Following the revamped roll-out of the Aeroplan rewards program on November 08 earlier this year, where a suite of co-branded Aeroplan credit cards and charge cards were introduced simultaneously by TD, CIBC and American Express, Air Canada has released a media release of another cp-branded credit card. However, this time it is for our neighbours south of the border.
As per the media release, “Today Chase, the largest co-brand card issuer, and Air Canada, Canada’s largest airline and a Star Alliance founding member, announced a strategic partnership that will make Chase the exclusive issuer of the airline’s Aeroplan U.S. credit card. As a part of this partnership, Mastercard will become the exclusive payments network for the new offering in the U.S.” Ed Olebe, President of Chase Co-Brand Cards went on to say “We look forward to jointly offering innovative perks and flexible rewards delivered as part of the transformed Aeroplan loyalty program.” It will be interesting to see what these innovative perks will be, given the lack lustre benefits offered to Canadians with all three cards being offered by TD, CIBC and American Express – the most disappointing being the very low welcome bonus.
This means that Aeroplan will also become a transfer partner in Chase’s Ultimate Rewards program, starting in late 2021 and the new Aeroplan Credit Card from Chase is expected to launch in late 2021.
So what does this imply? In addition to the US credit holders having the ability to transfer American Express MR points to Aeroplan at the rate of 1:1, they now have additional transfer options and also a way to earn Aeroplan points and possibly at an accelerated pace by using this new co-branded card and rack up their balances quickly with Welcome and Bonus offers. In essence, it could mean more Aeroplan members competing for award space,
Can it get more worse? Yes, it could possibly mean more demand will deplete inventory and thereby push up the number of points required due to Dynamic pricing. It will also mean that much harder to compete for upgrades and use eUpgrade certificates.
I really hope that TD, CIBC and American Express step up in their game in response to this new offering and enhance their perks and welcome bonuses as some of us or maybe quite a few of us will be tempted to get the US issued cards over the Canadian issued cards.
Written by Dominic Fernandes aka CanadaPointsGuy
Image courtesy of Two Paddles Axe and Leatherwork on Unsplash