Aeroplan Elite Status: How Much Is It Worth?

Aeroplan Elite Status is the status branch of Air Canada’s loyalty program. By earning one of the five status tiers, passengers can enjoy an increasing suite of benefits and privileges. 

Qualification for status runs throughout the calendar year, and is sometimes aided or prolonged by promotions put forth by Air Canada. Passengers with elite status tend to gain more by travelling more often and engaging with the program, and stand to benefit less from the pursuit if they only travel a few times per year.

In this article, let’s sit down and think about how much the benefits associated with each status level are worth, in order to help you decide whether it’s worthwhile to pursue status in earnest.

Valuation Methodology

It’s important to note that the true valuation of Aeroplan Elite Status perks and benefits will of course be subjective to every individual, and will depend on the individual’s travel patterns and likelihood to maximize each of the benefits.

As no two travellers have the exact same trajectory towards status, it’s rather difficult to quantify the value for each benefit. Rather, we have endeavoured to use a middle-of-the-road approach, keeping our factors as static as possible.

All figures below are in Canadian dollars.

Travel Style

We’ll be valuing the status benefits from the perspective of a prototypical frequent flyer, whose travel patterns are largely as follows:

• Travelling relatively frequently, to the tune of, say, three international round-trip flights and five North American round-trip flights per year
• Booking flights with a mix of cash and points
• Endeavouring to redeem Aeroplan points for flying in business class on international flights, whenever possible
• Being content to travel in economy class within North America and save points for more valuable redemptions internationally

You might then scale these valuations up or down depending on your own travel patterns. For example, if you travel more or less frequently than what’s described above, you might raise or lower the valuations accordingly.

Meanwhile, if you mainly travel in economy class on international flights, then you’d get even more value out of Aeroplan Elite Status (since its perks often overlap with what’s offered by a business class ticket), so you’d scale up the valuations accordingly.

Priority Rewards

When it comes to valuing Priority Rewards, keep in mind that the…