What is the best AirMiles or Aeroplan card?

[ChristopherRompre]

I'm trying to figure out credit card to get and I'm wondering if:

1) I should go with Aeroplan or AirMiles
2) Which bank I should go with?
3) Whether the "Gold" or "Platinum" cards are worth the extra cost.

Any ideas?

[rems]

depending on how much you spend, the yearly fee could be worth it to get those extra miles.

[i6s1]

Depends on how much $ you put on it. Neither reward program is all that great, but BMO Airmiles cards are some of the worst rewards cards there are. The Amex cards are better, but they aren't accepted many places. The yearly fees for Aeroplan cards are too high to make it worthwhile. The best overall card for travel rewards is probably the MBNA SPG card for spending up to $30 000. If you spend more then that, the best card is probably RBC Avion Infinite. (Or two SPG cards.)

[staffpro]

if you fly using star alliance airlines (send the boarding pass and u get a lot fo miles) and you get a high enough limit so that you can spend all your money on that card you rack up aeroplan miles pretty quick. EG. 2 flights to europe and back = 24,000 airmiles + $20,000 spending the whole year = 10,000 aeroplane miles so 34,000 = ticket anywhere in north american meanwhile to spend the equivalent with airmiles you'd have to spend A LOT of money....

if you want miles fast get the gold card, but it costs something like $100/year then 1$=1 aeroplan miles while with regular no fees it is 2$=1 aeroplan miles, then for tickets with star alliance regular class you get 1 mile for every mile you fly with a minimum of 800 i think and if its first class i think its 2 miles not sure tho

[exstasie]

Depends on how much $ you put on it. Neither reward program is all that great, but BMO Airmiles cards are some of the worst rewards cards there are. The Amex cards are better, but they aren't accepted many places. The yearly fees for Aeroplan cards are too high to make it worthwhile. The best overall card for travel rewards is probably the MBNA SPG card for spending up to $30 000. If you spend more then that, the best card is probably RBC Avion Infinite. (Or two SPG cards.)

I have to disagree with you on the AMEX acceptability.

While there are a few places that don't accept AMEX here and there, I would say that 98% of all my purchases I use with CC accepted AMEX.

It might depend on where you are. I'm in Toronto so there might be a higher demand for AMEX, but I was surprised how many places in Europe accept AMEX. I was in quite a few random places in Poland and Slovakia and pretty much every place I went to accepted AMEX.

I have the regular AMEX card that is $60/year and is 1:1 in points/$ and I find it a great value for what I get.

Plus the card is damn sexy :D I get comments all the time about how cool the transparent Credit Card looks!

[Drew_W]

Plus the card is damn sexy :D I get comments all the time about how cool the transparent Credit Card looks!

This is the solution to getting some every night...have a fancy looking credit card so the ladies go "that guy's a baller...like whoa". :P


RBC Avion FTW. Europe in Economy for $16,667 in spending using various promos. Double that for business class. Conservatively if we say that business class ticket is worth $5000, that's a 15% return. Good luck finding an AE or AM redemption that gives you such a high return.

[sjweyman]

This is the solution to getting some every night...have a fancy looking credit card so the ladies go "that guy's a baller...like whoa". :P


RBC Avion FTW. Europe in Economy for $16,667 in spending using various promos. Double that for business class. Conservatively if we say that business class ticket is worth $5000, that's a 15% return. Good luck finding an AE or AM redemption that gives you such a high return.

Is that using both the 50% bonus when transferring to BA and the 50% discount on redeeming BA tickets that is going on right now? Good luck having those stars align very often! I think this is the first time the 50% discount has ever happened isn't it? I've never heard of it before.

However, if we're playing the numbers game you can do the same thing with 15,384 starpoints (as long as you convert them in blocks of 20,000 pts ... you'll just have some left over). So that's $15,384 in spending for a return of 16.25% :D

Now if only British Airways flew out of Eastern Canada.

[mikeycanuk]

I've several CIBC Aeroplan cards (personal and business). Ther Aerogold gets you 1.5x Aeroplan points with gas+grocery purchases. Getting gift cards from supermarkets/gas stations (esp. esso) puts a lot of other retailers into the 1.5x territory. You do have to spend enough $ to justify the card though.

[M-e-X-x]

kinda in this boat as well... i've somewhat read the SPG thread and don't see how it's good in terms of anything aside from hotel stays? ie: no flight rewards (which is what is more important to me)

i'm currently running a aerogold visa from cibc... $120 annual fee, but i see that as basically buying cheap points (15k introduction pts.)

edit: ok read a bit more on the SPG thread... so u can do conversions to aeroplan pts... 1:1 to boot! not bad at all... more intrigued now

[exstasie]

This is the solution to getting some every night...have a fancy looking credit card so the ladies go "that guy's a baller...like whoa". :P


RBC Avion FTW. Europe in Economy for $16,667 in spending using various promos. Double that for business class. Conservatively if we say that business class ticket is worth $5000, that's a 15% return. Good luck finding an AE or AM redemption that gives you such a high return.

Damn Skippy :D The women love the sexy Credit Cards lol Especially ones without any credit limit! That's the only downside (if you aren't able to manage your money). The AMEX Aeroplan cards is essentially a Charge Card. There is no credit limit, but you must pay off your bill in full when it is due (i'm not sure what happens if you don't since i've never been in that position, but i'm guessing just a really high interest rate).

Personally, I think i'm going to switch to Avion next summer. I've accumulated enough Aeroplan points for a trip anywhere in the world so i'm going to go to Avion which apparently is the best CC you can get!

[mikeycanuk]

The Aerogold Infinity isn't the best looking card but it's not common so it gets a few stares. It's also handy as we had a $54,000 bill a while back (40,000 limit). Funny seeing a minimum payment of $14,345:lol:. Most of that was the wife's biz spending from the trade show. I also got 7000 1.5x points for total Aeroplan points of 61,000+ :D We are getting ~500,000 points/year. Personal and 2 business's get the points up fast!

[tng11]

The Aerogold Infinity isn't the best looking card but it's not common so it gets a few stares. It's also handy as we had a $54,000 bill a while back (40,000 limit). Funny seeing a minimum payment of $14,345:lol:. Most of that was the wife's biz spending from the trade show. I also got 7000 1.5x points for total Aeroplan points of 61,000+ :D We are getting ~500,000 points/year. Personal and 2 business's get the points up fast!

On the contrary, I think the Aerogold Infinite's pretty sexy compared to the Avion Infinite card.

My mom took advantage of the Chequing+Aerogold offer... 25K points for just about $150 (3 months of the Chequing account) and another 15K from Primus. Also considering a huge portion of our family's expenditure is on groceries and gas, it seems to be a great deal for $120.

Avion's also a bargain card with the BA transfer as you can get award tickets on their partner airlines (CX, which I think is 10X better than AC). I think a business award from Toronto to London is 100K BA which can be done with 67K Avion points, a fantastic bargain when you consider a business ticket is upwards of $5,000. It's hard to find availability but no harder than AC it seems.

Again, these cards are only good if you spend $20K or so I assume as if you consider there are no-fee 1% cash back cards, you would be sacrificing $200+$120 to keep that card.