Canadian Aeroplan Credit Cards Are Getting New Benefits | Prince of Travel

Aeroplan has announced a refresh of its Canadian co-branded credit cards, with new benefits arriving on January 12, 2027. Every Aeroplan credit card will get 15% off Air Canada flight rewards as a permanent benefit, along with a Fourth Night Free on hotel redemptions and a new Fourth Day Free on car rentals booked with points.

Premium cards gain the most, with Maple Leaf Lounge access expanding worldwide, priority security lanes at select airports, and up to $100 a year toward Air Canada travel through AC Wallet. Core cards get up to $50 a year, and all of today’s card benefits stay in place. Most TD and American Express cards are also getting higher annual fees, which I break down below.

Let’s take a detailed look at what each card tier gets, and what the changes are worth.

The New Benefits by Card Tier

Air Canada sorts its Canadian Aeroplan cards into three tiers, and the new benefits scale with them. Everything below takes effect on January 12, 2027.

Most of the new perks extend to additional cardholders too, including lounge access, priority security, and the free hotel nights and car rental days. The two exceptions are the 15% discount and the AC Wallet credits, which are tied to the primary cardholder’s account.

The card left in an awkward spot is the TD® Aeroplan® Visa Platinum* Card, which keeps its $89 fee. Even at its new $159 fee, the TD® Aeroplan® Visa Infinite* Card nets out to $109 after its $50 in AC Wallet credits, just $20 more for a free checked bag, better earning, and stronger insurance.

If you’re weighing which card fits your travel, our ranking of the best Aeroplan credit cards walks through each one.

The 15% Discount Becomes Permanent

The discount launched on September 10 as a limited-time offer for bookings made through January 11, 2027. From January 12, it simply becomes part of the card, with no end date attached.

What changes most is how it plays with other offers. The current promotion can’t be combined with anything else, but the permanent benefit will stack with Priority Reward vouchers, Flight Reward Certificates, and other redemption offers. For anyone sitting on a Priority Reward, that’s the most valuable detail in the whole refresh.

When the promotion launched, I ran the same searches on two Aeroplan accounts, one with a card linked and one without. Every Air Canada flight came in exactly 15% lower on the cardholder account, so the discount replaces the old preferred pricing rather than adding to it.

That’s a trade I’m happy to make. Preferred pricing was never published and varied from flight to flight, while 15% is a number you can plan around.

Partner connections count too. Air Canada confirmed during the briefing that the 15% applies to any one-way that includes at least one Air Canada flight, so a Toronto to Vienna routing on Air Canada to Frankfurt and Austrian Airlines onward qualifies. Until around October 8, those itineraries price with the discount but don’t show the savings tag, a display bug Air Canada says it’s fixing. On a round trip, each direction is assessed separately, so a return leg with no Air Canada flights won’t get the discount.

The discount also reaches beyond the primary cardholder. Air Canada told us after the briefing that it applies to everyone in the cardholder’s Family Sharing pool, although the savings tag may not show in family members’ search results until a display fix rolls out.

In points, the saving scales with the price of the flight. On my September searches, it ranged from 2,100 points on a Toronto to Montréal flight to 5,200 points on Toronto to Frankfurt, both in economy.

At our valuation of 2.0 cents per Aeroplan point, that Frankfurt saving is worth about $104 (CAD) each way, or over $400 (CAD) for a couple flying to Europe and back.

Premium Cards Take Lounge Access Worldwide

Maple Leaf Lounge access has been a headline benefit of the premium cards since they launched, but it has always stopped at the edge of North America. From January 12, premium cardholders can use Air Canada’s Maple Leaf Lounges worldwide, along with Air Canada Cafés, and bring one travel companion.

In practice, that opens up Air Canada’s lounges in Europe, such as London Heathrow and Frankfurt, which were previously off-limits on the strength of the card alone. It’s a small network outside North America, but plenty of Canadians pass through those airports on the way to Europe and back.

The second new premium perk is priority security. Premium cardholders can use dedicated priority security lanes at select airports worldwide, for themselves and up to eight companions travelling on the same reservation.

That sits on top of what premium cards already include, which is priority check-in, boarding, baggage handling, and airport standby. They also keep the 10% Head Start and up to 25,000 Status Qualifying Credits (SQC) a year.

American Express Goes Further on the Reserve Cards

American Express is layering its own perks on top of the shared ones, and the Reserve cards are where most of its $200 fee increase goes. The American Express® Aeroplan®* Reserve Card adds a $200 annual dining credit at restaurants on enRoute’s list of Canada’s Best New Restaurants finalists.

Both the personal and business Reserve cards also get six Priority Pass lounge passes and eight visits a year to Amex Aspire lounges in Canada. Aspire currently has lounges in Ottawa, Montréal’s domestic and international terminals, Toronto Billy Bishop, and Calgary, with a new lounge opening in Montréal’s transborder terminal in early 2027. Most of those are also in the Priority Pass network, so the Aspire visits let you save your Priority Pass passes for trips abroad.

That goes beyond matching the other premium cards. The TD® Aeroplan® Visa Infinite Privilege* Card and CIBC Aeroplan® Visa Infinite Privilege* Card already include six DragonPass lounge visits a year through Visa’s Airport Companion Program, while the Reserve cards now come with 14 visits across two networks.

For big spenders, the personal Reserve also adds accelerated earning. You’ll earn 10% bonus Aeroplan points once you spend $125,000 in a year, and another 10% bonus for every additional $25,000 after that, up to $400,000 a year.

The American Express® Aeroplan®* Business Reserve Card gets the same lounge passes and the same $100 a year in AC Wallet credits as the other premium cards, but no dining credit.

Up to $100 a Year in AC Wallet Credits

Premium and core cardholders will also get a new Air Canada Flight Benefit, paid into the AC Wallet twice a year. Premium cards receive $50 on January 15 and another $50 on July 15, for up to $100 a year, while core and business cards receive $25 on each date, for up to $50.

Each deposit is valid for six months, and the first one arrives on January 15, 2027. Since the January credit expires before the July one lands, you can’t bank them into a single larger credit, so the easiest way to use both is to book at least one Air Canada flight in each half of the year.

The six-month limit only applies to credits from the same card, though. If you hold both a premium and a core Aeroplan card, you can use the $50 and $25 credits together every six months, and a business Aeroplan card adds a third credit on top. Each credit expires after six months, but you can use it to book travel up to a year ahead.

The credits work on any Air Canada booking and for any passenger, but not toward the taxes and fees on an Aeroplan flight reward. Online, you can combine two forms of payment in one booking, such as your AC Wallet balance and a credit card. Calling Air Canada lets you use three, such as AC Wallet, an Air Canada gift card, and a credit card.

That’s an area with room for improvement. If your AC Wallet balance and a gift card don’t cover the full fare, you have to call in, and possibly wait on hold, just to pay the rest with a credit card. I’d love to see Air Canada allow three payment methods online too.

These credits go to the primary cardholder only, and entry cards don’t receive them.

Free Nights and Free Car Days on Redemptions

The fourth night free on Aeroplan hotel redemptions has been a limited-time feature that Aeroplan renewed year after year. From January 12, it becomes an ongoing benefit for every Aeroplan cardholder.

Book four nights with points through Aeroplan’s hotel portal, and the fourth night comes off the total, which works out to 25% off. On a four-night stay at the Novotel Living Bangkok Sukhumvit Legacy, for example, the price dropped from 42,600 points to 31,950 with the free night applied.

It’s joined by a new fourth day free on car rental redemptions, which mirrors what the US Chase Air Canada Aeroplan® Credit Card is getting in January. You’ll get one day free for every four consecutive rental days booked with points, based on the average daily points price, so an eight-day rental costs points for six.

The free car days also keep your credit card’s rental coverage intact. TD, CIBC, and American Express all extend their collision damage waiver coverage to rentals booked with Aeroplan points, including ones paid partly with points, as long as the rest of the rental goes on the card and you decline the rental company’s own waiver. That saves you the $30 to $40 (CAD) a day the rental counter would otherwise charge.

I’d assumed points bookings fell outside that coverage, so this makes car rental redemptions a lot easier to recommend.

Air Canada also says both will stack with the hotel and car rental promotions Aeroplan runs from time to time, like the promo codes that take 10,000 points or more off larger redemptions. On a four-night stay at the Sofitel Bali Nusa Dua Beach Resort, the free night saved 29,000 points and a promo code took off another 10,000, bringing the total from 116,000 points to 77,000. The same applies to car rentals, so a rental that qualifies for a promo code gets the free day on top.

Neither benefit requires a premium card. Both apply across all three tiers, so core cards like the TD® Aeroplan® Visa Infinite* Card, CIBC Aeroplan® Visa Infinite* Card, and American Express® Aeroplan®* Card qualify, as do entry cards like the CIBC Aeroplan® Visa* Card and the TD® Aeroplan® Visa Platinum* Card.

The New Annual Fees

TD and American Express have now announced their new annual fees, and most cards are going up alongside the new benefits. CIBC has confirmed changes are coming to its core and premium cards but hasn’t shared details yet.

American Express’s increases apply from your first annual fee billing date after January 12, 2027, while TD’s new fees take effect later in January.

For core cardholders, the math works in your favour. The American Express® Aeroplan®* Card goes up $30, to $150, and now includes $50 a year in AC Wallet credits, paid as $25 twice a year. The TD® Aeroplan® Visa Infinite* Card goes up $20 with the same $50 in credits. Either way, the credits more than cover the increase before you count the permanent 15% discount.

On the TD® Aeroplan® Visa Infinite Privilege* Card, the $100 increase matches the $100 in AC Wallet credits exactly, so worldwide lounge access and priority security effectively come at no extra cost.

The American Express® Aeroplan®* Reserve Card is the outlier at $799, but its new $200 dining credit alone matches the $200 increase, before counting the extra lounge passes covered above. The Business Reserve goes up by the same $200 without the dining credit, leaning on the lounge passes and its $100 in AC Wallet credits instead.

The new fees also put TD’s All-Inclusive Banking Plan to the test. Its rebate is capped at $139, which matches today’s TD® Aeroplan® Visa Infinite* Card fee exactly but falls $20 short of the new $159 fee. It’ll be worth watching whether TD raises that cap, as it did after the 2020 increase, and whether the balance requirement moves with it.

What Air Canada Is Really Doing Here

I’ll admit I was envious when Chase refreshed its Aeroplan card in September. It was a little ironic to watch cardholders south of the border get a better co-branded card for Air Canada’s own loyalty program than the ones we had up here.

This update closes most of that gap. Both lineups now get the 15% redemption discount, credits toward Air Canada travel, and free nights and car days on redemptions, so Canadian and US cardholders are working from largely the same toolkit.

What’s missing up here is status. The Chase card now comes with automatic Aeroplan 25K status, and when that was announced, I planted a flag that the Canadian issuers would be having the same conversation before the next round of refreshes. This round, at least, status stays off the Canadian cards.

Instead, Air Canada has leaned into redemptions and the airport. A permanent 15% off, free car days, and worldwide lounges are benefits you feel when you use your points and when you fly, rather than when you spend.

To be fair, that’s a sensible choice for this market. Canadian premium cards already carried lounge access and priority services that the Chase card never had, so extending them overseas builds on a strength rather than chasing a US feature.

More broadly, Aeroplan is positioning itself as a one-for-all loyalty currency, covering flights, hotels, car rentals, retail, and beyond. You can already earn points at Starbucks, Uber, and the LCBO, then redeem them for hotels, car rentals, Air Canada Vacations packages, or brands like Apple and Dyson through the Aeroplan eStore. Making the free hotel night permanent and adding free car days push those options closer to being real alternatives to flights.

Conclusion

If you hold a premium card and fly to Europe with any regularity, this is the most useful update these cards have had since the current lineup launched in 2020. Lounge access in Europe, plus priority security for your whole booking, are things you’ll notice on every trip.

If you hold a core or business card, the permanent 15% discount is the main event, and the fact that it will stack with Priority Rewards makes it better than the version you have today. If you don’t hold an Aeroplan card yet, the current 15% promotion already applies to bookings made now, so there’s no reason to wait until January.

With the fees now public, the core cards come out ahead, the TD premium card breaks even on its AC Wallet credits, and the Amex Reserve asks for more but brings more of its own perks. CIBC is the last piece, and I’ll update this article once it shares its new fees.