A new “in-path offer” has surfaced for the CIBC Aeroplan Visa Infinite Card, which can be found during the booking flow of a new flight reservation on the Air Canada website.
Through the in-path offer, you’ll get 70,000 Aeroplan points, which makes it strictly superior to the public offering of 45,000 points and a first-year annual fee waiver – and therefore very much worth pursuing if you’re planning to pick up the CIBC Aeroplan Visa Infinite in the near future.
New In-Path Offer: 70,000 Aeroplan Points
This new alternative offer for the CIBC Aeroplan Visa Infinite is known as an “in-path offer”: it shows up during the booking path of an Air Canada flight.
We’ve seen similar offers in the past with credit cards such as the TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite, the TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite Privilege, and the American Express Marriott Bonvoy Card.
These types of in-path offers show up during the booking path of travel purchases. To access the in-path offer, you’d need to visit the Air Canada website and start booking a flight using a cash rate.
Once you’ve selected a flight, you may see a banner below the price total with the in-path application prompt for the CIBC Aeroplan Visa Infinite – although there’s also a chance that you’ll see in-path offers for TD or American Express products instead.
Indeed, the CIBC in-path offers seem to show up less frequently than the TD and Amex ones, so you may need to search quite a few times to pull it up.
Keep in mind that there is no need to follow through with the flight booking; a simple dummy search is sufficient for accessing the offer.
There also appears to be a direct link to the offer landing page, although the application errors out if you didn’t arrive at the landing page by way of the booking flow on the Air Canada website.
The in-path offer consists of four components:
- Earn 10,000 Aeroplan points upon the first purchase.
- Earn 20,000 Aeroplan points when you spend $1,000 (CAD) or more during the first four monthly statement periods.
- Earn 25,000 Aeroplan points when you spend $10,000 (CAD) or more during the first 12 monthly statement periods.
- Earn up to 15,000 Aeroplan points by earning 10 points per dollar spent during the first year with up to $1,500 (CAD) in Air Canada purchases on the Air Canada website.
Is This Better Than the Public Offer?
The public offer is currently offering up to 45,000 Aeroplan points, structured as follows:
- Earn 10,000 Aeroplan points upon the first purchase.
- Earn 35,000 Aeroplan points upon spending $1,000 (CAD) in the first four months.
The in-path offer is clearly optimal if you’re going to apply for this card, especially if you’ll book a flight with Air Canada this year. While the spending requirement is lower on the public offer, you stand to benefit from an additional 25,000 points from the in-path offer if you meet the additional spending requirements.
It’s important to note that the additional 25,000 points come as an anniversary bonus. So, you’ll need pay the card’s annual fee for the second year, which amounts to $139 (CAD).
We currently value Aeroplan points at 2.1 cents apiece, placing 25,000 Aeroplan points at a value of $525 (CAD). While you can certainly redeem Aeroplan points for much more than that, you should come out at least $386 (CAD) ahead with the in-path offer, when you consider the $139 (CAD) annual fee for the second year.
Furthermore, if you are planning to pay cash for flights with Air Canada this year anyway, you may as well earn 10 points per dollar spent with the in-path offer instead of the 1.5 points per dollar spent with the public offer. As long as you spend $1,500 (CAD) with Air Canada in the first year, you’ll maximize the bonus, and you can proceed to redeem those points for exceptional value.
Who’s Eligible for the In-Path Offer?
There shouldn’t be any specific eligibility criteria for the CIBC Aeroplan Visa Infinite in-path offer, since it shows up when you try to book a flight on the Air Canada website. The usual Visa Infinite income thresholds of $60,000 (personal) or $100,000 (household) apply.
If anything, there may be some targeted criteria in terms of who sees the offer on the Air Canada booking flow and who doesn’t – you may need to play around a bit with incognito windows or different browsers to get the CIBC offer to show up over any other offers.
If you begin your application and then need to call to push your application through, you may need to explain the nature of the Air Canada in-path offer if the CIBC representative isn’t aware of it.
Lastly, because of the relatively hidden nature of the CIBC Aeroplan in-path offer, there’s no word on when it may expire and/or no longer be offered. Thus, if you’re interested in the value proposition, it’s best to play around with searches on the Air Canada website sooner rather than later to take advantage of it, if you can get the offer to show up.
Conclusion
CIBC and Aeroplan are offering a new in-path all-time-high credit card welcome bonus for up to 70,000 Aeroplan points and the first-year annual fee waived on the CIBC Aeroplan Visa Infinite Card.
The primary public offer doesn’t quite compare in terms of the size of the welcome bonus; however, it has a lower spending threshold to fully realize the welcome bonus, and you won’t need to pay the annual fee for the second year.
You can try to locate the in-path offer via a dummy booking on the Air Canada website, which may take a while – but it’s very much an outstanding offer to apply for if you can pull it up.