Aeroplan Partners with Club Avolta: Earn Points at 1,900 Airport Shops and Restaurants

I'm not much of an airport shopper. I'll walk straight past the magazines and the neck pillows, and the one thing that reliably pulls me into a store is a bottle of wine or whisky at duty-free on the way home.

Aeroplan and Club Avolta have launched a new partnership that finally puts points behind that occasional bottle. Aeroplan members can now earn at airport shops and, later this year, restaurants across North America. Avolta is the company behind Hudson and Dufry stores, the duty-free counters and convenience shops you walk past in almost every major terminal.

Once it's fully rolled out, the partnership will cover nearly 1,900 retail and food and beverage outlets across the continent. It's live as of June 30, 2026.

How the Earning Works

I downloaded the Club Avolta app to walk through the setup myself. You link your Aeroplan and Club Avolta accounts, then set Aeroplan as your preferred partner so the points flow to the right place.

Once linked, you earn one Aeroplan point for every $2 (CAD) spent on eligible purchases. That applies in-store at participating Hudson and Dufry locations, when you pre-order through Avolta's Reserve & Collect service, and through the Club Avolta app.

There's one catch worth remembering in-store. You need to scan your Club Avolta QR code at checkout every time, or the points won't track. Club Avolta is Avolta's own loyalty program, with more than 16 million members worldwide.

At launch, the earning covers more than 900 Avolta airport and travel retail locations. Linking your accounts also opens up access to offers, rewards, and cross-promotions tied to Air Canada's network.

Airport Dining Joins Later This Year

The bigger expansion comes later in 2026, when Avolta's HMSHost dining locations come on board. That covers casual restaurants, quick-service spots, bars, and Grab & Go outlets.

The app already lets you browse participating restaurants by terminal and concourse, which is handy when you're short on time before a flight. At Toronto Pearson, that includes spots like Tim Hortons and Twist by Roger Mooking.

Once dining is added, the partnership reaches that full count of roughly 1,900 outlets. For most travellers, food and drink is where the everyday airport spending actually happens, so this is the part worth waiting for.

Where You Can Earn

The Canadian airports in the program include some of the busiest in the country. Toronto Pearson, Vancouver International, Calgary International, and Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport are all on the list.

South of the border, participating outlets include major U.S. hubs like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago O'Hare. If you connect through any of these on a regular basis, the shops are hard to miss.

What the Points Are Actually Worth

Let's be honest about the rate. One point per $2 works out to half a point per dollar spent.

At Prince of Travel's valuation of 2 cents per Aeroplan point, that's roughly a 1% return on your airport spending. A $40 bottle of wine at duty-free nets you 20 points, or about 40 cents in value. Stack enough trips together and those points still go toward the far-flung destinations you can reach with Aeroplan points.

That won't change anyone's life. But it's points on spending you were going to do anyway, and it stacks on top of whatever your credit card already earns. Pay with one of the best Aeroplan credit cards and you're collecting card points and Avolta points on the same transaction.

Will These Count Toward Elite Status?

This is where I'd pump the brakes. Aeroplan's announcement only talks about earning points, with no mention of Elite Status, so anything beyond that is unconfirmed for now.

There are two separate status currencies in play. The first is Everyday Status Qualification, the no-fly path where 100,000 Everyday Qualifying Points earns you Aeroplan 25K Status. Earnings from credit cards and the Aeroplan eStore already feed it, so my guess is that Club Avolta purchases will count here too. We walk through that path in our guide to Aeroplan's Everyday Status Qualification.

The second is Status Qualifying Credits, the currency behind the 2026 revenue-based Elite Status, and that's the bigger question mark. The partners Aeroplan has named for SQC are travel partners like Avis and Marriott, plus Star Alliance flights. Everyday earning partners like Uber, Starbucks, and the LCBO aren't confirmed to earn SQC either. Club Avolta would likely sit in that same uncertain group.

For now I'd treat these as regular Aeroplan points with a decent shot at counting toward Everyday Status. We break down the new status currency in our analysis of Aeroplan's revenue-based status.

Is It Worth Linking Your Accounts?

For the few minutes it takes to link the accounts in the app, I'd say yes. There's no fee, and you're not changing how or where you shop. You're just capturing points you'd otherwise leave on the table.

One detail caught my eye while linking. Club Avolta also counts British Airways Club and Iberia Club among its airline partners, so this is part of a broader retail loyalty play, not an Air Canada exclusive.

The real question is whether you spend enough at airport shops for it to matter. For me, that realistically means the odd bottle of wine on the way home, so I'm not expecting a windfall. If you regularly grab duty-free or a coffee before a flight, the points will add up faster.

It's also worth remembering that the Avolta points are a small bonus, not a reason to spend. Airport retail isn't cheap, and earning half a point per dollar doesn't make an overpriced gift any less overpriced.

Conclusion

This is a quietly sensible addition to the Aeroplan ecosystem. It won't replace credit card spending or the Aeroplan eStore as your main earning engines, but it fills a gap that other airline programs mostly ignore.

I'm more interested in the dining expansion than the retail launch. Once HMSHost restaurants are earning, the points will add up faster for the average traveller, since most of us spend more on a pre-flight meal than on duty-free. Whether any of this counts toward status is the open question, but linking the accounts costs nothing, so I'll do it and see how the points post.