At this week’s Air Canada A220 launch event, I had the chance to speak with Mark Nasr, head of Aeroplan and a key figure in charge of the transition to the new loyalty program, to clear up some of these issues for members and get a sense of where the new program is headed in the summer of 2020, and in this week’s video, I share with you everything I learned from my conversation with Mark.
For some context, since buying back the program a few years ago, Air Canada have made clear their intention to launch a brand-new loyalty program in 2020.
To prepare for that, in November 2019, they implemented a change in their back-end reservations systems (known as “passenger service system” or PSS), migrating from a decades-old legacy system to a new Amadeus PSS.
This has caused Aeroplan members to face many technical problems in recent months, such as login issues, difficulties in redeeming miles, being told over the phone that they may not piece together different flights “segment by segment”, and most pressing of all, incredibly long wait times on the Aeroplan contact centre.
In this video, we’ll cover the anticipated timeline for the new program’s launch, what kind of redemption structure we can expect to see, the clearing-up of the current frictions created by the Amadeus PSS, and the fate of the second stopover on Aeroplan round-trip redemptions (a key part of the Aeroplan Mini-RTW!)
Without further ado, you can watch the video below:
If you enjoyed the video, click here to subscribe to my YouTube channel so that you don’t miss any future videos!
