More Details on Air Canada's New Loyalty Program

Air Canada’s New Loyalty Program

Air Canada unveiled this week the newest member of its fleet, the Airbus A220-300. The ceremony was held with employees and special guests at the airline’s Montreal headquarters. The Bombardier-designed aircraft continues Air Canada’s fleet modernization. The A220’s state-of-the-art design and cabin is destined to be extremely popular with customers, and this new aircraft will also help Air Canada reduce its carbon footprint through a 20 per cent reduction in fuel consumption per seat.

But at the ceremony, Air Canada also revealed some more details about the already announced new loyalty program that is due to launch soon.

The details come from PrinceofTravel who chatted with Mark Nasr, Vice President of Loyalty & E-Commerce at Air Canada, who is in charge of the transformation from the current Aeroplan program into a new Air Canada loyalty program in 2020.

Here’s a list of the details, some new and some just being confirmed:

Air Canada is targeting a launch date of Q3 2020 for the new program.
- Air Canada endeavours to announce the full details of the new program many months in advance, leaving no room for “surprises” for members at the time of launch.
On the redemption side, there is a need to balance the different underlying economics between intra-North America redemptions and international partner redemptions (especially in premium cabins).
- As a result, we will likely see intra-North America flights move to a more dynamic system, where almost every seat is available but at varying price points.
- Meanwhile, partner redemptions will likely remain fixed, and Air Canada recognizes the transparency and trust that comes from having a published award chart.
The ability to add a second stopover on round-trip Aeroplan redemptions (a key component to the Aeroplan Mini-RTW) has only temporarily been disabled, and was necessary because of the PSS migration, but will be returning with the new loyalty program.
There will be exciting new products and offers from all three credit card issuers (TD, CIBC, and Amex), including a wider range of card features than what’s currently available.