Aeroplan has announced its latest feature, HotelSavers, which allows members to book hotels using Aeroplan points at a discount. While it has long been possible to book hotel stays with Aeroplan points, this new feature will make it less costly for members.
With exclusively negotiated rates at over 7,000 hotels belonging to 39 hotel brands across 11 major chains, anyone who wishes to redeem Aeroplan points for hotel stays will get up to a 30% discount compared to the regular Aeroplan redemption rate.
Let’s take a look at this new feature from Aeroplan.
What Is Aeroplan HotelSavers?
HotelSavers is a new feature on Aeroplan’s website that offers members discounts at select hotels when redeeming Aeroplan points. Aeroplan has exclusively negotiated rates with a number of hotels across the world, including luxury, premium, midscale, and economy hotels.
With HotelSavers, Aeroplan members can redeem points at a discount compared to what it would normally cost for a redemption. At launch, HotelSavers rates are available at 39 hotel brands that belong to 11 major chains.
The hotels available with HotelSavers include some well-known properties, including:
- Luxury: Fairmont, Kimpton, Shangri-La, Taj, Small Luxury Hotels of the World, InterContinental, Preferred Hotels & Resorts and others
- Premium: Le Germain, Omni, Noble House Hotels & Resorts, Swissôtel, Crowne Plaza, Outriggers Hotels & Resorts, and others
- Midscale & Economy: Coast Hotels, Holiday Inn, Novotel, Alt Hotels
The cost of booking HotelSavers hotels depends on the category to which the property belongs. Aeroplan has published a chart with eight categories, along with the corresponding range of prices you can expect.
Bookings with HotelSavers start at 10,000 points per night for economy-level hotels. An example of this would be a stay at a Category 1 property.
Premium hotels, such as Category 4 Crowne Plaza hotels, can be booked for 25,000–40,000 points per night.
Luxury hotels in Category 7 can be booked for 55,000–80,000 Aeroplan points.
The top-tier, Category 8 hotels, such as InterContinental Bora Bora Resort & Thalasso Spa, price out at 75,000–105,000 points per night.
With over 7,000 hotels available at the launch, it shouldn’t be hard to find a HotelSavers rate at most destinations around the world.
However, note that the above categories are only guidelines to go by. The actual cost may differ, depending on the location, time of year, and number of guests per room. Indeed, there are many examples of “dynamically priced” hotels that exceed the published range on the award chart.
Also note that you likely won’t benefit from any elite status you have with hotel chains when making a HotelSavers booking. So, if earning nights towards requalifying or if flexing your benefits is important to you, you may want to book directly with the hotel instead.
How Does Aeroplan HotelSavers Work?
To search for hotels, sign in to your Aeroplan account and then select the “Hotels” tab on the Air Canada website. From there, click on the “Book Aeroplan member-only deals” box, and then click on “Find”.
On the next landing page, fill in your destination, dates, and number of guests. In the search results, look for the red HotelSavers flag, which tells you that the hotel is eligible for the HotelSavers rate.
The taxes and fees are included in the price with Aeroplan points, so there won’t be any surprise charges at the end of the transaction. If you’re staying at a hotel that charges a resort fee, you’ll have to pay that once you’re at the property.
You can also see a cash price reference point, which you can use to approximate the cent/point value you’re getting on any particular redemption. There’s no fixed cents per point value with HotelSavers, and the actual value varies with each hotel, but you can expect to get between 0.9–1.8 cents per point.
You can customize the way you pay for your hotel stay, using either all points, a 50/50 combination of cash and points, or just cash. You can find this option once you select a hotel.
The cancellation policies are clearly displayed, and you should see a few different options for each hotel. Some might cost more, but you’ll get included perks, such as free breakfast.
Should You Book Hotels with Aeroplan Points?
Generally speaking, you can get the most value out of Aeroplan points by booking flights. As a guideline, we value Aeroplan points at 2.1 cents per point (CAD).
Suppose you’re considering whether or not to redeem your Aeroplan points for a hotel stay. For an aspirational trip, you set your sights on the InterContinental Bora Bora Resort & Thalasso Spa, and get the following search result.
A five-night stay in an overwater villa prices out at 350,200 Aeroplan points, or an average of 87,550 points per night.
The same room prices out at $6,118 (CAD) when paid with cash. In this situation, you’d be getting 1.74 cents per point, which is below our target valuation.
You can also pay with a combination of cash and points, which is set at 50/50 by default. You’d still be getting 1.74 cents per point this way, which doesn’t change things.
For comparison, one of the best flight redemptions you can make with Aeroplan is with ANA First Class. A round-trip cash fare between North America and Tokyo prices out at a staggering $27,258 (CAD).
Booking the same flights with Aeroplan points would cost 220,000 points. This works out to a value of over 12 cents per point, which is significantly higher than what you might get when booking a hotel with points.
While not everyone may aspire to book First Class flights, it goes to show that there is a range of value that you can squeeze from your Aeroplan points. Surely, there are worse ways to use Aeroplan points than booking HotelSavers hotels, but there are also potentially better ways, depending on your goals.
Conclusion
Aeroplan has unveiled its HotelSavers feature, whereby Aeroplan members can book hotels using Aeroplan points at a reduced rate. Pricing starts at 10,000 points per night for an economy hotel, and goes up to over 100,000 points per night for a luxury hotel.
HotelSavers gives Aeroplan members more options to redeem their points, and cuts the redemption cost when compared to using Aeroplan points for non-HotelSavers hotels.
Redeeming Aeroplan points for hotels doesn’t necessarily represent the most valuable way to use Aeroplan points, but it gives members more flexibility in how they’d like to redeem.
