Originally Posted by
yscleo
AC sold ae out for money. AC and ae depended on each other and it'll be good business to keep each other running well. AC then announced cutting ties to ae, driving down the share prices, and now come back to offer to buy it back on the cheap. That is not business as usual.
Dirty. Sleezy. Betrayal. Maybe you operate like that. But AC definitely damaged its name and reputation. If AC wants to spin ae out for money again, everyone knows AC is a dirty/sleezy/underhanded partner.
I suspect this is all a case of desperate times calls for desperate measures. AC knows that if they ditch the whole Aeroplan infrastructure and have to build it from scratch for their most frequent flyers they won't have a functional system in place by 2020. Remember it's not just a matter of building a new software suite for their Altitude program, it also means rejiggering their booking, flight management, check in, and other existing software to support this new program. Presumably the Aeroplan suite also handled *A partner redemptions and point collection (i.e. I'm a UA FF and want to credit my AC flight to my program). Considering Aeroplan is used for more than just points collection and redemption (i.e. identification) I doubt AC was willing to roll the dice on this one.
If I was Aeroplan and AC pulled this one on me, I would call their bluff and say, the heck with it why don't we cancel our contract now and you work out the rest... good luck! I suspect AC would be in a way more desperate situation than Aimia would be in!
Safe Travels,
James