After just having had a 5 hour drive to think about it, I find that in the end I am disheartened. Not because of the content, or lack of, even though it was a disappointment.

It's because the chat convinced me that the people running Aeroplan have no concept of what a loyalty program is or should be, so how can they understand the issues? Like being asked why the charge for a simple date change to an award ticket, only to be told that too many SEs and Es were abusing the system by making multiple bookings, with upgrades. Huh?

But what's even worse is they have no clue what their competition is, such as the quip about AA only offering 50% miles "systemwide." AC still has this rose coloured view of their world, that Aeroplan and Air Canada are so far ahead everyone else, that "everyone else" isn't even competition for them.

All is lost.