Originally Posted by
Tax Dude
I went back and re-read the
announcement and I think it's more likely that any 25k AQMs, whether from flying or cc activity, will trigger the jumpstart rollover (as long as AQD requirements are also met.) There's no indication that they're going to try to differentiate between flying AQMs and cc AQMs, the announcement just refers to achieving
any Aeroplan Elite Status based on the published qualification criteria through your 2021 flight activity with Air Canada. The published qualification criteria includes cc AQMs. I think the flight activity wording is in there to exclude the various ways of getting status that don't involve flying in the year (MM lifetime, E25 from credit cards, gifted, etc.) I doubt it's AC's intention to exclude any folks who meet the AQM/AQS/AQD requirements shown on the status page.
I don't know how you'd read it that way. Quoting from your post, "based on the published qualification criteria through your 2021 flight activity".
The published qualification criteria are 25k SQM / 25 SQS and 3k SQD. You must achieve this through 2021 flight activity. Not from rollovers from 2020, not from credit card spend.
How it ends up being implemented is up for debate, but the terms are pretty clear.