Originally Posted by roastpuff

I just received my new Aerogold Visa Infinite card (along with the MLL pass and the other doodads), activated it, checked my Aeroplan account and hey presto, 15K points appear! Nearly made it to dSilver starting with only ~4000 points. So, apparently the CIBC bonus points do accrue Distinction status. ^

When the 5000 bonus points from $500 spend appear I will post an update.

On an interesting side note, this was actually a conversion from my old CIBC Aventura MC (non-Elite with only $39 fee), I got them to promise me all the bonuses, FYF and to convert my old Aventura points at a 3:1 ratio (because of the $39 fee - apparently the $120 cards can get it at 1:1) even though it was past the Dec 31 deadline for conversion of Aventura to Aeroplan.