Earlier today Rewards Canada broke the news that Air Canada nixed the April 30 end date for the Buddy Pass to Aeroplan Points conversion option and have left it open indefinitely. And here's my opinion piece why I think they didn't put a set end date on it. Before I start however I must stress that this is just a guess and a prediction - so please do not take this at full value but use it perhaps to guide and inform you in what may happen in the next month.
What we already know is that Air Canada confirmed that members can convert the Buddy Pass to Aeroplan points based on their application date for an Aeroplan co-brand credit card that offers the pass. Up until today that date was April 30 and as we now know, it is open ended. So why leave it open ended? In my mind that's easy to figure out. The mainstay and most popular Air Canada Aeroplan credit card is the TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite Card - by far and away most people apply for this card when going for an Aeroplan card. Yes there are many other Air Canada co-brand cards but the TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite Card is the primary card in Aeroplan's portfolio of cards and it's current welcome bonus of up to 20,000 Aeroplan Points along with a bonus Buddy Pass is set to end on May 30. Do you see where I'm going with this? Previously it was thought the end date of Buddy Pass conversion would be May 28 but why set that as the date? Especially when Air Canada has already told us it is based on application date for a card - why disappoint people who may apply for the TD card on May 29 and 30? So with that card offer ending on May 30 we essentially have an expiry date set for the Buddy Pass conversion option - that is if the new offer on the TD card that comes out on May 31st doesn't include a Buddy Pass. Based on the news today I am going to wager a guess that's exactly what's going to happen. I am predicting the new offer on the TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite Card will not include a Buddy Pass come May 31st so in reality we would have an expiry date set in place simply by the nature of the welcome offer on this card.
But what about the other Aeroplan cards that offer a Buddy Pass?
The other TD cards that have the Buddy Pass, namely the Visa Infinite Privilege and Visa Business Card also have May 30 as their published end dates for their current offers with the Buddy Pass so that falls in line with the prediction above. Meanwhile both CIBC and American Express do not have published end dates for their card offers which means they can change those offers at anytime and could likely do so on May 30. Even if they don't however, the number of people applying the CIBC and American Express cards compared to TD is quite a bit less so there's potentially a lesser amount of Buddy Passes that would be converted to points.
This brings me to my next guess or prediction, at least for the TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite Card and other TD Aeroplan cards. Come May 31st the new welcome offer will see an increased amount of points but no Buddy Pass and those points will not match the potential of the current offer of 20,000 points + 30,000 points for the Buddy Pass. My guess is that the offer will be in the neighbourhood of 25,000 to 35,000 points with the first year annual fee waived but no Buddy Pass. This would be inline with many of the offers we had seen on the TD card prior to the launch of the new Aeroplan program and these revamped Aeroplan credit cards.
Like I said, this is purely speculation on my part as to why Air Canada didn't set an end date on Buddy Pass conversion. The way things line up right now they pretty much have an expiry date in place based solely on the fact that the conversion option is based on application date and the offer on the primary Aeroplan co-brand credit card ends on May 30. It all seems to line up for me in my head but ultimately this may not be the case. Of course the best thing to do is to stay tuned here on Rewards Canada to see how this develops over the course of the next few weeks.
Here's some of our articles that discuss or touch upon this topic that we recommend reading:
- Confirmed! Air Canada removes the April 30th end date for the Buddy Pass to Aeroplan Points conversion option (no set expiry for now)
- You can now convert Air Canada Buddy Passes into 30,000 Aeroplan points!
- Now's the time to grab an Air Canada Aeroplan credit card - get up to 50,000 points at no cost other than card spending!
- How to earn over 148,000 Aeroplan points for free*
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