How I Redeemed 75K Aeroplan Points for a Business Class Flight to Europe

The Air Canada Aeroplan loyalty program is a favorite among award travelers for several reasons. The program has some excellent airline partners, an award chart for partner airline redemptions, allows for stopovers, and does not levy fuel surcharges.

All of these make Aeroplan points extremely valuable. Fortunately, there are many ways to earn Aeroplan points. However, the simplest way may be to apply for an Aeroplan^® Credit Card.

New applicants can score this elevated welcome offer: Earn 75,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months your account is open.

Here’s an in-depth look at the Aeroplan card and how I plan to redeem the welcome bonus offer.

Aeroplan Card Overview

The Aeroplan card is an excellent travel rewards card, particularly for those who fly on Air Canada or like to earn highly valuable Air Canada Aeroplan points. Thanks to its solid rewards-earning structure and numerous perks and benefits, it routinely makes our list of the best airline credit cards.

With the Aeroplan card, cardholders earn 3 Aeroplan points for each $1 spent at grocery stores, dining at restaurants, and with Air Canada directly. The card earns 1 point for each $1 spent on all other purchases. Cardholders can also earn 500 bonus points for every $2,000 they spend in a calendar month, up to 1,500 points per month.

In addition to the solid earning rates, the Aeroplan card also comes with several benefits and perks, which include Aeroplan 25K elite status (for the year you apply and the following year), a Global Entry, TSA PreCheck, or NEXUS fee credit, a first free checked bag for you and up to 8 traveling companions, and no foreign transaction fees.

Air Canada Aeroplan Overview

Personally, Air Canada Aeroplan is my favorite airline loyalty program as it’s a member of Star Alliance. However, Aeroplan also boasts a long list of nonalliance partners, including top-notch airlines like Emirates and Etihad Airways. 

Unlike most major airline programs today with dynamic pricing, Aeroplan has a zone-based award chart in which redemption rates depend on the total mileage flown between 2 zones. 

How I Maximized 75,000 Aeroplan Points

As mentioned above, you typically get the most value by redeeming Aeroplan points for premium cabin flights. Over the last 3 years, I have redeemed more than 1 million Air Canada Aeroplan points, primarily for business- and first-class flights on some of the best airlines in the world.

The plan to redeem the welcome bonus offer from the Aeroplan card was the same. Since I planned to visit a friend in Switzerland in the summer, I knew this would be an excellent opportunity to redeem points to Europe.

As mentioned, Aeroplan has a zone-based award chart that also considers total distance flown. Here is Aeroplan’s updated award chart for flights between the North America and Atlantic zones as of July 2025:

According to Great Circle Mapper, the distance between Chicago (ORD) and Zurich (ZRH) is 4,443 miles, placing this routing in the 4,001-to-6,000-mile distance band. In other words, this flight can be booked for as little as 70,000 Aeroplan points plus taxes and fees.

I headed to Aeroplan’s website and began the award search. Fortunately, I found nonstop business class award availability on SWISS Air for 70,000 Aeroplan points and CA$78 ($57):

Although SWISS isn’t my favorite airline to fly between the U.S. and Europe, I preferred the nonstop flight to my destination on the exact date I needed to be there.

As I do with all my award redemptions, I compared the points price to the cash price for the same seat. The one-way business class flight could be booked for $7,418. This means I got slightly more than 10 cents per point for my business class redemption.

Although I would never pay the cash price, it is nice to see how much value I got from my points.

How To Earn Aeroplan Points

If you don’t want to apply for a new card, there are still many ways to earn Air Canada Aeroplan points. Air Canada Aeroplan is a transfer partner of nearly every major transferable points program, including American Express Membership Rewards, Bilt Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, Capital One Miles, and Marriott Bonvoy.

All of these transferable currency programs transfer at a 1:1 rate to Aeroplan, aside from Marriott Bonvoy. Marriott Bonvoy points transfer at a 3:1 ratio to Aeroplan — and for every 60,000 Bonvoy points you transfer, you’ll get an additional 5,000-point bonus.

Final Thoughts

After meeting the spending requirement on the Aeroplan card, I was awarded with 75,000 Aeroplan points. With this single welcome bonus offer, I booked a nonstop business class flight from Chicago to Zurich on SWISS and got thousands of dollars in value in return.