[Changes go live 3/25] Air Canada Aeroplan adopting dynamic pricing for some partners (including United)

Today, Air Canada Aeroplan announced that it will be reconfiguring its award chart starting March 25th, 2025. Although the “partner chart” will remain the same and still have the same fixed pricing, some partners will now be included under a different category that includes Air Canada flights…and that chart will be dynamic, but without the maximum pricing that the current Air Canada chart has now.

United, Emirates, Flydubai, Etihad Airways, and the regional Canadian partners Calm Air, Canadian North, and Provincial Airlines will all fall under the new “Air Canada and select partners” category. The chart that covers it will offer “starting” and “median” award rates, but importantly, no maximum…and median amounts won’t be shown for flights outside of North America or for first class (only a “starting at” value).

Aeroplan also says that, as a result of these changes, it will be offering greater availability on the “select” partners and that Etihad business class awards will again be bookable systemwide. Also, both Aeroplan elite members and credit card holders will have discounted redemption rates available to them.

What’s Happened

• Air Canada Aeroplan is changing its award chart for both its own flights and the following partners (see above for the new North American version of that chart):
  • United, Emirates, Flydubai, Etihad Airways, and the regional Canadian partners Calm Air, Canadian North, and Provincial Airlines

First off, here’s the good stuff:

• Aeroplan gave its members almost two months notice before the changes.
• Elite members and Aeroplan credit card holders will have access to discounted award redemptions.
• Supposedly, there will be more partner availability as a result of the changes.
• The “starting at” amounts will be the same as they are currently for Air Canada
• Etihad business class availability is coming back online.
• There’s no changes to the rest of the (fixed) partner award chart.

and here’s the bad:

• There’s no longer any maximum award pricing for Air Canada or the “select” partners
• Median pricing won’t be displayed for awards outside North America, nor for first class…only a “starting at” price. The sky is, quite literally, the limit.
• Many of the listed median amounts are just below the current maximums for Air Canada awards (below is the current North American award chart as a comparison):

Quick Thoughts

In general, we don’t like dynamic pricing because it’s more difficult to get outsized value for points or to know what to expect for pricing. While I appreciate that Aeroplan will still have award charts and will also display median pricing for North American flights, not having maximums or medians for international and first class awards seems to be designed to allow those to float freely according to price without much transparency.

Even the median prices on North American awards suggests that pricing is going up. For example, an Air Canada economy award between 501 and 1500 miles currently costs between 10,000 – 15,000 points. Once the new chart takes effect, that starting price will remain the same and the new “median” price will be 13,600 points. If that truly is the median, meaning that 50% of all awards will price above 13,600, it seems likely that a good chunk will be well above the current maximum of 15K.

That said, prices do go up and award redemptions become more expensive as they do. It’s like death and taxes. No notice, overnight award price changes have become so common that getting almost two months from Aeroplan is a refreshing change. In addition, cardholder/elite discounts will mean that both of those groups of people should have access to even cheaper awards than they do right now, since presumably at least some amount of flights will actually be available at the “starting at” price. Increased United partner availability, depending on what “increased” means, could also be extremely useful for both US- and Canadian-based Aeroplan members.

So, all-in-all, this looks like mixed bag. Dynamic award pricing is rarely good for consumers, but there are a few things to like as well. For me, the jury will be out until we see exactly what the reality of those free-floating international “select partner” flights will be.

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