Canadian Aeroplan Credit Cards Are Getting New Benefits

Aeroplan has announced a refresh of its Canadian co-branded credit cards, with new benefits arriving on January 12, 2027. Every Aeroplan credit card will get 15% off Air Canada flight rewards as a permanent benefit, along with a Fourth Night Free on hotel redemptions and a new Fourth Day Free on car rentals booked with points.

Premium cards gain the most, with Maple Leaf Lounge access expanding worldwide, priority security lanes at select airports, and up to $100 a year toward Air Canada travel through AC Wallet. Core cards get up to $50 a year, and all of today's card benefits stay in place.

Let's take a detailed look at what each card tier gets, and what the changes are worth.

The New Benefits by Card Tier

Air Canada sorts its Canadian Aeroplan cards into three tiers, and the new benefits scale with them. Everything below takes effect on January 12, 2027.

New benefit	Premium	Core and business	Entry
15% off Air Canada flight rewards	Yes	Yes	Yes
AC Wallet credits	Up to $100 a year ($50 twice a year)	Up to $50 a year ($25 twice a year)	No
Fourth night free on hotel redemptions	Yes	Yes	Yes
Fourth day free on car rental redemptions	Yes	Yes	Yes
Maple Leaf Lounge access worldwide, plus one companion	Yes	No	No
Priority security at select airports, plus up to eight companions	Yes	No	No

Most of the new perks extend to additional cardholders too, including lounge access, priority security, and the free hotel nights and car rental days. The two exceptions are the 15% discount and the AC Wallet credits, which are tied to the primary cardholder's account.

The card left in an awkward spot is the TD® Aeroplan® Visa Platinum* Card. It charges $89 a year for the same new benefits as the no-fee CIBC Aeroplan® Visa* Card. Meanwhile, at today's $139 fee, the TD® Aeroplan® Visa Infinite* Card nets out to the same $89 after its $50 in AC Wallet credits, with a free checked bag, better earning, and stronger insurance on top.

If you're weighing which card fits your travel, our ranking of the best Aeroplan credit cards walks through each one.

The 15% Discount Becomes Permanent

The discount launched on September 10 as a limited-time offer for bookings made through January 11, 2027. From January 12, it simply becomes part of the card, with no end date attached.

What changes most is how it plays with other offers. The current promotion can't be combined with anything else, but the permanent benefit will stack with Priority Reward vouchers, Flight Reward Certificates, and other redemption offers. For anyone sitting on a Priority Reward, that's the most valuable detail in the whole refresh.

When the promotion launched, I ran the same searches on two Aeroplan accounts, one with a card linked and one without. Every Air Canada flight came in exactly 15% lower on the cardholder account, so the discount replaces the old preferred pricing rather than adding to it.

That's a trade I'm happy to make. Preferred pricing was never published and varied from flight to flight, while 15% is a number you can plan around.

Partner connections count too. Air Canada confirmed during the briefing that the 15% applies to any one-way that includes at least one Air Canada flight, so a Toronto to Vienna routing on Air Canada to Frankfurt and Austrian Airlines onward qualifies. Until around October 8, those itineraries price with the discount but don't show the savings tag, a display bug Air Canada says it's fixing. On a round trip, each direction is assessed separately, so a return leg with no Air Canada flights won't get the discount.

The discount also reaches beyond the primary cardholder. Air Canada told us after the briefing that it applies to everyone in the cardholder's Family Sharing pool, although the savings tag may not show in family members' search results until a display fix rolls out.

In points, the saving scales with the price of the flight. On my September searches, it ranged from 2,100 points on a Toronto to Montréal flight to 5,200 points on Toronto to Frankfurt, both in economy.

At our valuation of 2.0 cents per Aeroplan point, that Frankfurt saving is worth about $104 (CAD) each way, or over $400 (CAD) for a couple flying to Europe and back.

Premium Cards Take Lounge Access Worldwide

Maple Leaf Lounge access has been a headline benefit of the premium cards since they launched, but it has always stopped at the edge of North America. From January 12, premium cardholders can use Air Canada's Maple Leaf Lounges worldwide, along with Air Canada Cafés, and bring one travel companion.

In practice, that opens up Air Canada's lounges in Europe, such as London Heathrow and Frankfurt, which were previously off-limits on the strength of the card alone. It's a small network outside North America, but plenty of Canadians pass through those airports on the way to Europe and back.

The second new premium perk is priority security. Premium cardholders can use dedicated priority security lanes at select airports worldwide, for themselves and up to eight companions travelling on the same reservation.

That sits on top of what premium cards already include, which is priority check-in, boarding, baggage handling, and airport standby. They also keep the 10% Head Start and up to 25,000 Status Qualifying Credits (SQC) a year.

Up to $100 a Year in AC Wallet Credits

Premium and core cardholders will also get a new Air Canada Flight Benefit, paid into the AC Wallet twice a year. Premium cards receive $50 on January 15 and another $50 on July 15, for up to $100 a year, while core and business cards receive $25 on each date, for up to $50.

Each deposit is valid for six months, and the first one arrives on January 15, 2027. Since the January credit expires before the July one lands, you can't bank them into a single larger credit, so the easiest way to use both is to book at least one Air Canada flight in each half of the year.

These credits go to the primary cardholder only, and entry cards don't receive them.

Free Nights and Free Car Days on Redemptions

The fourth night free on Aeroplan hotel redemptions has been a limited-time feature that Aeroplan renewed year after year. From January 12, it becomes an ongoing benefit for every Aeroplan cardholder.

Book four nights with points through Aeroplan's hotel portal, and the fourth night comes off the total, which works out to 25% off. On a four-night stay at the Novotel Living Bangkok Sukhumvit Legacy, for example, the price dropped from 42,600 points to 31,950 with the free night applied.

It's joined by a new fourth day free on car rental redemptions, which mirrors what the US Chase Air Canada Aeroplan® Credit Card is getting in January. You'll get one day free for every four consecutive rental days booked with points, based on the average daily points price, so an eight-day rental costs points for six.

The free car days come with one caveat. Most Canadian credit cards only provide collision damage waiver coverage when the full rental is charged to the card, and a points redemption doesn't meet that condition. That leaves you buying the rental company's waiver at $30 to $40 (CAD) a day, which can easily cost more than the free day saves.

It'll be interesting to see whether the issuers adjust their insurance terms to cover rentals booked with Aeroplan points through the Aeroplan portal. Aeroplan and the banks already work closely on these cards, and extending collision coverage to points bookings would be a customer-friendly move that makes car rental redemptions much easier to recommend.

Air Canada also says both will stack with the hotel and car rental promotions Aeroplan runs from time to time, like the promo codes that take 10,000 points or more off larger redemptions. On a four-night stay at the Sofitel Bali Nusa Dua Beach Resort, the free night saved 29,000 points and a promo code took off another 10,000, bringing the total from 116,000 points to 77,000. The same applies to car rentals, so a rental that qualifies for a promo code gets the free day on top.

Neither benefit requires a premium card. Both apply across all three tiers, so core cards like the TD® Aeroplan® Visa Infinite* Card, CIBC Aeroplan® Visa Infinite* Card, and American Express® Aeroplan®* Card qualify, as do entry cards like the no-fee CIBC Aeroplan® Visa* Card and the TD® Aeroplan® Visa Platinum* Card.

What About Annual Fees?

Air Canada's announcement doesn't cover annual fees, since those are set by TD, CIBC, and American Express, and none of the issuers have announced changes yet.

Still, I'd expect fees to rise to reflect the new benefits, as they did the last time the cards were overhauled. When the current lineup launched in November 2020, core card fees went from $120 to $139 and premium card fees from $399–499 to $599. The AC Wallet credits look designed to soften a similar move, much as $100 (USD) in credits did on the Chase card when its fee rose from $95 (USD) to $195 (USD).

It's also worth watching the premium chequing accounts that cover these fees. TD's All-Inclusive Banking Plan rebates up to $139 toward an eligible card's annual fee, a cap that was $120 before the 2020 refresh and now matches the core card fee exactly. If core fees rise again, TD would either raise that cap or cardholders would start paying the difference, and a bigger rebate could come with a higher balance requirement. TD's most recent increase took the minimum from $5,000 to $6,000 in July 2025.

What Air Canada Is Really Doing Here

I'll admit I was envious when Chase refreshed its Aeroplan card in September. It was a little ironic to watch cardholders south of the border get a better co-branded card for Air Canada's own loyalty program than the ones we had up here.

This update closes most of that gap. Both lineups now get the 15% redemption discount, credits toward Air Canada travel, and free nights and car days on redemptions, so Canadian and US cardholders are working from largely the same toolkit.

What's missing up here is status. The Chase card now comes with automatic Aeroplan 25K status, and when that was announced, I planted a flag that the Canadian issuers would be having the same conversation before the next round of refreshes. This round, at least, status stays off the Canadian cards.

Instead, Air Canada has leaned into redemptions and the airport. A permanent 15% off, free car days, and worldwide lounges are benefits you feel when you use your points and when you fly, rather than when you spend.

To be fair, that's a sensible choice for this market. Canadian premium cards already carried lounge access and priority services that the Chase card never had, so extending them overseas builds on a strength rather than chasing a US feature.

More broadly, Aeroplan is positioning itself as a one-for-all loyalty currency, covering flights, hotels, car rentals, retail, and beyond. You can already earn points at Starbucks, Uber, and the LCBO, then redeem them for hotels, car rentals, Air Canada Vacations packages, or brands like Apple and Dyson through the Aeroplan eStore. Making the free hotel night permanent and adding free car days push those options closer to being real alternatives to flights.

Conclusion

If you hold a premium card and fly to Europe with any regularity, this is the most useful update these cards have had since the current lineup launched in 2020. Lounge access in Europe, plus priority security for your whole booking, are things you'll notice on every trip.

If you hold a core or business card, the permanent 15% discount is the main event, and the fact that it will stack with Priority Rewards makes it better than the version you have today. If you don't hold an Aeroplan card yet, the current 15% promotion already applies to bookings made now, so there's no reason to wait until January.

The fees will decide how most people feel about all of this. Until they're public, the fair read is that Aeroplan cards are getting better, and the only open question is the price.