: "IHG One Rewards has just launched a lucrative sale on award nights, which could save you quite a few points on a redemption. This promotion is initially only available to those with a co-branded IHG credit card, and in a few days it will be extended to elite members as well."
If you need additional points, you can often buy IHG points with a 100% bonus which brings your cost to 0.5 cents per point. That's the best time to buy.
I wouldn't recommend transferring Bilt Rewards or Chase Ultimate Rewards points as you can get much more out of those points with other transfer partners.
Thai Royal Orchid Plus isn't a loyalty program you hear about much in the U.S. as their award rates aren't particularly competitive. However, Royal Orchid Plus has launched a 50% off award promo for Thai Airways' flight between Bangkok and Istanbul. This brings the one-way award rate down to 45,000 miles for business class and 21,250 miles for economy class.
You must book your ticket by January 15, 2024 and complete your travel between January 15 and March 15, 2024. The change fee is $200/$150 for business/economy class, respectively.
You will be on the hook for carrier-imposed surcharges which brings the one-way taxes/fees to ~$272 on business class award or ~$186 on an economy award.
For context, Air Canada Aeroplan requires 60,000 miles and Avianca LifeMiles requires 78,000 miles. However, they do not pass on the surcharges so the taxes/fees will be closer to ~$20. Turkish Miles&Smiles also requires 45,000 miles plus taxes/fees. Still, it's fun to see Thai's program offer some solid value!
If you want to book this promo as part of a trip to Southeast Asia and Europe or the Middle East, you'll need Citi ThankYou Points as that's the only program that transfer to Thai Airways.
Personally, I love niche booking opportunities for business class award tickets and would consider this if it fit my schedule.
Points Wire Note:
Your best bet to earn Citi ThankYou Points is the Citi Premier Card. You can pair a Citi Double Cash, Citi Custom Cash, or Citi Rewards+ with the Premier to earn additional points. However, the Citi Premier is the key to accessing transfer partners.
Head for Points: "In early 2023, Marriott Bonvoy decided that downgrading millions of elite members to nothing for 2023 would be bad for business. It announced a ‘soft landing’ after 2022 had finished. This annoyed people who had gone out of their way to requalify because they otherwise expected to drop back to nothing."
"According to a message on the Bonvoy website, you will be getting a soft landing again for 2024."
Points Wire Note:
I'd like to see more loyalty programs implement soft landings. Going from top tier to zero overnight is an easy way for a customer to cut ties immediately. With a soft landing at mid-tier, airlines and hotels can maintain the connection. On the airline side, British Airways does this so it's not unprecedented.
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